Jeff, didn't marlin also experiment with a spiral tube 250-3000 model something something lever gun? Spiral tube to keep the bullet tips from one lining up with the primer from the one in front of it???
Yes, Marlin made at least one 336 in 250-3000 with a spiral magazine tube, similar to the style that Remington used on their 14/141 series of pump guns, to test the concept. A decade or more ago, a guy in VA who I sold a few Ruger 77 RSIs to told me that he owned it at the time. I've never heard why they didn't follow through and put it into production.
IIRC, someone who posts on 24HCF has posted a picture of Jim Carmichel using that rifle to shoot an antelope that was in one of Dave Petzel's books. He also posted that a writer named L.R. Wallack wrote an article on this rifle in American Rifleman back in the late 1970s. I think that I remember reading about it being offered at auction within the past four or five years.
EDIT: Francis E. Sell wrote an article in a mid-1980s Gun Digest about his rimless .257" bore wildcat, the .257 Tomcat, in a Marlin 336. I think that he used blunt bullets because that rifle didn't have a spiral magazine tube.
