I suppose I'm an outlier ... haven't drank the cool aid yet. I've seen some very rough JM-marked Marlins. Rather than presenting the case as "JM vs Remlin", I look at it like this: older guns are pretty good, the guns produced just before transition and just after have a good probability of having problems, and the current guns are again pretty decent. What you don't want is a transition gun that's been sitting on someone's shelf looking for a sucker ... er, excuse me, a new home.
I, too, am looking for a Marlin .357 ... one of the new CSBL or CST models. As suggested above, I'm going to handle before I buy so I'm waiting for local stores to get them in stock.
Tom
