Home Forums Lever Action Central Lever Actions - General Backcountry lever - BLR vs Marlin

Apples and oranges when comparing a tube feed lever and a magazine fed lever with spitzers. A BLR in 308 WCF will hurl and flatly shoot out at 350 yards with 180 grain loads and take anything in your neck of the woods. If you want more long distance power you could go LA BLR in 30-06 with 180 or 200 gr loads. In comparison the 30-30 WCF will shoot out to150 yards fairly flat with 170 gr loads and work well with good shot placement. I see no reason to carry a 45-70 Marlin lever in the areas you described as there are no real worries about big brown bears. Not all but most owners of 45-70s shoot them less than you can imagine, especially with 400 gr class loads at 1,900 fps, very unpleasant. A 308 WCF or 30-06 in a BLR is hard to beat for overall versatility under any type of field conditions.

just remounted new Leupold quick disconnect mnts. and a 1 1/2 x 5 Leupold scope on my BLR 30-06 takedown rifle ,now i can either use open sights or a scope on my BLR nice to have options. sure glad someone posted about this on 24 Campfire. thank you ,Pete53

Lever actions don't have gears in them. The BLR is just a lever operated bolt action with a piss poor trigger and stud grade lumber covered in a garish shiny finish.

> don`t care BLR`s are a better rifle in my eyes , BLR `s offer much better modern cartridges , shoot farther, are more accurate ,still fits in my leather boot on a horse or mule , mine is not shiny and shoots the most easy cartridge to find ammo just a plain jane 30-06 that you can find ammo any place in the world . and believe it or not BLR`s are a safer rifle too. so go ahead and wear a cowboy hat and use your cowboy lever rifle with some old type cartridge ya-hoo !

My Marlin 336 .30-30 consistently shoots sub MOA with several different loads, has a trigger that breaks like a glass rod at 2 3/4 lbs. and has dependably killed deer in the woods for the past 29 years in my hands. I doubt your BLR can lay claim to better. The OP said he wanted a lever rifle for hunting deer in the woods. If you can't get that done dependably with a .30-30 or similar traditional lever action, you either need lessons on deer anatomy or shooting, one or the other.

Trigger could be better, but accuracy wise...my BLR isn't bad..

A good trigger and proper balance is much more critical to success when shooting off hand or from improvised positions in the woods than from the bench.

Blackheart > well most of the time about 90 % of the time for the last 20 some years i just use my Ruger #1 257 Weatherby mag single shot and that`s all i have ever needed on bigger bucks from 30 feet to 700 yards with 1 shot and the longest shot was witness by 2 old tough Marines and one of these Marines was with Carlos Hathcock in Nam . the other 10 % is with my BLR 30-06 for scouting some in the rifle season , but in one way your right i don`t just don`t shoot a deer for numbers , i leave regular deer to kids and meat hunters like you are, i only hunt bigger bucks , no brag just a fact. i am the unknown guy with no brag pictures who never does well with a big grin , by the way i hunt more with a bow for the last 55years . > but your the man Blackheart.

I've killed some slammers with my .30-30 too. Tag soup never held much interest for me though so will leave that to you big trophy hunters while I continue to fill mine every year.

> good for you ,i tip my camo bowhunters hat to you as i sharpen another old used Zwickey broadhead !

You da man pete. I've killed a few with arrows myself. Including a buck and a doe just this past season.

Agreed, but you mentioned MOA so that's what my BLR does; it's as accurate as some of my bolt guns, a trigger job would make it even better. It balances and shoots well for me in the woods, probably my favorite still hunting gun.

My 336 averages a bit under 3/4" at 100 yards with my handloads and just a hair over with 170 grain Federal factory loads. Killing deer with it has never been a problem in the woods. I've had a half dozen 336's over the years and all would do under 1.5" with their favored loads except for one .35 Remington and it still did under 2". In other words every one of them was more than adequate for taking deer at woods ranges and beyond..

Mine is my Marlin 30AS 356W Trapper rebore. I had JES do the rebore and cut it back to 16.5”. With it’s Leupold 1-4x it’s a handy little package with plenty of thump.

Yep, I enjoy the all the levers I have. I also have a 336 in a 35 Rem. I managed to score some 200 Win PP's that shoot very well in it with Leverevolution. I couldn't get the 200 Rem CL's to shoot quite as well, I've tended to get better accuracy with the PP's over the CLs generally.

Yup

Still slinging Zwickeys while mocking Blackheart for his "old time cartridge" 🤣

Can/did he reinstall the front sight?

Yes, he reinstalled the front sight. He also eliminated the front barrel band and installed a dovetailed hanger and installed a sling stud in the forend end cap. Great work, quick and reasonable.

Thank you. I have a Glenfield 30 that I would like to have the same thing done