Cruised through the LGS tonight. They are really tired of their remaining Handi Rifles sitting around. Three in 444 Marlin, maybe one in 35 Remington. $160 and change each plus tax.

Worth doing just because? For someone who's been OCDing about sending big, heavy cast boolits downrange lately?

Drawn toward the 444. Would you pick up the .35 Rem at this price just to mess with it and move it on down the road if you don't like it? Or a second 444 to be able to pick the best shooter?

I would opt for the 444, primarily because it is rimmed and while not of any real consequence it just seems right in my universe.

I consider the 35 a better and more useful caliber and would make an excellent hunting gun. But; since your premise is for fun and not practical, I vote for the aesthetics of a rim. Another plus for the 444, it should be easy to load with lots of good 44 bullets available (lead and jacketed). All that and 429 is bigger that 358. I believe that the larger the bore, the more forgiving with cast bullets.

Now $160 is cheap money and "what the heck". Sure two 444, or how about 4 444's ! Kidding, but really at that price, there is not much down side risk.

I see the occasional used, Gardner Mass, 45-70 and get the urge. Just dont need another 45/70. no time. no space.

What a sad story with NEF/H&R. Today there are no shortage of imported brand a,b and c break open single shots in this product space. CVA even offers a handgun version. Not so cheep either. Thank you Freedom Group.

I'm with the try it for chits and giggles group

Pick up a .444. I've come to prefer them over the 45-70 in the Handi. For a deer and hog load the Speer 270gr. GDSP with H4198 will get you over 2200 fps and is accurate. I've shot deer as close as 20 yards to 200 +- with great results.


Just for the heck of it get the .35 too,

I'd opt for the 35 as well. That would give rifles in 30, 35, 40, 45 and 50 calibre.

Where is "local" for you? I could really dig a .444 Handi for $160 and some change.

Academy in Houston on NW Freeway.

Call the store, get the SKU, see if they can find one in another store closer to you.

I would really like to have one, but I'm not going to fight the traffic on 290 for one.

I will stay on my side of town. Hopefully my store will have some on sale.

Sure wish that they were avail in my neck of the woods for $160...

I've got a friend who hunts only with a Handi in 444.

For some reason they aren't able to explain, they want $179.98 for the one they have left.

But seriously, it's only about a half hour if you go out to the west end of Woodlands Parkway and south to Eldridge. Skip all the 290 traffic, and the store is open to 10:00 if you just want to go after dinner.

If you go earlier, you can stop at Tomball Pawn on the way. They always have interesting stuff to check out there. I've never gone in without learning something or getting a chance to handle something interesting that I'd never seen in person before.

There's also the Academy in Tomball; worth checking the yellow tags on their rack.

And 10Ring.com in Cypress if you reload...

Do you suppose they would transfer one of the 35REM to an Academy in San Antonio?

There is no 35 Rem at that store. I may have gotten confused with another store where I was looking at them, where they were priced much closer to $300.

You could figure out the UPC and call Academy customer service to see if they have it in any store.

In general, I have had no luck getting Academy to transfer inventory between stores. They are very good about holding it for you if you want to drive to a store that has it, though.

I stopped at the Academy in the woodlands yesterday afternoon. There wasn't a line at the gun counter and the manager spent 20 minutes with me looking at inventory.

He couldn't find a .35 rem or a .45-70 in inventory anywhere.

I didn't ask about a .444. He said he could get me a .243 out of Kansas City.

I will have to hit 10Ring next time im over in that area.

Everything I read said the .243 Handis suck. Don't buy one. Most of the Handis on GunBroker are .243.

A friend bought 2 of the .243s for his daughters. One could be tuned to shoot, but we gave up on the second one. Four inch group were the best it would do with any ammo.

Handi Rifle!

They oughta give the sumbeeches away!!

We don't fly into orbit in Stearman biplanes.

Not saying that they're not a wonderful plane, and one hell of a reliable system.

Whoever decided that "modern engineering, and material science" could carry a GREAT black powder pressure breaching and extraction system into the modern rimless high pressure cartridge realm was, or is a rank a-whole, and the penultimate scam artist.

GTC

I'd take a cheap 35 ir 357 mag in a heartbeat....probably rechamber to 356 or 357 max.

Went back around to troll the NW Freeway Academy's yellow tags last night. The one 444 Marlin Handi remaining is now marked down to the $160 price.

I was mistaken before. There is a .35 Remington single-shot, but it's a Rossi. It's on clearance, but not as good a price.

They have .44 Magnum and .45 LC snap caps on silly sale, and one set of Talley lightweight low scope mounts for a Tikka on clearance for $12, if you happen to stop by and want any of those.

The Gander Mountain across the highway was having a 20% off one item over $100 sale yesterday. I was walking out and the manager spoke with me at the door as I was leaving. Ended up talking him into applying that to an already-marked-down "red tag" item, which it wasn't supposed to, and picked up a .223 Handi with brown laminate stocks for a reasonable price. Add insurance and transfer to Bud's clearance price from a few years ago, and that's about where it was after sales tax. Had to buy some ammo to lubricate the deal, but that turned out to be on sale as well, so it wasn't too bad.

It was a display model that had what looked like some handling blems on the metal, but the turned out to wipe right off with some brake cleaner. Oiled and put away for now. Basically got it to practice Handi-handling skills (reloading quickly, etc.). With .223 ammo at about $0.35/round and .444 Marlin at $1.75/round, it should pay for itself in a couple hundred rounds. Free gun, right?

Free gun, right?


If that's the way you want to look at it, I'm willing to go along with (aid and abet) you.

That depends, the super lights sucked. The one I had with a laminate stock and 22" barrel was the one of the most accurate rifles I've owned. Sub .5" groups any day with the loads it liked.