ORIGINAL: younggun308
There is no Marlin chambered in the .308 Winchester cartridge, but there is the .308 Marlin Express, which doesn't look very promising, but the BLR (Browning Lever Rifle) is chambered in that cartridge, but all lever actions are generally less accurate than their bolt-action counterparts.
While many lever action rifles turn out to be less accurate than bolt actions, they are NOT ALL less accurate! I have owned three lever action rifles that were QUITE ACCURATE. One was a Model 45 J.C. Higgins (Marlin 336) in .35 Remington that would shoot 180-grain Speer flatnose bullets into 1.5" @ 100 yards using 42 grains of IMR 3031, MV 2400 FPS. Another was a Browning BLR in .358 Win. that would shoot 1" at 100 yards with a 250 grain Speer spitzer and 51.5 grains of WW748, MV 2450 FPS. The other was a plain old Win. M94 .30/30 that on at least three occasions shot 1", 5-shot groups at 100 yards using REMINGTON FACTORY 150-GRAIN AMMO.
There are MANY BLR's that will shoot 1 MOA., and the Marlin can be made to shoot better than it comes out of the box. The Win. M94's run from pretty accurate to downright horrible, and I have shot both kinds!
I agree that this "new" .308 Marlin is a "yoke on yohnson", seeing that the .307 Win, .308 Win, and .300 Savage all existed long before this one showed up, and there is no doubt in my mind that all three of the oldies could have been loaded to the same performance level as this "new" (unnecessary) cartridge. The .300 Savage, in particular, is plenty short enough to work in the 336 action.