I always viewed Marlin as a manufacturer of Quality products at a reasonable price. The 22's are inexpensive andcrazy accurate, the lever guns are of higher quality than the winchester leverguns (at least lately) and they are a conservative company who does not ditch a proven albeit old design for the newest gee gaws. I respect MArlin for that. But Marlin if I am not mistaken, has changed hands many times since the late 1800's.I think Remington will probably leave the line alone for the first little bit but with rem's incredible budget, they will probably dump more R and D money into Marlin than Marlin might have been able to do. Remington has never been thought of as a high qulaity arm, but a decent consumer grade arm that most people could afford (like the model 70). You can get a 700 for 500-600 bucks retail and that is pretty cheap.
Buyouts and aquisitions can be bad or good. Look at Cerberus buying Chrysler. When Daimler owned Chrysler, the line got worse and worse until they were about the least liked and sold American car Mark. Can cerberus do any worse?
When S&W was owned by a british company, they almost went under. Now they are back on top with a great 1911, and promising combat psitol in the M & P, and homegrown bolt action design (and not just a rebadged husqvarna or howa) and they even are remaking the model 29.
Although I don't own any remigtons I am willing to wait and see. I do own some marlins
okcmco
And BTW, Beretta has done well by Benelli and Franchi as well as Stoeger. I don't have any experience with Sako but have always viewed them as overpriced for what you get. Could be wrong but for the price of a Sako85, you could get a Kimber.