You' re getting dipped if you pay $185 for a marlin, I paid $159 for my dad' s a year ago (1st night of coon hunting season gift), his is the Stainless/walnut version, he paid $109 for mine a year prior to that for my X-mas present. As far as I' m concerned, you' re right, the Marlin is every bit as accurate as the Ruger, some are moreso, and they cost about half as much, even when you compare the Stainless Marlin to the ' base' Ruger. The only real advantage that the Ruger has over the Marlin is the detachable magazines, but as far as I' m concerned, who needs it? I can reload my tube almost as fast as I could put in a new mag when I was using a 10/22, Sonic has straws that just fit a .22lr round down in them, they' ll eat 8 I think, so two straws is a reload exactly. There' s the turn around too, with a ruger, you get ten and then reload, in the marlin you get 60% more capacity, 16rnds that is.

I' ve used Marlin 60' s, 66' s, and 99' s for all of my life (all the same actions, 66=60 plus two rounds more capacity and different stock, 99=60 minus 6 rounds capacity and stocked to look like a mini M-1Carbine), and have had the occasional 10/22 sneak into the safe, and all but one of the Rugers have left LONG before dying, while each replacement on the Marlins have been necessary, as I shoot the daylights out of them, a brick or two a week. The rugers just weren' t as much fun for me, to shoot or to pay for, and for sure aren' t as good at coon hunting. Accidentally lose a couple straws when you' re in the creek, big deal, lose a mag, and you' re out 20-30 bucks, ejecting a mag while it' s on your back kind of sucks too, since you' re out the magazine, and you now have a huge gaping hole in the belly of your action for crud to crawl into. Not to mention reloading a rotary magazine really sucks compared to reloading a tube.

As far as I' m concerned, the only 10/22 I' ll ever own again will be a custom race gun, and wouldn' t be in the same class as the factory Ruger 10/22, or the Marlin 60. For reliability, money, capacity, and looks, the Marlin gets the nod, and the accuracy is equal if not better (greatly dependant on the individual gun/load combo) in the marlin, so why pay 2-3x as much just to get detachable mags?