When you get a rifle on the market that can be found to shoot sub-moa with factory ammo and can be found at retail for 259 bucks, it tends to ride up in the crack of the guys that spent over a grand for theirs. (No hard feeling to those fellas, just stating what I've experienced.) In their mind, somehow, someway, there has to be something wrong with it and when they can't find a fault, they'll refer to it as "cheepo".
Funny thing though, in over two years of stellar sales and thousands of units on the range and in the field, the Marlin XL/XS's are exactly what they are, a very affordable, very dependable rifle that operates and shoots like rifles costing four times as much.
Now that they've been pulled from the big box stores such as Cabelas, Bass Pro, and Wally world and will for the time being only be sold to small independent shops, I'd imagine the price will slowly rise to match the performance.
Now that Marlin is offering the gun in walnut and laminate stocks, and stainless barrels, maybe it'll be more worthy of a spot at the range in the eyes of the firearms elitists.
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