LittleChief

I went to the gun shop yesterday after work with every intention of buying the gun I've beendrooling oversince it came out. The Marlin .308 MXLR. Once I actually had the gun in my hands, though, I had second thoughts. I love lever action guns, and I love the way this one feels. It's a beautiful gun, all right, but what I couldn't get past is all of that shiny, flashy stainless steel and the thought of trying to hide in the woods with it. The sides of the receiver shine like signal mirrors. I may still buy it, but I backed off and wanted to see how some other folks felt about hunting with a gun with that much flash.

LittleChief

Well, since no-one is trying to talk me out of buying it, maybe I'll just buy it anyway!

bronko22000

You won't hear any of us talking someone out of buying another gun unless it is a definate piece of crap. I haven't been following the Marlin line too much, don't they make this chambering in a blued model?

HEAD0001

I remember one time a friend of mine bought a shiny new Browning Medallion(blued). It was a bright sunny day. I saw the rifle giving off a glare at 300 yards. That was the day I started buying matte equipment only. I do not know why Marlin makes their SS so shiny. But personally I do not like it either. And before you say anything bad about Marlin's, I really like my Marlin 1894's, 39's, 1895's and so on. Just not in SS. Tom.

MichaelT.

I have a few stainless guns, and I have never had a problem......

BUT

If you want to be sure about it, .... buy the gun and send it to me before this season and I'll use it and send it back to you and give you a full report on how it performed and how I liked it.....

God Bless

MET

A11en

Thats one of the reasons I like Remington's 700 Stainless rifles, they're parkerized (spelling) to eliminate glare.

oldelkhunter

If I had known then what I know now I wouldn't have purchased my SS XLR in 45/70. The finish is too shiny and some parts on the gun are not SS and I think for the money charged it is a little excessive. You have to do a trigger job(mine was at 6.5 lbs on an new RCBS gauge) smooth the action and give it a bead blasting to make the SS a great hunting rifle.. The CM models seem to have a smoother action but I have only cycled my action approx 600 times or so watching TV at night.

bigbulls

You can get it, take it apart and let someone bead blast it. It won't cost very much to have this done if you take it all apart at home and put it back together. You could lieterally make an appointment to take it to a machine shop or body shopand they could blast it in about 10 or 15 minutes.

The "old timers" never had a problem killing animals with high polish blued steel and glossy stocks. I doubt you will have too much of a problem with that rifle either.


BTW A11en, you can't parkerize stainless steel.

bronko22000

BB you took the words right out of my mouth. I was also going to suggest bead blasting. This will give those 'shiny' receiver faces and barrel a matte appearance.

LittleChief

Well, my second post was actually a little "tongue in cheek" humor. Besides, I talked myself out of the .308MXLR.Ijust couldn't getpast the glare.Yes, Marlin has the .308MX with a 22" barrel, but it just didn't seem to do it for me. Too short. I did get my new gun hunting set-up yesterday, though. I went with another setup I've been looking hard at for an evenlonger time, but was unwilling to drop the $$$$$$$ until now......Thompson Center Encore in camo/stainless (no glare at all). I picked up the 50 cal. muzzleloader, a 7mm Remington Magnum rifle barrel, bars, rings and a Nikon Monarch scope for the rifle barrel.

My wife gave me a choice for my birthday.... the TC setup I've always wanted or a fully loaded Bowtech 82nd Airborne. I was actually torn for a while. I made the right choice, though, with a little persuasion from the bowhunting folks.