The little Marlin .357 leverguns are pretty accurate...
...but there isn't anything particularly noteworthy about this 50 yard group, is there...?
. . . except. . .
I fired it at 50 yards, at NIGHT
. . . in total darkness, other than a few stars were out...
I was out there last night, checking the gates on the back pasture we'd just opened up for the fall/winter, and since the shooting range is just on the far side of it, I just had to take a few shots while I was out there!
You CAN have a nice low-noise (rifle, using handgun ammunition), low-flash (.38 Special ammo), firearm, for use about the farmstead, which can be used in day or night lighting, without hearing protectors if needed (as in an emergency), and is potent enough to deal with anything in Indiana that would go 'bump' in the night...
Ranch-rifle [noun] - a lightweight carbine-type firearm suitable for a variety of ordinary farm/ranch tasks, including predator control, putting down livestock if necessary, taking advantage of game spotted during hunting season while out doing other chores, control of feral dogs or cats in the process of damaging livestock, and suitable for home protection if needed.'
I’ve always felt the ideal ‘ranch gun'*** would be a carbine (lightweight and handy), in a pistol cartridge (plenty of close-up power, without the deafening clang of a bottleneck round, and with minimally-blinding muzzle-flash if used at night). For rapid handling a semiauto or levergun seemed to be the obvious choices, and although I’m a fan of detachable box magazines for hunting, the higher capacity ones you might want for a pack of coyotes in the goat pen did not tend to be found in anything other than 9mm and .45 ACP. The 9mm long guns I’ve used never seemed to feed well, and that round wouldn’t be my first choice if the gun were pressed into duty for home protection. The Marlin Camp Rifle seemed to be a good choice for the .45 ACP, but the higher capacity magazines stick out rather awkwardly. (I still like the idea, though - if maybe I could adapt it to use a Para-Ordnance wide-body magazine...).
So that left me looking at my leverguns, to see which one would make a natural ‘ranch’ gun for when the .22LR isn’t enough. If I lived in bear country, I’d want the .45-70 or .444 level of power, but I’d be just as deaf and blind as if I used a .308. So that left .45 Colt, .44 Mag, .357 Mag, and .32-20. Potential need to use factory ammunition ruled out the first and last, and in choosing between the .44 Mag and .357 Mag it boiled down to what one I had a ‘spare’ of. Since the youngest (so far) hunter in the family decided she didn’t need to use a .357 any more because she didn’t mind the recoil of a .44, I commandeered the family 1894css, and started my project.
***Note - I was unsure where to put the 'apology for creating a non-traditional levergun' disclaimer, but I figured that since I used a blasphemous stainless steel gun, that the anti-electonic-gizmo guys wouldn't read the post anyway...
Since half the time we have feral animals or coyotes or whatever eating our livestock, it is dusk or dark, it seemed prudent to use sights capable of reasonable use during those conditions. Real 'night sights' might be nice, but are incredibly expensive, heavy, and not useful or practical in the daytime, whereas the EoTech Holosight is very useful in all light conditions. Add a laser and a flashlight, and you're good to go check the stock when they're frenzying about something out in the woods. Note that if you simply remove the light, this setup is actually legal hunting gear in many places; it wouldn't be my choice of deer setups sight-wise, but it would do the job. More likely the bullets will be aimed at coyotes and whatever comes to eat our chickens.
Here’s the raw materials:
Some pictures of the final project (...it's never really 'final' - I keep modifying it and finding better things to substitute...)
The sight picture is really hard to show, but here’s a couple of shots:
Here's some of the other sights I looked at:
I settled on the Burris FastFire-II and the LaserMax (it is low enough to not obscure the field of view, even with the little FastFire-II)
I also substituted the 190-lumen Coast 'LED-lenser' light for the Duracell 70-lumen one (which was brighter than the newer mini Mag-Lights).
Here's the finished "Marlin Night Scout"
Of course, now I have to make one using a Rossi 92 - here's the project so far...
...but there isn't anything particularly noteworthy about this 50 yard group, is there...?
. . . except. . .
I fired it at 50 yards, at NIGHT
. . . in total darkness, other than a few stars were out...
I was out there last night, checking the gates on the back pasture we'd just opened up for the fall/winter, and since the shooting range is just on the far side of it, I just had to take a few shots while I was out there!
You CAN have a nice low-noise (rifle, using handgun ammunition), low-flash (.38 Special ammo), firearm, for use about the farmstead, which can be used in day or night lighting, without hearing protectors if needed (as in an emergency), and is potent enough to deal with anything in Indiana that would go 'bump' in the night...
Ranch-rifle [noun] - a lightweight carbine-type firearm suitable for a variety of ordinary farm/ranch tasks, including predator control, putting down livestock if necessary, taking advantage of game spotted during hunting season while out doing other chores, control of feral dogs or cats in the process of damaging livestock, and suitable for home protection if needed.'
I’ve always felt the ideal ‘ranch gun'*** would be a carbine (lightweight and handy), in a pistol cartridge (plenty of close-up power, without the deafening clang of a bottleneck round, and with minimally-blinding muzzle-flash if used at night). For rapid handling a semiauto or levergun seemed to be the obvious choices, and although I’m a fan of detachable box magazines for hunting, the higher capacity ones you might want for a pack of coyotes in the goat pen did not tend to be found in anything other than 9mm and .45 ACP. The 9mm long guns I’ve used never seemed to feed well, and that round wouldn’t be my first choice if the gun were pressed into duty for home protection. The Marlin Camp Rifle seemed to be a good choice for the .45 ACP, but the higher capacity magazines stick out rather awkwardly. (I still like the idea, though - if maybe I could adapt it to use a Para-Ordnance wide-body magazine...).
So that left me looking at my leverguns, to see which one would make a natural ‘ranch’ gun for when the .22LR isn’t enough. If I lived in bear country, I’d want the .45-70 or .444 level of power, but I’d be just as deaf and blind as if I used a .308. So that left .45 Colt, .44 Mag, .357 Mag, and .32-20. Potential need to use factory ammunition ruled out the first and last, and in choosing between the .44 Mag and .357 Mag it boiled down to what one I had a ‘spare’ of. Since the youngest (so far) hunter in the family decided she didn’t need to use a .357 any more because she didn’t mind the recoil of a .44, I commandeered the family 1894css, and started my project.
***Note - I was unsure where to put the 'apology for creating a non-traditional levergun' disclaimer, but I figured that since I used a blasphemous stainless steel gun, that the anti-electonic-gizmo guys wouldn't read the post anyway...
Since half the time we have feral animals or coyotes or whatever eating our livestock, it is dusk or dark, it seemed prudent to use sights capable of reasonable use during those conditions. Real 'night sights' might be nice, but are incredibly expensive, heavy, and not useful or practical in the daytime, whereas the EoTech Holosight is very useful in all light conditions. Add a laser and a flashlight, and you're good to go check the stock when they're frenzying about something out in the woods. Note that if you simply remove the light, this setup is actually legal hunting gear in many places; it wouldn't be my choice of deer setups sight-wise, but it would do the job. More likely the bullets will be aimed at coyotes and whatever comes to eat our chickens.
Here’s the raw materials:
Some pictures of the final project (...it's never really 'final' - I keep modifying it and finding better things to substitute...)
The sight picture is really hard to show, but here’s a couple of shots:
Here's some of the other sights I looked at:
I settled on the Burris FastFire-II and the LaserMax (it is low enough to not obscure the field of view, even with the little FastFire-II)
I also substituted the 190-lumen Coast 'LED-lenser' light for the Duracell 70-lumen one (which was brighter than the newer mini Mag-Lights).
Here's the finished "Marlin Night Scout"
Of course, now I have to make one using a Rossi 92 - here's the project so far...
