hello to all, my granfather passed down an old Marlin leveraction rifle thru my family ( he carried it as a saddle gun right after the turn of the century) which I now have....I would really love to shoot this gun..by doing a little research, I found that its a .38-40, dated on top of the bbl oct 1887-april 1889 and .38w near the reciever-serial # 73934---did this rifle use black powder cartridges? and if so, anything out there today I could safely shoot?..any idea what year it was manufactured?
thank you!
which ammo is safe?
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lever addict
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Re: which ammo is safe?
Sounds like a model 1889 in 38-40 cal. DOM would be 1892. Yes it is a BP cartridge rifle. I have one with a 28" barrel that I shoot light smokeless loads out of. Many of these old guns have oversize bores. Back then BP and soft bullets would obturate to the rifles groove size and give good accuracy. Todays sedate cowboy ammo would be safe to shoot, but hand loading may give the best accuracy with lead bullets sized 1 or 2 thousands over the groove size. These old guns will still shoot! Lets see some pics!
Re: which ammo is safe?
thanks for the quick reply! this is a really cool old gun. there are a few interesting stories associated with this rifle, so I'm more interested in shooting for nostalgia than accuracy....I've located some .38-40 pistol rounds for cowboy exibition shooting--sounds like what you are talking about...think i'll get some and shoot it. My grandpa was born in 1883 (i'm 64) and carried this rifle while driving freight wagons in western montana and later in eastern washington with his wife riding shotgun!neat 'ol guy! I'm having trouble downloading pics on this page---whats the process?