…JOHN TAFFIN
1956. Ike was in the White House. I was looking forward to graduation and freedom from studies and also to having a job that would afford enough money to buy my first gun. A paper route through high school kept me in clothes and spending money and also allowed me to give my mother one week’s pay per month. I had just turned 17 and would soon have a real job and be able to buy my own rifle. The money would be no problem and in those wonderful days one only had to be 16 to buy a gun but 21 to vote. Wise men realized the vote was more dangerous than the gun.
My father had died in an accident before I reached my first birthday. Mom was a widow at age 19 in the days when government help and its attendant interference rarely existed. In late 1942 Mom remarried and my stepdad promptly went off to war. I was not very old but I still remember that dreadful morning when we received that terse telegram that said Missing In Action. It would be over a year before we knew if he was dead or alive as he spent the remainder of the war in a POW camp.
When my stepdad came home he had the usual liberated war trophies including a Luger and a P-38 that were promptly sold. Guns were not to be in our house. My stepdad had seen enough of guns.
My first gun was purchased and my stepdad hit the roof. When I brought home the second one he only went as high as the ceiling. By the time of the third one, it was “Hey, Johnny. Show Uncle Chuck your new gun” and everything was O.K.
It was quite a decision as to what that first gun would be. I had grown up reading the likes of Jack O’Connor and Elmer Keith but on my ninety-cent an hour wages, the first gun would have to be a .22. A .22 rifle. My uncle had taught me how to shoot using both .22 rifles and pistols, but I wanted a rifle. A real good looking, swell feeling rifle. That left only one choice in my young eyes. A Marlin Mountie.
If memory serves me right, that Marlin .22 cost me two weeks take home pay. It was worth every penny. I don’t believe I have been any more enthralled with any new gun, rifle or sixgun, single-shot or semi- automatic, in the last four decades than I was with that Marlin .22. Saturdays were always spent with a couple of boxes of .22’s, good friends, and that wonderful little levergun. For me the smell of powder smoke and Hoppe’s #9 were a whole lot more appealing in those days than the smell of perfume. That would change in a few years. But only for a short time. The courtship lasted a little over three months. It is the only time in my life that my guns gathered dust. Fortunately for me the girl I picked has been totally supporting of my love for good guns.
I now had a grand .22 rifle. It was soon paid for and it became time to add a companion piece. A good .22 sixgun. A young fellow on the East Coast was making a reputation as a gun builder first with a semi- automatic .22 that sold for less than one weeks pay. But his new design beckoned even more. At $63 it would take some time to pay for but it was a sixgun. A single-action sixgun. A gun that looked much like the sixguns that I had seen on the screen from the front row as I watched so many Saturday afternoon matinees featuring the likes of Johnny Mack Brown, the Durango Kid, Wild Bill Elliott, and of course, Hoppy, Gene, and Roy.
Ruger’s .22 Single-Six joined my modest gun battery along with a plain black Lawrence #120 Keith holster and matching cartridge belt. I was in Heaven with a two great .22’s and time to enjoy them. I would hate to count the number of jackrabbits and other varmints that have fallen to those .22’s over the years.
Fast forward to 1998. If I was once again looking for the perfect .22 both in levergun and sixgun form would I still go with the Marlin and Ruger offerings? To find out I ordered up a pair of Ruger Single- Sixes of modern manufacture, a stainless steel version and a blued version with the Bisley grip frame. Both wear 6 1/2″ barrels. From Marlin came the latest version of the Mountie. The original has a 20 ” barrel and straight gripped stock; the latest 39A carries a 24″ barrel and the pistol grip stock.
As I unveiled the new Marlin .22 and worked the action my first thought was that this rifle certainly isn’t as slick operating as my old 39 Mountie. Of course, it hasn’t been operated for four decades by myself, friends, my wife, my kids, and my grand kids.
It certainly isn’t as good looking as the old model with its shorter barrel, straight gripped stock, and slim wood with no checkering. But it is steel and walnut and it feels like a real rifle as it is brought to the shoulder. With its 24″ barrel and full magazine tube it holds 20 rounds. Some things have been added to the newer Marlin that were not found on the 1950’s Marlin as our world has changed so dramatically. It used to be that people took responsibility for their own actions and the actions of their families. Now we are seemingly driven by a society in which this feeling is missing, hence we find a cross bolt safety on the Marlin Golden 39A .22, really not a bad idea, plus a warning label on the barrel. Thank you liability lawyers!
The Ruger Single-Six has fallen captive to the same thinking with a transfer bar safety, again not a bad idea at all, but the Ruger .22’s also carry a warning label that bothers me tremendously. With its transfer bar safety, the New Model Ruger Single-Sixes do not have the same feel as the Old Model Single-Six. They also are not as smooth in operation nor do they have the same Colt Single Action grip frame. One has the improved grip frame that came forth in 1963; the other is the Bisley style.
But with all this guess what? The New Models, both of them, will shoot rings around my old Single-Six! That presents a real problem as I intended to cut both of the 6 1/2″ barrels to a more easy to pack 4 5/8″ length even with the end of the ejector rod housing. A wise man once said “Don’t fix what isn’t broke.” These sixguns are not broke by a long shot. They flat out shoot good. Very Good. Exceptionally Good.
Both of these .22’s, the New Model Single-Six Stainless and the New Model Bisley will do in a pinch for paper punching Bullseye style. I am not a Bullseye shooter by any stretch of the imagination. However, with both of these Single-Sixes, I can stand on my hind feet and keep all the shots in the black on a standard target at 25 yards.
With all the loads tested through both .22 Rugers at 25 yards, all the groups were 1 1/2″ or less for five shots. They really went wild with Winchester’s .22 offerings with groups averaging 7/8″ with Winchester’s Power Points, SX, and Wildcat loads. This from a single action un-tuned and out of the box in my hands, using my original eyes. I wonder what someone who could really shoot would get from these little sixguns. All the results with my old Single-Six and the two New Models are found in the table. My old Single-Six is a fine shooter; the New Models are simply better!
Running the Marlin .22’s head to head brought no surprises nor any disappointments. I was able to test the Rugers at our indoor Shooting World range however it is restricted to 25 yards or less. Hence, the Marlin .22’s which were shot at 50 yards had to be outdoors in the wind and the cold. It isn’t always cold in Southwestern Idaho but it is always windy which makes serious testing of .22’s particularly difficult.
My old Mountie still shoots good; the new Marlin Golden 39A stays right with it. I expect the Golden 39A will do even better as the trigger and action smooths up with use. Sometime in the early 1960’s I found a used Redfield receiver sight for the Mountie. Such finds are hard to come by so the Golden 39A wears a Williams Foolproof receiver sight. Both sights are compact, easy to use, and keep the trim lines that a levergun should have intact. My .44 Magnum, .45 Colt, .35 Remington, and .45-70 leverguns from Marlin all wear receiver sights so the .22’s remain good understudies for the big guns.
Forty years ago I picked the best .22 rifle and sixgun I could find. They said Marlin and Ruger on the barrel. In a rapidly changing world it is comforting to know that there are actually a few things that remain constant. Some things really do never change.
Someday my original Mountie and Single-Six will go to one of my grandsons and hopefully, the new Marlin and Ruger New Model Single-Sixes will go to one of my grandkids’ grandkids. I pray they will live in a world that will allow them the same enjoyment that I have had. I hope for it but I see to many things that signal that it will not be so. I hope and pray that I am wrong in what I see coming in the future.
Ruger Bisley 6 1/2″ New Model SS S-S 6 1/2″
|
LOAD |
MV |
GROUP* |
MV |
GROUP |
|
CCI Blazer |
986 |
1 1/2″ |
1065 |
1 1/4″ |
|
CCI MiniMag HP |
993 |
1 1/4″ |
1019 |
1 1/8″ |
|
CCI SGB |
959 |
1 1/8″ |
977 |
1 1/4″ |
|
CCI Stinger |
1188 |
1 1/2″ |
1201 |
1 1/2″ |
|
Federal HP |
984 |
1 |
979 |
1 1/2″ |
|
Remington VJ 1045 |
1045 |
1 1/8″ |
1122 |
1 1/2″ |
|
Winchester PP 933 |
933 |
7/8″ |
1051 |
7/8″ |
|
Winchester SX 961 |
961 |
1″ |
999 |
7/8″ |
|
Win. Wildcat 988 |
988 |
7/8″ |
972 |
7/8″ |
* Five of six shots at 25 yards
Three-screw Single-Six 5 1/2″
|
LOAD |
MV |
GROUP* |
|
CCI Blazer |
1045 |
2″ |
|
CCI MiniMag HP |
1050 |
1 7/8″ |
|
CCI SGB |
994 |
1 1/4″ |
|
CCI Stinger |
1263 |
1 1/4″ |
|
Federal HP |
1013 |
1 1/2″ |
|
Remington YJ |
1109 |
1 1/2″ |
|
Winchester PP |
999 |
2″ |
|
Winchester SX |
1048 |
1 7/8″ |
|
Win. Wildcat |
1015 |
1 1/8″ |
Marlin’s Model 39 Leverguns
|
20″ Mountie |
………… |
24″ Golden 39A |
|||||
|
LOAD |
MV |
GROUP |
MV |
GROUP |
|||
|
CCI Blazer |
1282 |
2 1/4″ |
1250 |
2 1/2″ |
|||
|
CCI MiniMag HP |
1294 |
1 7/8″ |
1231 |
2 1/2″ |
|||
|
CCI SGB |
1231 |
1 3/8″ |
1201 |
1 1/2″ |
|||
|
Federal High Power HP |
1210 |
2″ |
1150 |
1 5/8″ |
|||
|
Remington Yellow Jkt |
1341 |
1 1/2″ |
1307 |
2 3/4″ |
|||
|
Winchester Wildcat |
1200 |
5/8″ |
1189 |
1 1/4″ |
|||
|
Winchester Power Point |
1246 |
1 1/2″ |
1213 |
5/8″ |
|||
|
Winchester SX HP |
1282 |
1 3/8″ |
1211 |
7/8″ |
Groups/Best four of five shots at 50 yards. Heavy wind.