With all due respect to the many great Marlins of the past, this rifle bears an uncanny resemblance not to them but to the cult favorite Winchester Model 71. Both rifles are lever guns that deliver Serious Thump—in fact, the ballistics for their respective cartridges are almost identical. The main loading for the 71’s cartridge, the .348 WCF, is a 200-grain bullet at 2,530 fps. The sole loading for the .338 Marlin Express (developed and loaded by Hornady) is 200 grains at 2,500 fps.

The rifle I got to try out is ...

... an all-stainless gun with a laminated stock and 24-inch barrel. You can get the same thing with a 22-inch barrel (I would go with this one) or a blue-steel and walnut model with a 22-inch barrel. The new cartridge is based loosely on the breathtakingly obscure .376 Steyr.  It’s a chubby little rascal with very little taper, a fairly sharp shoulder and, since it has to work through a lever gun, a pronounced rim.

Factory ballistics specify a 200-grain poly-tipped FTX bullet at 2,565 fps from a 24-inch barrel. However, my chronograph said 2,485. I say, who cares? For all its power, the Marlin kicks about like a .30/06 of the same weight; it should not pose a problem to anyone who is not a sissy.

The rifle weighs 8 pounds, 2 ounces with a 3X-9X scope in Weaver mounts. The trigger pulls 5 pounds even. It’s clean and consistent, but 5 pounds is too heavy for me; I would take it to a gunsmith and have it lose a pound or so.

The Winchester 71, for all its virtues, was not an accurate rifle by modern standards. You couldn’t mount a scope on it, and even with a good peep sight typical groups for the ones I’ve shot ran in the 2 ½- to 3-inch range. The Marlin test gun will shoot rings around that; the average group size was 1.135-inch, which is bolt-action accuracy, and pretty damn good bolt-action accuracy at that.

For some reason, Marlin continues to use the same old semi-buckhorn rear sight that has blighted its rifles for many decades. About the only good thing you can say about it is that it folds flat and out of the way of a scope. If you’d like iron sights as an option, get a ghost ring sight in the rear, a big bead up front, and a good QD mount.

If you’re interested in shooting at long range—which for this cartridge would be beyond 300 yards—find yourself a scope with a range-compensating rifle that is appropriate to its velocity and flatten things at 400. I would not push it beyond there. The .338 Marlin Express has plenty of power, the FTX bullet is good and tough, but 2,500 fps is good only up to a point.

MSRP for this gun is around $800, which is certainly fair. It is a powerful, accurate, versatile firearm that is also drop-dead reliable and fast-firing if you need that. If you want more, you’re just plain greedy. Marlinfirearms.com --DEP

On my recent trip to Oregon, a bunch of us were sitting on a ridge waiting for a mule deer to do something stupid, and one of our number left to walk down an adjoining ridge. When he was 1,000 yards away or so the head honcho of the ranch said: “You know, I can see him as clearly as if he were wearing blaze orange. That camo of his doesn’t work.”

And it was true. The ridgerunner was wearing some kind of dark camo designed for sitting in a tree in a Southern swamp, and at a distance all the branches and leaves and Spanish moss and  cottonmouths in the pattern blended together into a dark and highly visible mass. I’ve seen this many times; very few camo patterns travel well.

There are three that do, and they work because ...

... none of them look like anything. No trees, no flowers, no chirping birds, no vines, just irregular blobs of color, none very light, and very little black or none at all. The best of these is Cabela’s Oufitter pattern. I’ve worn it in Africa, Alaska, New Zealand, and many places in between and it blends in unfailingly.

The two others are the patterns used by Sleeping Indian and King of the Mountain, who weave it into their wool. I’ve used these from Maine to Montana and they fit right in. Unlike myself.

Both the Army and the Marines have taken these principles to heart—to wit, the Army’s ACU pattern, and the Marines’ MARPAT, which has little globes and anchors blended into the pattern so the jarheads will not be mistaken for soldiers.

***

Southpaw Alert! Niles Wheeler of Safari Outfitters (which is high-grade left-hand-gun central) advises me that he has two southpaw Model 70s just in. Both are out of the Winchester Custom Shop, one made in the late 90s, the other in 2001. They are super-fancy rifles, one in .338, the other in .35 Whelen, both in NIB condition. 845-677-5444.

One the one hand, I don’t give an assfull of ashes for the idea that shooting lead-free bullets will do the planet one iota of good. We get lead from the ground and we return it to the ground, albeit at very high speeds, so BFD. On the other hand, mandated lead-free zones have given us some dandy new homogeneous bullets by Hornady, Nosler, and Barnes, so it’s not a total waste.

The most recent of this genre is from Nosler—a lead-free Ballistic Tip for varmint hunters. The batch I tested is .224-inch and 35 grains, but there will be lighter and heavier slugs out shortly. These new Ballistic Tips are made with a disintegrating copper core, an alloy jacket, an extra-large expansion cavity in the nose, and an attractive polycarbonate tip.

To test them, I fired ...... a batch in my supernaturally accurate .223 Savage Model 12 Long Range Precision Varminter Dual Port (try saying that in one breath). I found that, with the same powder charges I used for 50-grain Ballistic Tips, I could get 3,600 fps as opposed to 3,400 fps. Accuracy was not as good as with the conventional Ballistic Tips, although the average was a half-inch, and I got some groups quite a bit smaller. The Model 12 Etcetera has a 1-9 twist, and I suspect that is a bit fast for these short, light, bullets; I think I might have done much better with 1-12 or 1-14.

Are the Lead-Frees frangible? Rest easy. They frange just fine. Small rodents being in short supply, I shot apples, and they disintegrated in a cloud of apple juice. You can read more about the new BTs at nosler.com. Buy lots and save the environment.

Who knew there was such a sport as anvil shooting? The world championships are held every year in April in Laurel, Mississippi. Anvils are launched at various events around the country, mostly in the south.

Competitors launch in two categories: “traditional” using a stock anvil of 100 or more pounds and no more than two pounds of black powder and “super modified” which are more aerodynamic anvils made spefically for competition. Traditional anvils go up to 100 feet in the air. Super Modified anvils, launched from special baseplates, can go up to 400 feet.

Enjoy the videos, but don’t try this at home.