The elusive Marlin 1895 in .308

[Wade D.]

Canadian here, saw a Marlin 1895 lever action chambered in .308 at a gun show (they need to have these shows AFTER tax return season), and regret not picking it up. They are hard to find!

[105kw]

.308 Marlin Express?
I've never heard of Marlin making a Lever. 308 Winchester.

[FrankenMauser]

Would have been an MXLR, unless custom built.
.308 Marlin Express, and 336 MXLR in stainless.

[oldmanFCSA]

I shoot a 307WIN in a Marlin 336 lever rifle.

the 307WIN is a 308WIN with a 30-30 rim.

have never thought of using a 1895 for this conversion (probably because I don't have an extra laying around).

[jmr40]

It's similar to the 308 case, but with a rim, loaded with only RN bullets and to a lower pressure than 308 Winchester. When you combine all 3 factors it doesn't do much more than 30-30. That's why it never caught on.

[FrankenMauser]

I shoot a 307WIN in a Marlin 336 lever rifle.

the 307WIN is a 308WIN with a 30-30 rim.

That isn't quite the whole story. It actually used the case dimensions (thicker walls) of 7.62x51mm, with a rim.

HOWEVER. When Winchester "reintroduced" the cartridge in about 2008, they had to make new tooling. The engineers seem to have forgotten that the cartridge was meant to use 7.62 case wall and web thicknesses. So recent (past ~16+ years) production mimics .308 Win dimensions and has different case capacity and performance than earlier lots.

In addition, Hornady brass - they brought .307 Win brass back to the market when .308 MX was introduced - is in between. Thicker case walls and lower case capacity than .308 Win, but still thinner walls and higher capacity than 7.62x51mm.

Know your cases and their capacity before reloading.

A load safe in recent Winchester brass might be extra spicy in early Win or Hornady brass. Yet, a load developed in early Win brass might just fall on its face in recent Win brass.

When you combine all 3 factors it doesn't do much more than 30-30. That's why it never caught on.

A debatable argument. In certain time periods, factory loaded 180 gr ammunition had higher muzzle velocity in .307 Win than .308 Win.
Quite the oddity, but it is verifiable by perusing Winchester catalogs from the '80s and '90s.
In addition, the classic 180 gr Super-X load is still on par with modern 180 gr .308 Win loads.

There's a sweet spot where it is much more than .30-30 and as good as or marginally "better" than .308 Win.


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.308 MX slightly exceeds .307 Win performance. Its trick to being able to pull that off is the V-threads for mating the barrel to the receiver. By going from the large Marlin square thread to a smaller V-thread, Marlin was able to bring a little more strength back to the platform and increase performance a bit.
(.450 Marlin 1895s and all .338 MX and .308 MX MXLR models use this V-threading.)

[ZoieBarnett]

Thanks for the story, never knew about this before, am interested to find one now.

[stagpanther]

Magnum research makes a custom BFR revolver that can switch out cylinders to accommodate the 307 win in addition to 300 BK and 30-30--I took a long hard look at it.

[FrankenMauser]

I love .307 Win, but want nothing to do with a BFR chambered for it.

[oldmanFCSA]

THANK YOU FOR THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE 307WIN.

I learned something new although old today.