Whatever you decide on, it's a good idea to replace the plastic magazine follower with a metal one. Beartooth Mercantile linked above offers them for both Marlin and Rossi.
Don't think you can go wrong with either one.
Enjoy the journey.
Paul
What is the issue with the plastic follower, other than getting cleaning solvent it doesn't like in the tube? Do they come apart or stick?
I was kind of a skeptic on the "half cock" setup for Marlins until I had my 1894 apart and understood how it actually works. (Also, the hammer in mine had been dropped, damaging the half-cock catch and didn't really work right until I fixed it.) With the half-cock feature functioning, the crossbolt safety truly is as superfluous as Krusty's third nipple.
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Not another dime.
"I think you can replace the Marlin Cross Bolt with a screw or Saddle Ring. "
If you put an appropriately sized O-ring on the cross bolt safety it will immobilize it, but you can revert to OEM condition by removing the O-ring.
I just traded a few guns for a new 1894CST .357mag. I can’t believe I paid $955 bucks for a lever action but if it’s a good one I won’t care. I plan on getting a form 1 suppressor for it and a red dot; and then shooting it a lot. The beartooth mercantile safety to saddle ring replacement pushed me over the edge
One thing had not considered about a lever gun for use in California is most places of hoplophobia also forbid weapons to be transported loaded or ammo attached. When I will need to transport the rifle in my vehicle it has to be unloaded and in a locked case. Lever guns are kind of a pain to load and unload. Not a deal breaker but it is a consideration.
Yeah. The Fightlite SCR makes some sense in that state. I believe it, like the Mini 14, bypasses the eevil pistol grip rule.
CA is not the only place that forbids vehicular transport of loaded long guns. Quite a few people have "pistol" ARs for that reason. However, CA's AWB captures any handgun that doesn't feed the magazine through the grip. I also believe the "trunk of the vehicle" if it is not accessible from the passenger compartment counts as a locked case for the vehicular transport rule.
Maybe one of those long-tube speed loaders for the lever gun would solve that problem to get it into action faster. http://www.alpharubicon.com/leo/rubiconspeedloader.htm
Last edited by OlongJohnson; 02-19-2020 at 07:48 PM.
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Not another dime.