Every Lever Gun Brand Ranked BEST To WORST

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A man named Horace Pemberton-Achebe brought a lever gun to my counter in
October, and two people had already told him it came from the bad years.

He is sixty-six. It was a Marlin thirty-thirty, a three thirty-six, the rifle
his father bought the year Horace got married. His father carried it every deer
season for almost thirty years, and when he passed, the rifle went to Horace,
and Horace put it in the closet because he does not hunt anymore.

This fall his grandson wanted to learn. So Horace took the rifle to a shop to
have it looked over, and the man behind the counter picked it up, saw the
crossbolt safety on the receiver, and told him it was one of the newer Marlins,
the ones Remington built, and that those were the ones everybody avoids. He
offered to take it in trade toward something better.

Horace did not like the sound of that, so he asked a friend who knows guns. The
friend looked at it and said the same thing. Newer Marlin. The bad years. Not
worth putting money into.

I asked him one question, which was whether I could see the serial number and
the right side of the barrel, just ahead of the receiver.

Neither of the other two had looked at either one.

We are going to rank every major lever gun brand in America today, worst to
best. And I am going to tell you now that the name most of you expect at number
one is not at number one. It is close. It is not there.