Marlin Needs an Intervention

I hope no one thinks I would be self-indulgent enough to buy another firearm this year. Even though this is what I just did.

Shut up, okay? It was another case of entrapment. Gander Mountain is selling the Savage A22 .22 semiauto for $209. Are you seriously suggesting I wasn’t going to buy that? Bud’s Gun Shop, which is cheap even by online standards, charges $239.

I have a Marlin 60 which is not even three months old. I acknowledge that. But the Marlin is not the greatest gun in the world. I paid $170 for the gun, maybe $5 for sling studs, and about $70 for a trigger kit. The trigger I ended up with, which is made by a company called M*Carbo, is pretty good, but it’s not the best. I couldn’t get the guy who sells the best one to answer an email. Annoying.

I joined a rimfire forum to get help with the Marlin, and yesterday they banned me for spamming. No idea what that’s about. I can’t get them to tell me. Obviously, I don’t spam anyone. I think they’re so mad at me for spamming, they won’t tell me why they’re mad at me. But I didn’t spam. I have maybe 6 posts on the forum, all about the Marlin.

The Marlin has a lot of appeal. It’s light, it looks great, and it feels great in my hands. It even has a nice figured stock. It’s a classic American firearm one is expected to own. But it seems like it keeps bringing me problems.

The Savage costs $40 more (with a fantastic deal), but look what you get: sling studs, a Savage barrel (Savage makes great shooters), a vastly superior magazine which can be replaced quickly, a milled receiver, and the famous Savage Accu-trigger, as contrasted with the famous Marlin slop trigger. Another plus: the Savage will shoot all sorts of ammunition, whereas my Marlin needed a new recoil spring in order to digest hypervelocity rounds which have been on the market for years.

The Marlin 60 doesn’t have a receiver. Not really. It has two cheap plates of stamped mystery metal joined by a few pins held in by E-clips. You can call that a receiver if you want, but to me, a receiver is a steel box, not two sheets of metal.

The Savage A22 has a dumpy black plastic stock. It doesn’t look cool or feel cuddly in the hand. The other side of the coin is that it will last forever and it can’t tear, splinter, or stain. Modifying it, if necessary, will be easy and free of risk.

The A22 magazine has a lower capacity (10 shots instead of 14), but let’s be real. You don’t need 14 rounds in your magazine to go hunting. If you need more than three, you should stay home.

Well, that’s coming from the guy who shot a squirrel in the head three times and didn’t kill it, so maybe I lack credibiity, but I still think it’s true. You’re not supposed to spray and pray. You’re supposed to wait for good shots.

A company called Butler Creek sells a 25-round magazine, if you absolutely must.

I hope the gun shoots well. The squirrels are getting to me. Today I saw one climbing around in a hedge by the pool. They have the whole farm to defile with their presence, and this thing was right up against the house, probably trying to make sure it didn’t leave me any blueberries the last time it visited.

I am thinking about a scope. First…do I want one? I am considering a peep sight. I have come to terms with the fundamental crappiness of the .22 LR cartridge. People on the web get excited when a .22 rifle shoots 1.5″ groups at 50 yards, which is pathetic. I now believe that despite the fraudulent nonsense about people shooting squirrels in the head consistently at 50 yards, the .22 is useless for squirrels more than 100 feet away. Since this is the case, is there any point in paying for glass? A peep sight should work very well at 100 feet, and it has advantages over a scope.

A scope starts out 1.5″ above the barrel, so the line of sight points down toward the line of fire and eventually crosses it. When the bullet drops, it crosses the line of sight again. This means the scope is zeroed at two distances. The rest of the time, you have error. If you’re shooting a deer 50 yards away, it may not matter, but squirrels are small, so you really need to know the deviation between the point of aim and point of impact.

Squirrels are not helpful. They don’t march off your zeroing distance, put on blindfolds, light cigarettes, and pose for you. They can show up at any distance. I had one stare me down from about eight feet. At very close range, a scope’s point of impact is not easy to guess. You may end up shooting very low.

I don’t know, but my guess is that peep sights are easier to deal with, because you start out 3/4″ above the barrel, not 1.5″. If I shoot a squirrel 20 feet away using a peep sight, the point of impact will be danged close to the point of aim.

Another advantage: field of view. When you look through a scope, you only see a small area. If your scope shows you a circle 5 feet across, and the squirrel is 3 feet from the center of the circle, you won’t see him. To find things, you have to move the scope around and hope you guess right. With a peep sight, you use your unaided eye, so you aren’t looking through a tiny tunnel.

Of course, with a scope, you can see things you can’t see with your eye. You can see little bits of squirrel sticking out from behind things. That can be helpful.

I can’t find a peep sight made for the A22, so I’m not sure it can be done without paying someone.

Scopes are fun, but killing squirrels dead, reliably, is even more fun.

If I get a scope, I may try a Nikon. A nice one is on sale cheap right now.

I can’t try the gun out today. We’re having a flood. It hasn’t been raining long, but it’s raining very hard. Water is rising all over the place. I assume it will go away fast. The ground isn’t saturated. Anyway, I can’t do anything until tomorrow.

Forgot to buy a sling. Where is my mind?

Pray I come back with a good accuracy report. I really need to crack down on these scrofulous rodents.