Ferrari Looks; Fiat Reliability

I have been trying to be open-minded, but as of today I have drawn a conclusion: the Marlin Model 60 .22 rifle is a piece of garbage.

I bought one earlier this year. Could not hit a soda can at 50 feet, using a rest. No exaggeration. Took it back. Marlin gave up on it and sent me a new one.

When the new gun arrived, I still had to install sling studs. The Model 60 doesn’t come with them, and it’s hard to install them without using the magazine as a support. I had to modify the stock and a sling stud and nut to make it work.

The trigger in the Model 60 is horrible. I tried to buy an aftermarket trigger called a “KAT,” but the guy who makes them failed to respond to my efforts to contact him via email and Facebook, so I gave up and bought an MCarbo trigger for something like $75. Installed it myself. Result: a PRETTY GOOD trigger. Pretty good. That’s the best I can say. For the money, it should be perfect.

The iron sights were cheap and nasty, so I got a Tech Sights peep and installed it. The other day I went out to try it.

I shot a few rounds, and when I tried to reload, the magazine moved. It was loose. The magazine was held in by a little pin, and that little pin was gone. It’s somewhere in my pasture.

For contrast, I’ll discuss my new Savage A22.

I bought the A22. I installed $4 worth of scope bases in it. This took maybe three minutes. I bought a new trigger spring for around $9 and installed that. This took maybe half an hour, and it was easy. I’m done. The gun is fine.

Well, it WAS fine. The plastic dust cover on the receiver flew off while I was shooting, and it looks like a piece broke off. That may be my fault. Savage is sending me a new cover, free of charge. Minor thing.

People say the Model 60 is a great cheap .22. Oh really?

I have about $225 in the A22. Guess what I’ve invested in the Model 60. Guess. I’ll tell you. It’s $250, not including the peep sight and sling. It was cheap when I bought it, but I had to keep investing in parts to make it function.

Here’s what the extra $25 got me. It has a flimsy trigger housing or whatever it’s called (the thing that holds the moving parts). It’s two sheets of metal held together with pins and a chunk of plastic. The barrel is pressed in and held in place by a pin, which is sort of like saying it’s nailed in. The gun cannot be dry-fired safely. I had to do a lot of work installing the sling studs. I had to do a lot of work installing the new trigger parts.

What about the A22? It has a heavy-duty milled receiver. It has a heavy plastic or composite box holding the trigger stuff. It came with an adjustable factory Accu-trigger, which is wonderful. It has a super-low trigger pull weight, because I changed the spring. It came from the factory able to shoot hypervelocity rounds. It has Weaver bases. It can be dry-fired all day. It can receive a 25-round magazine if I feel like buying one. The barrel screws in, just like it does on a real gun. If I get tired of the scope, the Savage is ready. It has adjustable iron sights. Real ones. It has an indestructible free-floated synthetic stock.

That’s what I got, for $25 LESS than my modified Marlin.

The Model 60 is crap. It just is. I know it looks nice, and it’s light and handy. Doesn’t matter, when it’s put together like a BB gun. The looks and feel are insufficient compensation.

Even if I get this gun to work, it will still be more fragile than the Savage. The trigger will be much worse. Its compatibility with fast ammunition will be dubious. No matter how you slice it, the Savage is a much better deal.

If you buy one of these things for yourself or your kid, you will be missing out. It’s junk when you buy it, and aftermarket parts are scarce and expensive, so you won’t get much help mitigating the flaws. When you do what you can to fix it up, it may work better, but it will still be junk.

Most people says the Ruger 10/22 is the way to go. I have no experience with that gun. I got a Savage because I like my other Savage and the price was great. I think it was a steal. Savages are accurate. No one says that about Rugers.

It’s a letdown when you try to like something and can’t pull it off. Zillions of people praise the Model 60. I tried to see things their way. I figured they had to know something. They don’t. It’s not a matter of taste. They are wrong. They’re conning themselves. The gun is inferior by objective standards.

Will I keep the gun anyway? I plan to, unless it keeps giving me trouble. It has a peep sight. The barrel is good. It’s handy. I can keep it around for pest control and iron sight practice. Would I hunt with it? NO NO NO NO NO. When you hunt, you want a gun that works, which is another way of saying you don’t want a Marlin Model 60. You don’t want to have to say, “Squirrels were everywhere today, but the magazine keeps falling off the Marlin.”

Maybe I won’t keep it. I’m thinking about it. If it has been a disappointment for four months, it may well continue to disappoint, and I could probably get $150 for it, which I could put toward another Savage.

I’ve been wondering why Marlin still makes this thing. I figured out the answer. They make it because people buy it. But why do people buy it when it’s clearly inferior? I think it’s nostalgia. The “60” stands for “1960,” which is the year the gun was released. When you buy a Marlin 60, it’s like walking into a showroom and buying a new 1960 Chevy. It hasn’t changed much. I think guys want to have a gun “just like paw had”; the 60 was very popular back in the old days when there were fewer rifles to choose from. The problem with buying based on nostalgia is that new guns are way better. Not just different. Better.

I feel gypped. I really got suckered in. How can so many people be so wrong?

Wait a minute. The most popular beer in the world is Budweiser, and most Americans think the Kardashians have a great TV show. Of course a lot of people can be wrong.

Do not buy a Marlin Model 60. Learn from my suffering. If you absolutely have to buy a Marlin .22, make it the 795. It has a box magazine. You can load it without putting your fingers in front of the muzzle, and it has more wood in the forestock for a sling stud. It’s still junk, but it’s better junk.