No, the little gun is my "Paratrooper 94" I cobbled on. It is a Trapper .44 Mag.

For a straight bear gun when working hounds, I think the mod on a Marlin 1895 would be perfect. Give the gun a 16 1/4 inch barrel and run the Remington 300 JHP as fast as possible and you'd have a very good working gun.

Here's a couple more lever folders from the local area.

Oldies.

As for the Marlin, I like the OP's. The lever looks a bit odd but very practical. I work the lever on my .44 and .45-70 with the thumb when wearing heavy gloves as it won't fit inside the lever otherwise. As such;




The OP's gun looks practical and handy. On that note, I find the 22-inch bbl on the 1895 to be just about perfect for handling and shooting. Points very well. Except for a specialty gun like a super-compact folder described above, I'll leave mine alone. Marlin did, however, make some 15-inch .45-70's IIRC and that for certain very specific purposes would be hard to beat, SBR'd and all, naturally.

The barrels in the old pic there were 14 inch .44-40 "Prison Barrels" supposedly released by Corrections and surplused out. The stock on the fellow's gun to the left was made from aluminum tubing and very light. He carried the gun in the back pocket of his Filson Mackinaw. A similarly chopped .45-70 would be a load even as a stubby, too heavy for a coat pocket.

Does the 525 feed OK? I had read that they were too long.

Fed fine, I didn't notice any issues. I know I ran at least a couple through the magazine and action without firing. I don't remember if I did a full magazine load.

The cartridges loaded are no longer than the 350's I was using. They just have wider noses, and obviously the bullet itself extends further into the case than the 350's.

Yes, I made it. It is just flat iron. There are two bolts with wing nuts. One is removed to fold it. When extended, both can be inserted and tightened and when done, it is as stiff as a factory wood stock. In practice, only one is needed and when extended that one bolt, tightened, provides plenty of grab to keep the stock tight. Often I carry the extra bolt in my pocket. Gun with stock removed is just over NFA minimum so I didn't have to register it. Also, after inadvertently snicking on the safety a few times in winter with heavy gloves on, I also drilled a hole in the tang, set a machine screw behind the tang safety, and thereby disabled the tang safety.

I don't mean to derail the thread.

I sold my guide last weekend, me and a buddy bought two that were ported in 2002. I loved the gun but it was a tad small for me as a 6'6" dude, like a insert comment. I got some corbon 405gr penetrator ammo still for it, I shot 3 out of the box just for punishment I think more than anything. I killed a many deer with it.