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Posted: 8/26/2007 9:31:59 PM EDT
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Just finished reading an article in an unnamed shooting mag. (Not sure what the posting etiquette is on naming sources.) The new round, developed my Hornady, with Marlin, is called the 308 Marlin. My question is "Why?" The Author takes several paragraphs explaining the .30/30 drops too fast, the .45/70 recoils too much, and the 308 (Winchester) has a pointy tip-dangerous in lever guns for which the "revolutionary" new 308 marlin is designed. He never explains why the new round was necessary. Why not just stick the Evolution bullet (used in the new round and in 30/30s and other lever rounds) into a few 308 Winchester loads? The case length on a .30/30 is longer than a .308, so it should fit the same action, should it not?. The new round underperforms (slightly) the .308 Win, so it's not hotter than the ubiquitous 308 Win. Has there been some historic difficulty stuffing 308 loads into lever rifles? Some feeding problem or another caused by an odd shoulder angle or rim size? It seems the only reason for this round is the "ooh" factor. It seems to be a thousand dollar solution to a problem that coulda been handled by a twenty dollar box of ammo. |
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I have a .308 win lever action rifle, but it is a Savage 99 that uses a rotary magazine, so no bullet slugs are touching any primers. All they have to do is make a different mag, or use Lever Evolution slugs, and the .308 win would be good to go. The 308 Marlin Express is not rimmed, its rim is like a .308 win. |
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Range. Pure and simple. Traditionally styled leverguns, in the usual calibers with the usual bullet types, have typically been limited to, best case, about a 200 yard useful range on game. Some would prefer to carry and shoot a lever rifle over most anything else. And for many of them, a non traditional rifle like a BLR isn't too appealing. This new round / rifle combo is a legit 300+ yard combo. Makes it quite a bit more useful to many. I'm not buying one, but just because there's too many guns on the list ahead of it, not cuz the round isn't useful. |
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The .308 Marlin is an attempt to safely create a .308 Winchester-chambered lever action. If they made the 336 in .308 Win, with the command to only load the Hornady LeveRevolution ammunition in it, some moron's gonna load Federal FMJs in it and blow his mag tube and hand off. And then the lawsuit. |
.307 Winchester is rimmed though many styles of leveractions though long enough are not strong enough for .308 pressures (Winchester rebuilt their actions into the "BigBore" actions, the receiver is noticeably reinforced) also many people do not trust pointed ammunition in tubular magazines, though many studies have shown that this is not nearly as dangerous as once thought (the round being tapered naturally put the tip off center, away from the primer, it was the old Henry rounds where the priming mixture may not have been spun properly into the rim that experinced magazine rounds popping) That said I would never load pointed ammunition into one of my tube rifles, mainly because it may lengthen OAL just enough to cause hangups in the action, if I need 30-06 power I will shoot an 1895 Winchester, if I want 308 power I can shoot my 300 Savage or the same rifle in 308 I have also never had a real problem hunting with 30-30 or 45/70, even out to 300 yards, this was a solution to a non existant problem, and will probably go the route of the 5mm Remington Magnum |
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hell I thought I read someplace that the 308 marlin was just a 307win case shortened .1" and the slight taper blown out to keep it from being chambered and used in the 307win rifles out there since both headspace off the shoulder instead of the rim, and the reason they went with the name change was because marlin had already chambered 307win back in the 80's and like 3 people bought one, so the xtr had to have a newnewnew hype to sell them. |
I have l;everguns for all kids of hunting (none with a cope on them though, ladder sights, tang sights, but no scopes) Hell I even have 2 leveraction shotguns, and am looking at finding a 9410 one of these days like I said though, i won't shoot leverevolution ammunition, and I would never buy *another* gun in aproprietory cartridge |
| Man, I wish I wasn't so busy at work today. Would have loved to reply to each of these. My question was why not just stuff revolution bullets in 308 cases. If the 308 guns are all rotaries, that would spleen why my solution wouldn't apply. Also, since the original post, I see Hornady isn't going to make their unique bullet available to reloaders, and hence they can keep their "proprietary cartridge" not only even more proprietary, but make my idea not work. Plus Marlin gets to sell more guns cuz you can't get the leverevoution bullet in a 308. |
Marlin and Hornady have collaborated to create a cartridge that is compatible with traditional tube fed lever guns. The whole point was to create a cartridge that can duplicate 308 performance safely in tube magazine fed lever gun, the only kind of lever gun Marlin makes. The existing 308 lever guns, which are not tube fed can safely use any of the many pointy 308 loads out here so there is absolutely no point in loading leverevoltion bullets into 308 cases. I imagine the projectiles will eventually be made available for reloaders...someday. This new cartridge fills a big gap in lever gun performance, I hope Marlin sells a ton of them. |
307 is rimmed, 308 id rimless.... just for final clarification |
What makes the BLR non appealing? I have one and love it. Very accurate rifle. 
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personally i don't like how it looks and taking them apart is just a downright pain in the ass. Why does it need to have gears? Marlin and winchester never had them... |
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.30-30 and .45-70 are blackpowder rounds and their power is not comparable to the cartridge size. What everybody in this thread has missed in 308 Marlin is an attempt to have modern mid calibre centerfire rifle performance (ie .30-06, .270 WIN, .308 WIN, .7mm Rem Ex) in a lever action, tube feed firearm. This has never been done before. Levevolution bullets do not give modern centerfire performance by themselves, they let one use a modern pointed bullet instead of the traditional round or flat nose bullet of 120 years ago. A .30-30 with levevolution bullets still has overall underpowered blackpowder performance. |
Just for the record, the .45-70 was originally a black powder cartridge, but the .30-30 was not. The .30-30 was the first comercially available smokeless powder round. It was developed as a smokeless load from the beginning. When it was introduced in 1895 it was state of the art in sporting rifle cartridges, and actually compared pretty well to the US military round of the same era, the .30-40 Krag. Also, keep in mind that ALL rifle bullets were round nose or flat point back then. Spitzer/pointed bullets were not invented until 1905 by the Germans. As originally loaded the .30-30, so named because it used a .30 caliber bullet backed by 30 grains of the then new smokeless powder(30 grains of black powder would have been pretty weak, btw), fired a 150 grain bullet at the then unheard of velocity of 2400fps from the standard 26" barreled rifle, which dropped to about 2200fps from the 20" barreled carbine. The US military's .30-40 fired a 220 grain bullet at just about 2000fps from the Krag rifle's 30" barrel. The .30-40 Krag can be loaded with a 150 grainer at around 2600fps from a standard 22-24" barreled rifle, putting it right behind the .308 in power, and just about equal to the new .308 Marlin. So in essence what Marlin and Hornady did was recreate the .30-40 Krag. Go figure. |
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I bought one because I prefer to hunt with a lever action and I'm partial to Marlins. I've hunted areas that afford 250 yard shots that I would hesitate to take with a .30-30 or .45-70. With the 308 Marlin Express I won't have to hesitate. I'm headed out to the range with it today. Wish me luck. |
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The firearm business is somewhat complicated . What a good company (I like Marlin)tries to do is offer a firearm that people will buy at a price that the mfg can make a profit along with the middlemen and the retailer. If a company has a firearm in production trying a new cartridge/configuration is a relatively cheep way to possibly increase sales. The truth of the mater is that it isn't about a cartridge that is needed,better,or remarkably different than something available now or in the past. It is the goal of a firearms company to create a product that will sell . As I said I like Marlin ,they offer many products that have a lot of interest to me and I will likely buy more of them in the future . This doesn't mean I need a 308Marlin! |
I guess that is true but it is still an underpowered, high tapered case round and not comparable to a modern centerfire rifle round. |
I couldn't shoot well yesterday so I asked Dutch to fire three rounds. That's what he did with them.  The best I've gotten out of it is around 2"s for five shots. I thought it might to better. I'll say Dutch proved it.I'm not too worried about the purists. I need a scope to hunt responsibly. Like Harry Callahan said, "A man's got to know his limitations." Just to add some controversy I cleaned the bore after every shot for the first twenty rounds. Those are shot numbers 24,25 & 26. The ammo chronographs very consistently around 2540FPS with a standard deviation of around 20FPS. Here's a story about a doe taken with one at 365 yards! It's a great combination for people who prefer a levergun over bolts, autos and single shots. |
What you're missing is that it has been done before, it was called the .307 Winchester. It was a rimmed version of the .308 Winchester round, but if you're using a tube mag, there's no reason to not use a rim. It would make more sense to bring back the .307Win w/ the new Levevolution bullets |
Everyone here can read, the 307Win has been mentioned repeatably in this thread. Given Marlins success with the .35 Remington there is also no reason to go with a rimless cartridge. And if they had gone with the 307Win not only couldn't Marlin and Hornaday call it the 308 Marlin, they would have to put "308 Winchester" on every one of the new Marlins. Marlin is not going to engrave the competitions name on their rifles. So from a marketing standpoint, it makes far more sense to to come out with the new cartridge. |
Apparently not everyone here can read, because my post was a specific reply to the text in green above. I understand Marlin's reasoning in not reintroducing the .307 Winchester, but it is not introducing any new capability to the shooting world that wasn't previously available. As a side note, they do engrave .30-30Win (or some equiv) on quite a few of their rifles, so it's not like they're never going to engrave the competition's name on their rifles. Besides, Winchester no longer competes directly with Marlin in the lever action market. |
I was primarily responding to the 2nd part of your response, you are correct about the capability of the 308 Marlin not being new, though the new projectiles offer the possibility of better downrange performance. |
True enough but the 30/30 was born by necking down the original 1894 offering of the 38-55,which became so popular the 30/30 was marketed. The 308 win and the 30/30,and the 30-06 are the mainstays and lots of necked up and necked down cartridges are made from these rounds. Bob 
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.30-30 was not a BP round. www.leverguns.com/articles/3030history.htm ETA: I need to read the thread all the way through before I post... 
IT is funny you mention that Marlin isn't going to engrave the competition's name on their rifles....the .30-30 was originally designated the .30 wcf...Marlin called it the .30-30 so as not to mark the gun up with WInchester's name. I think of it like the .480 ruger, .45 gap, etc. Just another "also ran" and it isn't going to set the world afire. I am willing to bet it will be more popular than .30tc. I wonder if Marlin is going to get on the .338 federal bandwagon and come out with like a .340 marlin or something. |
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The .308 Marlin Express was designed for a niche. It has slightly more energy at 400 yards then the .30/30 does at 250 yards. Hornady introduced the Leverevolution ammo in .30/30 to make it a legitimate 250 yard round with a 160 grain bullet with a quoted BC of .330. Hornady wondered if they could "pump" up the performance of the moribund .307 Winchester round by using the same technology. They could, but both Marlin and Hornady wanted less bullet drop and an ability to say in their ad copy they had a legitimate 400 yard lever action rifle/cartridge. The 160 grain bullet they designed to achieve this has a quoted BC of 0.391, but if they used the existing .307 Winchester cartridge case the OAL would be over 2.6" and could not do this within the Marlin Lever Action rifle platform. So, Hornady knocked the case length back 0.115" and used their proprietary gunpowder to get .307 Winchester ballistics in a cartridge whose OAL does not go over 2.6", so it would fit in Marlin Lever Action rifles. The .308 Marlin Express does NOTHING that the .300 Savage does not do. If you have a Savage 99 chambered in .300 Savage, you have the exterior ballistics of the .308 Marlin Express. If you have a Browning BLR chambered in .308 Winchester, there is no need to buy the Marlin XLR rifle because the .308 Winchester is better than the .308 Marlin Express. .30/30 Case length of 2.040" OAL of 2.550" Rim dia. of 0.506" .300 Savage Case length of 1.871" OAL of 2.600" Rim dia. of 0.473" .307 Winchester Case length of 2.015" OAL of 2.550" Rim dia. of 0.506" .308 Winchester Case length of 2.015" OAL of 2.810" Rim dia. of 0.473" .308 Marlin Express Case length of 1.900" OAL of 2.600" Rim dia. of 0.506" If you want to use a traditional (under barrel tubular magazine) lever action rifle that has a legit 400 cartridge, then choose the new Marlin XLR in .308 Marlin Express. Hornady has not released ANY of their Leverevolution Bullets to handloaders, so you cannot duplicate any of their factory ammo. 
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Thanks for the post RedFalconBill! Wow, so there is some reason for the .308 Marlin to exist instead of using the .307 Winchester; it's that the Marlin action would not work with the 160Gr LeverEvolution bullet in a .307 Win case because the overall length would be too long to cycle in a Marlin Lever Action. It actually makes some sense now. You can't make a good 400 yrd .307 Win cartridge feed in a Marlin Action. Savage doesn't make lever guns anymore, and the BLR is more expensive than a Marlin Lever gun, plus some people just prefer the styling and functionality of a tube mag. I jump off the "criticize Marlin and Hornady" bandwagon, but still wonder if this cartridge will find commercial success. It seems like everybody's going crazy trying to invent the next .40 S&W, with all the WSM, WSSM ,SAUM, etc being thrown against the wall to see what sticks. for the most part, we're pretty well served by the existing standards out there. The success of the .308 Marlin seems to depend on the devotion of a segment of the market to the affordable tube fed lever action rifle to the exclusion of other options. |
The 160 grain bullet for the .30/30 is different from the 160 grain bullet for the .308 Marlin. The 160 grain bullet for the .30/30 has a quoted BC of 0.330. The 160 grain bullet for the .308 Marlin has a quoted BC of 0.391. .30/30 LeveRevolution Balistics w/ 24" test barrel .308 Marlin LeveRevolution Balistics w/ 24" test barrel
You bring up the $64,000 question. That is, are there enough people out there who will buy into using a traditional lever action rifle to take deer at 350-400 yards, now that there is a rifle/round combo that can do it? |
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You bring up the $64,000 question. That is, are there enough people out there who will buy into using a traditional lever action rifle to take deer at 350-400 yards, now that there is a rifle/round combo that can do it? So, what kind of MOA can the Marlin action achieve with the new .308Marlin Express? (How well does its accuracy compare to a similarly priced bolt gun in .308 Win?) |
Don't know. I do not own a Marlin Express. You can check in here and see what they are doing: MarlinOwners Forums Forum Index -> The 308 Marlin Express® |
Scroll back up about 15 post, it seems to do pretty damn well for a new rifle shooting factory ammo. |
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