Smith & Wesson’s approach to Marlin’s 19th century classic side-ejecting big bore lever action yielded this exceptionally well made and smooth functioning rifle with traditional styling enhanced with features modern hunters will appreciate. A satin matte finished stainless steel barrel and receiver matched with a black synthetic stock give the rifle serious weather resistance and a very business-like appearance. The stocks have stippled grip surfaces and a thick soft buttplate that eliminates the recoil sting normally associated with the powerful 45-70 Govt. cartridge. The forend has a single M-lok slot at 3, 6 and 9 o’clock for the mounting of hunting light or bipod. Front and rear sling swivel bases are included, the front one cleverly built into the handguard cap. A Picatinny rail is mounted on the receiver for optics but the iron sights (XS Sights ghost ring rear aperture and gold bead front post) are excellent for fast target acquisition inside 50 yards.
Its six round magazine (plus one in the chamber) and slick, foolproof, cycling puts a lot of heavy hitting rapid firepower at your disposal if you need it to repel a dangerous predator or thin a pack of wild hogs. Accuracy at 100 yards from the bench with an 8x scope showed sub-2MOA groups were easy with Remington Core Lokt .405 grain full power loads demonstrating that this fast handling, suppress ready, rifle has the precision needed to take large game out to 300 yards. Street price is around $1,219, making it about $200 less expensive than the, as yet unavailable, .45-70 Marlin 1895 SBL. For more information on this great S&W lever action, visit www.Smith-Wesson.com.
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