Blaine F
07/15/2018
[3 of 5 Stars!]I bought this rifle as an Appleseed Project gun. Notwithstanding a number of very positive youtube videos and various praiseworthy blogs, I found the rifle upon receipt very, very cheap. The stock is a light, cheap, fiberglass; various parts are cheap stamped metal; the trigger is creepy and heavy, atrocious in a word. Worse, quality control seems to be a concept totally foreign to the manufacturer. The very first thing I notice after opening the box was the spring rear sight: it was off center and upon further inspection it was clear that the rear of the base was not actually in the dovetail slot. I wiggled the sight with my finger and it came off. Upon inspection, it appears that instead of the sight being slid into the dovetail, only the front of the base was put into the dovetail slot and the rear of the base was forced down into the dovetail. The result was that top of the overhand of the dovetail was caved in making in impossible to slide the base of the sight into it. It looked like someone had taken a hammer an pounded on the top of the base to force it into the slot. I have a .22 pump action made by Winchester which I bought in or around 1960. Comparing the workmanship between it and this Marlin just has me shaking my head. It is embarrassing that American quality has declined to this degree.
But, no matter; I planned to replace the sights in any event with Tech Sights in order to have post front sight and peep rear sight.. But in order to get proper alignment I had to really crank the rear sight over. Fortunately there was enough room, but it does leave one wondering: is the dovetail cut on the receiver off center? Is the barrel not aligned properly with the receiver? Is the front sight not properly set? I don\'t plan to spend money to find out. Besides, what really mattered was whether it was acceptably accurate. So, I gathered six different brands of ammunition, two were standard velocity (around 1075 fps), three high velocity (around 1250 fps), and one extreme velocity (1435 fps) and shot these at 50 yards. The best group measured 1/2\" from CCI Target. Two others were usable: Federal Target, and CCI Blazer, each 1\". This level of accuracy is good enough for an Appleseed Project rifle I believe. And if I can do something about this rotten trigger, maybe I can shrink these groups a little more.
The next issue is whether the front sling swivel attachment will stand up to the forces generated from looping up. The swivel itself fits into a hole fabricated in the cheap fiberglass stock. I figure the chances are 50/50 that the hole is going to rip out after a few repetitions of looping up in prone.
Bottom line: if you are looking for something to get your kid through an Appleseed weekend, this will probably suffice. However, this rifle is not heirloom quality and will not be something that is passed on in the family. And it is not worth the time or money to fix up. If you have plans to dump money into a .22 semi-auto, then you should be looking at a Ruger 10/22.
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