From the Back of the Safe…
My Dad who passed away back in 2017 was very fond of lever rifles. I remember as a boy growing up in the North part of Florida, not by the coast where there’s beaches and palm trees, but rather inland in a rural farming county, Suwannee county. My Dad always had a number of lever action rifles. Most of them were rimfire, either .22 long rifle or .22 magnum, but he also had one in .30-30 Winchester that he got from my uncle as well as a Marlin .44 magnum. Lever guns for the most part seemed to fit the bill for squirrel and rabbit hunting as well as hunting white tailed deer.
One of the lever action rifles my Dad owned, although purchased after I left home, was an old Marlin 39A Mountie. That particular rifle, with a cheap Tasco scope mounted up top was the dedicated squirrel rifle any time I came to visit. My parents used to have a Jack Russel Terrier and boy did she love finding which tree the squirrels were held up at. Knowing fully well that if she did this, I would take a shot at that squirrel. If successful, that squirrel would fall to the ground and she’d snatch it up and run off with it not to be seen for at least a half an hour. She sure was a smart dog.
The last time I saw my father, he gave his 1894 Marlin in .44 Magnum to my wife. She had borrowed it fairly recently to hunt pig and took a liking to it. We were talking about picking up a lever gun for her and he said to just take it home with her and keep it. Little did we know that would be the last time we saw my dad as he passed away a month after from a sudden heart attack. After he passed away, my siblings and mom thought that his Marlin 39A Mountie should stay paired up with Dad’s Marlin 1894 .44 Magnum rifle, so my wife and I also took it home with us.
Both of those rifles have been mostly sitting in the back of the safe. The Marlin .44 Magnum rifle was having some issues jamming, so I replaced the loading gate and cartridge carrier. Luckily at the time, Brownells had these parts available. That old Marlin 1894 was now smooth as butter after a trip to the range. The Marlin 39A Mountie hadn’t been shot since around the time my Dad passed. Recently around my Dad’s birthday…he would’ve been 69 years old, I took that old Marlin 39A Mountie out of the safe so it could see some sun. Shot some steel targets at about 25 yards… that little rimfire still has it even though the scope is in desperate need of replacement. I’m hoping to find a classic looking, but modern scope over at Brownells soon to replace it with. I sure missed shooting that little rifle and of course miss my Dad. Always great to handle something like that to remember him by. He sure loved his lever rifles.
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