The Marlin Bicycle Rifle
A hundred years ago, Marlin modified one of its most popular rifles for the most advanced vehicle of the day. While today we would advocate having a truck gun or say a gun is a good car gun, back in 1897, it was all about having a gun for your bike. Introduced three years before the dawn of the 20th century, the Model 1897 Marlin was a cute little rifle chambered in .22
Short, Long, or Long Rifle. It was, like most Marlins of the time, lever-action. Its underbarrel tubular magazine would hold a handful of rounds it any of those calibers and fire them just as fast as the user could work the short-throw lever. These guns were simple hunting and plinking rifles, meant to kill tin cans, clay ducks, slay varmints, or put small game in the pot on the wood or coal-burning stoves of the time.
This simplicity translated to a casehardened receiver and either a plain or a pistol grip stock. If you wanted, the gun could be special ordered with Marbles, Beeches, Osbourne or Lyman rear peep sights to make the gun hyper-accurate. As such, it was sold in barrel lengths from 24-28-inches as late as 1922. From this basic gun sprang…The Bicycle Rifle
Read more in my column at Marlin Forums.com