The Classic Marlin Model 39: Rimfire Lever Perfection
Marlin Firearms spent the first half-century or so if its existence concentrating on center-fire rifles, shotguns and revolvers. However, after World War I, the company switched gears, made a play for the popgun market–, and got it nearly perfect right off the bat.
Rimfire pipsqueak cartridges have been around since the 1850s when Smith and Wesson crafted the first .22 Short, which led in turn to the upgraded 22 Long some 15 years later and finally, in 1887, the .22LR. Even though these rounds are all well over a century old, they haven’t changed since then with the exception of switching from black powder to smokeless around 1900 or so. With their popularity for gallery use in smashing clay ducks and pigeons, teaching youth and first-time shooters, and giving homesteaders and sportsmen a nice round to take small game with, these loads were extremely widespread by the end of World War I.
And Marlin, trying to introduce new guns after spending the Great War making machine guns for Uncle, jumped in with both feet.
No less a figure than John Marlin himself along with LL Hepburn had designed a short-action repeater that used an under-receiver lever to eject spent brass and simultaneously load fresh rounds from an under-barrel magazine tube. This rifle, the Model 1891 was a redesign of the solid-top Model 1889 in .32-caliber centerfire gun but also was shipped from the factory with an optional rimfire pin that could be changed out to allow the firearm to chamber and shoot .22-rimfire ammo. While this wasn’t amazingly popular at the time, it was the first lever action rimfire rifle and some 12,000 of these guns were made before the design was put to pasture and went on to be the Model 1897 after some tweaks.
However, the company kept the plans around, just in case, and in 1922 they dusted them off.
