Grumpy, Author at You Will Shoot Your Eye Out

Ours is a most fascinating culture. Bernard of Chartres was a 12^th-century French philosopher who first suggested that we accomplish great things not because of any superior sight or stature of our own but rather because of the solid foundation of our predecessors.

Sir Isaac Newton codified that in a letter to academic rival Robert Hooke when he said, “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” In our case, we have taken our amazing American birthright and done some of the most despicable stuff with it.

Over the course of our storied 250 years as a nation, around 660,000 young Americans have given their lives for freedom. Our forebears endured the taming of the West, the Great Depression, and two massive world wars so that we could enjoy the fruits of liberty and thrive in a land of plenty. Now look at what we have done with that.

As a people, we are just a hot mess. Emotional support animals, ubiquitous anxiety medication, and a fixation on our mental well-being would have seemed otherworldly in eras past. That is because we now finally have the luxury of fretting with such stuff. On the American frontier, if some effeminate mountain man struggled unduly with his emotional state something would just eat him.

My Role Model

My maternal grandfather went by Pappy. He was born in 1901 in rural Mississippi. Pappy was a natural storyteller. I like to hope that perhaps I inherited a bit of that. One of his many compelling tales involved some early-American frontier justice.

Pappy worked as a clerk with the railroad. Steam-powered railroads were the primary means of moving people and goods around the country back then. The railroad depot typically served as the commercial center of a small community. As a result, they also kept cash.

America is much richer today than was once the case. Nowadays, you are poor if you cannot afford DoorDash. Back then, you were poor if you could not afford to eat. In such austere spaces, that cash box full of money held upstairs in the railroad depot began to look awfully inviting.

The Crime

One morning, Pappy and the station master arrived at work to find that some miscreant had scaled the gutter on the outside wall, jimmied the upstairs window, and made off with the cash box. The high sheriff was notified, and the theft duly reported. The company made that right. Then, a couple of weeks later, it happened again.

Somebody had obviously happened upon a good thing. If this criminal guy could spread his nocturnal scalings out a bit, then the local railroad would theoretically keep him in whiskey money indefinitely. However, that didn’t seem like a great idea to the curmudgeon who served as the local station master.

The Solution

Rather than post himself inside the depot for weeks on end waiting for this guy to return, the railroad official brought his side-by-side 12-bore from home and wired it to a chair. This he oriented toward the window before running a cord around to the big gun’s twin triggers. He armed this contraption every evening before locking up and going home. He did not have long to wait.

Two weeks later, my grandfather arrived for work to find a dead man sprawled out on the dirt street below. The hapless burglar had caught two full charges of buckshot to his chest. That clearly had not hurt for long.

The sheriff duly investigated and notified the proper agencies to dispose of the man’s cooling corpse. My grandfather replaced the shattered window. It never even occurred to anybody to extend the long arm of justice toward the station master who had contrived the diabolical device. If the dead man had not wanted to get shot, he shouldn’t have been trying to break into the train depot.

A Brave New World

Suffice to say, things would be adjudicated somewhat differently today. The media would no doubt fixate on the poor demised criminal’s sordid home life and dire personal state.

He might have hypothetically needed money to pay his smart phone bill or support an unfortunate drug habit. The owner of the shotgun would be roundly vilified and his response decried as criminally disproportionate. The station master would no doubt rot in jail.

By contrast, in Pappy’s day, they just buried the bad guy and moved on with their lives. Word got out that poking around the depot looking for money to steal was a bad idea, and nature found its level. This was the foundation we were built upon. This is where we came from. It remains to be seen what sort of legacy our generation leaves for those to come.

Obscure Object of Desire – Marlin Model 44 by Travis Pike

It’s pretty rare to see an American-made pump-action shotgun I’ve never heard of, especially from a major company. When the Marlin Model 44 crossed my path at an unreasonably low price, I had to have it.

Marlin isn’t all that well-known for their shotguns. They are primarily known as a lever gun company that Freedom Group tanked, and Ruger revived. Interestingly enough, Winchester is also known as a lever gun company that went on a shotgun streak. Unlike Winchester, no one talks all that much about Marlin’s shotguns.

The Marlin Model 44 is a 20 gauge design that’s often forgotten

At the end of the 1800s, pump-action shotguns exploded in popularity, largely thanks to the Winchester 1893 and 1897. What allowed pump shotguns to flourish was the fact that Winchester didn’t own the patent on them. In fact, they had to defend themselves from a patent suit brought on by a man named Bannerman, who had the rights to the first Spencer shotgun.

Winchester won by producing an ancient pump-action gun to prove the Spencer wasn’t the first. Marlin was another fairly large company, so it’s interesting that their shotguns were more or less forgotten about. Marlin released their first in 1898, known as the Marlin 1898. They stopped pump-shotgun shotgun production in 1933.

The Marlin Model 44

The Marlin Model 44 is a pump-action 20-gauge shotgun that’s an improved version of the Marlin 31. The Model 31 was produced prior to the standardization of 2.75-inch rounds and was configured for 2 9/16th shells. The Model 44, produced from 1922 to 1933, was Marlin’s move to the 2.75-inch shell.

The receiver is unique at the very least

Marlin produced but exposed hammer and hammerless guns; the Model 44 is the latter. The Marlin Model 44 came in both A and S grades, with mine being the cheaper, simpler A-grade. It holds four rounds of 20 gauge. Marlin offered these shotguns as free gifts if you purchased four shares of Marlin, which was a $100 investment.

There isn’t a whole lot known about these guns. We have one decent reference book on Marlin Firearms written by Lt. Col. William Brophy that’s out of print and costs more than I paid for the gun. Marlin shotguns didn’t have the fanfare to generate widespread information.

Blued steel and real wood is missed these days

The best way to learn is to find out, right? It’s worth noting that in 1999, Marlin released a statement saying all of their old pump-action shotguns should be considered too dangerous to fire. Marlin cited that they had no records of material, heat treatment, or acceptance standards. If you’re reading this, I survived.

In and Out of the Marlin Model 44

The Marlin Model 44 features a fairly distinct look. Most shotguns all look the same, but the Model 44 has a distinct receiver shape. It’s angular with a ramping design at the rear. The ejection port seems to be massive and serves to show off the stainless steel bolt.

The safety is positioned inside the trigger guard, which is always an interesting place to put a safety. The bolt release sits right behind the trigger; a small stainless button acts as a shell release to unload the gun. These Marlins were fitted with a hang fire safety system.

If you pull the trigger and the gun doesn’t fire, it doesn’t unlock the bolt. It requires the inertia generated by the gun firing to unlock the bolt. This way, in the event of a hang fire, the bolt stays in battery.

Placing the safety in the trigger guard has fallen out of favor

It’s a single-arm gun. The action isn’t the smoothest and requires a fair bit of force to open and close. A Winchester Model 12 it is not.

Take Down Procedures

These are takedown guns, and the barrel and magazine tube depart from the receiver with relative ease. You press the small button at the top of the magazine tube and pull upward, which detaches the magazine tube. Next, you pull the pump forward and out of the receiver. Finally, you unscrew the barrel.

With the shortened barrel, it’s quite compact

Putting the gun back together is a little tricky. A small knob on the pump has to align perfectly with a small slot on the bolt; if you don’t align it right, it will just push the bolt back. Doing so resulted in my fishing the bolt from inside the receiver.

Someone along the way decided the barrel was too long and trimmed it back a bit, and attached a screw-on bead sight. It ruins the collectability, but lowers the price to below a hundred bucks. However, when taken down, it’s quite the compact package.

At the Range with the Model 44

I stuck to some basic light lead-sporting loads. I’m not in a rush to see how many rounds the gun can take in a burn down. I’m also a little mindful of the 1999 warning. I do appreciate my ability to see and hear, so I’ll stick to birdshot.

It fired reliably, not bad for a gun older than my dad

As expected, the Model 44 is pleasant to shoot. Mild recoil from mild loads in a heavy steel and wood shotgun has that effect. Since whatever choke the gun came with is effectively gone, and the barrel is chopped, the pattern is fairly wide. I’m sure buckshot would handle a little better.

The chunky bolt slings shells away with authority and feeds with ease. The shell lifter lives a bit overmade, but no complaints on that end. It scoops the rounds from the magazine to the chamber easily enough.

I won’t shoot it much, so I’ll cherish every round

The wood stock has a comfortable length of pull, but no real recoil pad. It’s just a 20-gauge, so I could handle it just fine. Before I knew it, I was running low on ammo to shoot. Old guns are always a blast to shoot.

For a gun older than my dad, it handles quite well. The stock pistol grip lacks checkering, but the front end has a great textured pump that allows for a good hold on the gun. You need that extra texture for the somewhat stiff pump action.

I’d love to see Marlin make shotguns again

The Model 44 even smells good. Something about blued steel and years of oil accumulated gives these old guns a specific smell that I can’t quite pin down.

The Model 44 Now

The Marlin Model 44 doesn’t command a premium. They aren’t all that desirable in standard configurations. They don’t fetch the same sum as older Winchesters. That’s great for me, as a collector of ancient shotguns, I can’t help but appreciate their style, their unique designs, and the look of blued steel and real wood furniture.