If you want to get opinions on rifles, go to a deer hunting camp. As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in a deer camp at the Lowrance Ranch in Truscott, Texas. This is mostly flat, open country, and you’d expect those who live, work and hunt this ground to be partial to a bolt-action rifle chambered for a flat-shooting cartridge. Given that, you might be surprised what the ranch hands there said about the Marlin Dark Series 1895 when I showed them a picture of it.
I limited these deer hunting cowboys to a one-word description of the Dark Series 1895. One old timer, who’d just showed me a photo of his pride and joy lever gun—a Winchester Model 71 chambered in 348 Winchester—described it as the “terminator.” Another ranch hand/hunter in a cowboy hat rambled something about a modern take on the lever gun, but when I pinned him down to one word, he called it “awesome.” Two other fellers agreed that “rugged” was
