Ruger to reboot Marlin line with the 1895SBL

Marlin's big-bore lever-actions are back! Or at least, they will be back, in the very near future.

Marlin, one of the oldest hunting firearm manufacturers in the US, was under Remington ownership in recent years. When Remington went bust in the summer of 2020, its assets were divvied up. When the pieces of the company were sold off, Ruger bought the Marlin brand (and a lot of manufacturing equipment) for $28.3 million US. Ever since, shooters have been waiting for Ruger to re-start production in its Mayodan, North Carolina plant.

Now, Ruger says it's just about ready to start delivering those new-production Marlins. Christopher Killoy, Ruger's CEO, says the company will begin production with the Model 1895SBL rifle, chambered in .45-70; deliveries will start in December of 2021.

After the Model 1895SBL comes to market, Marlin will also resume production of some Model 336 lever-action rifles, and Model 444 rifles. The pistol-calibre Model 1894 rifles (in .357 magnum and .44 magnum) will resume production after that.

How many of the new Marlins will come to Canada? Ruger says that, at first, there will be very limited availability for the new rifles, but production will ramp up quickly. That sounds like we should see them start to arrive sometime in early 2022, hopefully.

It's worth noting that, at this point, we've still seen no mention of rebooting Marlin's rimfire lines. Ruger already has very strong rimfire rifle models, and may not be interested in selling Model 60 rifles to compete with its own 10/22 and other models. However, Ruger did take more than 100 tractor-trailer loads of machinery from the old Remington-owned Marlin production line down to North Carolina, so all that manufacturing capacity is likely still usable, if Ruger decides it makes business sense.

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