Marlin 1894 CL 32-20?

yooper2 · Post by **yooper2** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 10:03 am

I've been looking at these rifles for awhile now and am getting to the point where I may pull the trigger on one. Those of you who have them, what do you think of them? Is there anything I should look out for? Do they all have deep cut rifling (non-micrgroove)? Seems like one of these would be a sweet little rifle. Thank you for any input.

Eric

Les Staley · Post by **Les Staley** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 11:18 am

Eric, I have had two marlin 1894C s in 357/38 . Both ran well and got to be too 'spensive to live with me. In the process of rotating my stock, I bought a Browning 53 in 32-20. My favorite load is 4.3 gr of Trailboss and a 115 gr SWC 312 bullet. The Browning wears a Marble tang sight and is ground squirrel capable out to 75 yds or so. Your wish list rifle should do the same.. Just trying to help....

jnyork · Post by **jnyork** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 12:14 pm

I have a .32-20 that I shoot quite a bit at metallic silhouette, Marbles tang sight, Lyman 17a front, I use 8.5 grains of Lil Gun and the Oregon Trail 115 grain cast bullet.

One of my favorite guns. From my cold dead fingers...........

.45colt · Post by **.45colt** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 2:08 pm

Awesome rifle and caliber. Love mine.

gundownunder · Post by **gundownunder** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 7:07 pm

I love mine. It's more accurate than my 357, has no recoil to speak of, and it is reasonably quiet with mild loads.
If you plan to hunt with it, I would think of it as the next step up from a .22 magnum, IE, same or slightly better velocity and trajectory and over twice as much lead. These days all my shooting is at paper targets and steel plates but if I was hunting with this rifle I'd go up to big dogs and goats but on pigs would stick to young suckers for the table. Anything bigger than that I would only be comfortable if I could cleanly put a round behind its ear before it knew I was there (YMMV).
I only have one load for mine, 9.5gr 2400 and a cast bullet. I used to use a 115gr commercial hard cast but now cast my own at 105gr, with a mold I got from Accurate. I use Rem brass with CCI SR primers. I only use mine with open sights but when I developed that load with a scope on the rifle I had no problem consistently getting 1", 5 shot groups, at 50yds.
Only downside is that brass is a bit scarce, and a bit pricey, at least on this side of the ocean. Brass is a little delicate around the neck, and needs to be reloaded with care. When you buy reloading dies go with the RCBS cowboy dies. They work closer to the correct tolerances. Leave the Lee dies alone for this caliber, they will overwork your brass big time.
My barrel is Ballard rifled, I don't think Marlin did any of them with microgroove.

yooper2 · Post by **yooper2** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 7:33 pm

Thanks for the input. I've messed around the 32-20 quite a bit in revolvers (mostly Colt DAs) but not in a rifle yet. How do you folks that have the 1894 CL like the balance with the longer barrel and half magazine? The only 1894s I've shot have been standard 44 mag carbines.

Eric

EdinCT · Post by **EdinCT** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 7:46 pm

Yooper I have a 1894cl and load the Lyman 311008 over unique for 1180 fps. I have a Lyman tang sight on it and can hit a soup can at 80 yards with it off hand more often than not. It's been hard on woodchucks and coyote's and easy on my pocket book. I like it !

jdad · Post by **jdad** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 9:57 pm

They can be made to shoot well.

JerryB · Post by **JerryB** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 10:24 pm

Eric, I have a 32wcf in an 1892 Winchester 24 inch rifle that I bought from my uncle that sold it to me for 15 dollars back in 1954. We lived north east of Mount Pleasant Michigan then. My uncle killed several deer with it before he sold it to me. I used to shoot grouse out of the pine trees with it. I think the 32-20 is about my favorite round, killed a 10 foot gator with one round when I lived in Florida. I think my best load now is the XTP 85 grain HP with some 5744, this powder works real good in my old rifle, made in 1917.The jacketed bullets shoot better than cast in my rifle. Get it and have some fun.

DPris · Post by **DPris** » Tue Jun 30, 2015 12:44 am

Bubbles has a pair of the Marlins in .32-20, and while she's never gone to a gunshow with me under protest, it's usually just to keep me company.

I've never seen her eyes light up on anything like they did when we found her second Marlin, which she promptly bought as a backup to her first.

They were her CAS rifles & while she had to drop out of the cowboy game because of her wrists & thumbs, she'll never let those .32s go.

I had to throttle lead loads way back, my first efforts were cratering our mild steel practice plates.

She had .357 Mag full-length mag tubes installed to replace the shorter tubes & never looked back.
Denis

blackhawk44 · Post by **blackhawk44** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 1:49 am

Be sure to look out for one thing-a 94CL in .25-20. Seems to be the only thing that can make you feel the least bit disappointed in the .32-20. Having both, I grab the .25 far more often than the .32.

AJMD429 · Post by **AJMD429** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 6:31 am

blackhawk44 wrote:Be sure to look out for one thing-a 94CL in .25-20. Seems to be the only thing that can make you feel the least bit disappointed in the .32-20. Having both, I grab the .25 far more often than the .32.

........or the 218 Bee......

bgmkithaca · Post by **bgmkithaca** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 6:52 am

I have one that was a CL 32-20 that would not shoot anything-cast or jacketed , fast or slow. Never figured out why and no one else that tried got it to shoot either. Finally gave up after 3 years and rebarreled it to 25-20 and never looked back. Should have rebarreled it 2.9 years sooner.

6pt-sika · Post by **6pt-sika** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 9:30 am

I had four 1894CL's one in 218 Bee , a 25-20 and a pair of 32-20's . Of the 32-20's one was from the original 80's run and the other was a fairly recent made after 2005 .

Anyway I shot cast in all four rifles with decent or better results . Killed squirrels with all of them except the newer 32-20 and they did well on squirrel headshots as long as I kept them close to sub sonic .

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 6:17 pm

I keep wanting a .32-20 but Jr. just tells me I should load down my .30-30.

JerryB · Post by **JerryB** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 7:49 pm

Rusty my friend, tell RJ I said it just ain't the same. Find an old Winchester 92 and start loading it and when he wants to shoot it tell him to get his 30-30. I do like my Rossi .357 but it just ain't nothing like a 32wcf. More fun than a barrel of long tailed monkeys.

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 8:26 pm

I know Jerry, it's all your fault. I keep hearing you talk about your '92. It makes me wish I had yours and you had a better one, cause I'm not supposed to covet.

yooper2 · Post by **yooper2** » Wed Jul 08, 2015 6:19 am

Already have a Bee! I'd like to go with the 32-20 as I have a few bullet molds I bought for reduced 30-30 loads. That wasn't really floating my boat so now I'm in the 32-20 market. I'm currently bidding on an earlier CL without the checkering. Hopefully it'll be headed North soon.

Eric

Canuck Bob · Post by **Canuck Bob** » Thu Jul 09, 2015 1:08 pm

Paco did a great article on the 32-20.

http://leverguns.com/articles/paco/3220wcf.htm

I broke my Winoku 32-20 in with factory lead and really like the low power loads for this caliber.
However the Marlin can be hotrodded if one wishes.

It is a great cartridge that requires some brass searching but I can find it in Canada, the USA should be a simpler matter. In many ways I like to carry my 92 32-20 rather than the 9422 for woods loafing.

yooper2 · Post by **yooper2** » Sun Jul 12, 2015 6:55 am

I lost out on the auction, got hung up in town and somebody else snagged it. The search continues!

Eric

windy · Post by **windy** » Mon Jul 13, 2015 12:02 am

I love my '92 Winnie, but she don't like cast boolits, nor very long jacketed ones. the other extreme ain't much better; those 71gr copper-coated rn's don't shoot fer sour owl spit. so far, only reasonable results are 85gr hollowpoints over 11.5gr of 2400 or 10.7 of 4759, but I've gotta keep those way away from my colt police positive 32-20; it shudders a bit at 8gr of 2400 with 100gr jsp's. with the tang sight the '92'll shoot 5" groups at 100yds if I do my part; not as tight as my 25-35 but much cheaper to shoot. I've been doing well with starline brass; just neck-size it (lee-loader) most of the time to save the wear & tear. only problem so far is it tears the **** outta the bunnies & native pheasant. gotta find a replacement for those hollowpoints, I guess.
mind yer topknots!
windy

Poohgyrr · Post by **Poohgyrr** » Tue Jul 28, 2015 9:38 pm

How does the brass do with handloads?? Anything in particular to watch for?

Ahhhh, Paco's article on the Marlin 32-20, and the search function - both are great. - I haven't really looked at this Lever & round before....

DPris · Post by **DPris** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 11:23 am

I reloaded a BUNCH of .32-20 when Bubbles was doing CAS.
All Starline, all held up fine.

Think I lost about 5, my mistake in not aligning in the press.
Denis

Poohgyrr · Post by **Poohgyrr** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 6:57 pm

Great, thanks.

Marlin 1894 CL 32-20?

Marlin 1894 CL 32-20?

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