Marlin 1894 Cowboy ( 45 Colt)

Hey, Hickok45 here. What about this beauty? Got a lever gun. Again, Marlin 1894 Cowboy Limited. Octagonal barrel. This is another one of my favorite rifles. I've had this since 1997 when I shot my first cowboy match. Just a wonderful gun. Didn't shoot it but three or four years in those matches. I got an 1873 Ghibardi, you've seen. Shot it probably most often. But I love this and shoot it every now and then. It is in .45 Colt. Long Colt. Same cartridge that the Peacemaker, the Colt. Sweet gun. Shoots very well. If I'm on with it, it shoots well. It's a hot day. It's very, very humid. I'm dripping water all over it and I will continue to do that. My glasses will probably fall. It's, I don't know, it's up there in the 90s. I think it's almost a hoist today in the middle Tennessee. And they're talking about some incredible heat indexes and what it actually feels like. And it really does feel pretty hot. Of course, I'll decide what it feels like. Just give me the temperature. They go crazy with those. So we're going to struggle through it and take a few shots with this baby. Got a lot of cowboy fans out there. I'm a lot. And of course, I'm one of you. I love these. Just proceed a little bit. I'm going to shoot just a variety of things. Just have some fun with it. We won't shoot for an hour or anything. Take a few shots. Don't tell Chucky Schumer, but this thing holds 13 rounds. I had it loaded in the interest of time with an empty case in the chamber. It's hard to miss with this gun. It's just like butter. I've shot it enough to where it's just really smoothed out and a nice gun. These guns, you know, they have external hammer. You have to load them with the lever closed. You can't just, okay, I'm going to be safe, have the lever open so it won't fire. You can't load it. So I do have to close that. These big 45 slugs in there. These are 250 grain rounds. I load these myself. 45 Colt. This is the configuration that pretty much it was the original 45 Colt round. Those you're looking at there on the belt are a little bit different. Those are 300 grain bullets. Those are some hefty bullets and with a hotter load to boot. So we'll shoot some of those today too. Those are similar. They're probably not quite as hot as the Garrett cartridges you can order. Make sure we got a full house there. Yeah, magazine's full. This thing loads like butter too. That's nice. If you have a lever gun, maybe a 30-30, just depending on what kind it is, Winchester or brand new gun, could be a Marlin, could be any kind. Sometimes the loading gate's little stiff and you pinch yourself as you're loading the rounds in. This one's always been really smooth to load. Very buttery in a lot of ways. That's one reason it's so popular. It used to be the lever gun on the cowboy action circuit. I guess it still is probably to a large extent, although the 1873s have come a long way there. Let's take a few shots to your close again. Just a few more of those because those are kind of fun. These are light. I'll tell you that. These are fairly light loads. They're kind of a standard load, I guess you'd say. In a rifle like this, that's got a little bit of weight to it, they seem even lighter. You shoot these in a Colt single action, they don't seem light necessarily at all. This gun really tames them. It is a fairly heavy gun. It's got a longer barrel than some of the others. The .44 Magnum you've seen me shoot in the same configuration is a shorter barrel, not as heavy. Let's go across the range a little bit. We'll start with this particular round. I have to hold under the animal, but that's no excuse because I know where to hold. With this load, I'm holding on the very bottom of the animal. Then as I move up the hill, I'm shooting on out there a little bit further south or whatever it is, 65, 70 yards. Then I'm having to hold kind of on the bottom of the body of the animal. It changes as you move in distance, so you kind of use Kentucky windage and figure out where you need to hold. But as you can see, it's a really sweet shooter. I've got a couple more rounds in there. I'll go ahead and empty it. Now as I was saying, these rounds are just moderate loads. I shoot those in my pistols and rifles and just anything. That's kind of my standard load, I guess you could say, in a lot of ways. I don't give out specific loading information, but that's just a moderate load. When I go to a cowboy match, it seems really, really hot compared with what a lot of people are shooting. A lot of folks are loading down their ammo to be more competitive and all that, shooting 38s and really, really light loads, which is fine. You go to win, that's fine. I used to be that way when I did IDPA and IPSC and those sorts of things, as much as the rules would allow, like everybody did. But I go to cowboy matches when I do that to bang targets hard with big heavy bullets. So I don't try to do that. Now, as I was saying earlier, these are some big boys. These are 300 grain bullets and they're pretty warm. Now they have a different point of impact. So let's put some of these in. They shoot lower because they're hotter and I think I have to hold right pretty much on target. They pretty much hit right where I'm holding. And for those of you who don't shoot a lot, I don't know if you understand what I'm talking about. I mean, you get a sight picture with your gun, whether it's a Glock or a lever gun, where you get your sights lined up. Well, even though you have your sights lined up, especially shooting at different ranges, that doesn't mean that's where that bullet's going exactly. That means where that particular load hits maybe, or maybe it shoots above that and maybe you can't adjust the sights anymore. Then you have them adjusted or just whatever it is. You need to raise the sights, but they won't raise anymore. So that's just kind of a Kentucky windage thing and figuring out the sights, figuring out the particular gun you're shooting, the particular ammo you're shooting and where to hold. And that's some good advice or some advice I would give you, I think is good, is any load you're going to hunt with, if you're a hunter, you need to really make sure you know where it hits. If you're going to enjoy shooting, same thing, just plinking, know where the round hits. And I have to do that myself because I have a lot of guns, as you know. I come out here and I'm going to do a video and enjoy this gun or a different gun. And before the video, I'll say, okay, I've kind of forgotten where to hold maybe with this gun. And I'll take a couple of shots. Oh, that's right. And that's what I discovered, remembered with this one. I took a couple of shots, I couldn't hit anything. Whoa, whoa, that's right. I had to hold low with my standard load. And then I'd pop, pop four in a row. So that's just something you need to do and be prepared. If you're going to go into the field hunting, you really want to get excited in. So now these, you'll notice probably will kick a little more because they are a 300 grain bullet. And it turns this gun into kind of a poor man's 45-70, as they say. And I've knocked down most of the animals, but anything I hit, you'll see that it gets hit a little harder. Demonstration purposes, I'll shoot the swinging plates here. I really don't like to shoot them with something that heavy very much, but I'll shoot them. I'll go across there once, see if I can hit them. And you'll see that they're going to swing a little bit more. Hope I didn't do any damage to them. I'll put a couple more in. I wanted to show you the difference. And that also speaks to the versatility of this cartridge. Now, if you have a 45 Colt, and you don't hand load, and you're just at the mercy of whatever you can pick up at the gun shop, you probably don't have a gun that's potentially as powerful as this one, because I hand load. Let me give you the reason for that. The 45 Colt Single Action Army pistol, a lot of those are around. Got a few of those, right? The old ones, first generation and everything. The steel in those, of course, is old. Those are antiques, a lot of them. And what they're afraid of, the manufacturers of ammo, are afraid if they load up something like this, and they put it in a cute little box, and it's in your friendly gun shop, someone might walk in and buy a Colt Single Action, or they already have one they inherited from somebody, and they don't know much about it, but they want to shoot it. They see it says 45 Colt on the barrel, so they know that's the caliber, so they go buy a box of 45 Colt. Well, you know, too powerful, really, for that particular gun. And so that's why most ammo that you buy in a store for 45 Colt is like this, or lighter. But, if you hand load, you can crank it up. There's no reason in a Marlin, or in a Ruger, that they will handle a really stout load. So, you see what I do, you notice the difference between these bullets. I may have gone over this before in another video. And I use, what I do is, of course, I keep them in separate boxes. I don't put them in piles and mix them up with this, but it's a different bullet for one thing. It's a totally different contour, these 300 grain bullets, and I load them in nickel cases. So, I do that as a reminder to myself. It's a different bullet, it's in a nickel case, and it's also in a box that has the label on it as to what it is. And, you know, or it's in this belt. So, I'm not going to get them mixed up. Now, that's just the way I do that to be sure, and be safe. So, it's a very versatile cartridge, you know, when you hand load. And you all that do that know exactly what I'm talking about. Turns this gun right here into a little .45-70, almost. A few more. That bottle there, I thought he's going to get away from me today, just because I ran out of ammo. Let's take him out, and then we'll shoot some more. I'll tell you another thing about this gun. It does hold 13. I don't know if I put 13 in that time, but you get 13 cartridges in there, each one weighing 300 grains. You've got a heavy gun. Feels good though. Yellow Buffalo. Fun gun to shoot. One of the joys, I know I've said that before, of a lever gun. Particularly one that shoots a pistol cartridge. They're just a lot of fun. And the .45 Colt might be an option. If you are going to be reloading, or you already reloaded .45 Colt, you've got a gun that has an incredible amount of versatility right here. Because the Marlin will handle just about anything you can put in it. Believe me. It's just like a Ruger, like a big Redhawk or something. You get a gun like that in .454 Casull, or .45 Colt, it'll handle these same cartridges I'm shooting. And you can have a lot of fun with it. You can load it down, or you can load it pretty powerfully, and you can hunt with it, like I do. I hunt mainly just steel targets, but sometimes they're a little contrary, and don't want to fall. So it's kind of fun to reach over and box, and get some cases, and get them in the mood, or feel the need to. So, the Marlin 1894 Cowboy Limited. A lot of history in that gun I won't go into. I think I have before. It's been around a long time. A very reliable gun. A lot of fun to shoot. And I hope you lever gun addicts enjoyed that. So here at the compound, we're having fun, even on this hot, humid day. And life is always good.