Another rare Marlin daily plinker, 39 Mountie

[John M]

I also have a 39 TDS.

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Feral cat that had been taking our chickens.

[North Country Gal]

Nice, John. Good to see a 39 put to work like that.

[Rifletom]

NCG, that is a spendid 39M. I have a '57 39A that is a very good shooter; just so much fun to shoot. You did good finding that one. Enjoy!

[North Country Gal]

Thanks. Yeah, I'm already enjoying it. Brings out the Annie Oakley in me.

[daytime dave]

NCG, that's a great find. Congratulations. Your local shop seems to be a very nice honey hole. I like to think of my favorite place like that too.
I did not know about the first year mounties being a different length, thank you for the great history.

Always a wealth of information and fantastic firearms. Thank you for being a treasure here!

[PBSnooker]

Nice find. I have a 1968 mountie.

[Sir Henry]

Great thread. I’ve always wanted a 39M. It’s the one rifle that has always alluded me. Congratulations.

[North Country Gal]

Thanks guys. Appreciate the nice comments. Good to see other Marlin 39 owners, here, too.

Gene, they are around, but prices keep going up. The 39 will always hold its value, though.

[North Country Gal]

Since I will be using this marlin as a daily plinker and I do need a scope for that job, I found a way to mount a scope on this Marlin, even though it is not drilled and tapped for a scope mount. Yeah, did the Skinner dovetail red dot mount trick, again, same as I've done on my other vintage daily blinkers that were never tapped for scope mounting.


The scope is really interesting, though. In fact, didn't even know there was such a thing till I found it at a gun show last week. Talk about rare! It's a 3/4" tube vintage Redfield. Looks just like one of their famous 22 rimfire scopes, but it's actually an IER 2x scout scope of all things. That allowed me to mount it way out over the barrel instead of the receiver. Pretty cool. Hey, I may the only person ever to make a Marlin 39 into a scout rifle.

[cpaspr]

I don't have a Marlin, but I do have my grandfather's Remington 12A. Manufactured in 1911 I think, and, how shall I say it, , , It has "character". Cloth electrical tape around the wrist, that's been there at least 50 years, probably closer to 70 or 80, but I'm not that old yet, so can't say for sure. Missing the rear sight elevator, and per my dad was like that when he got it.

Maybe 8, 9 years ago, the last time i took my dad shooting I had that one with me, and had disassembled it to be able to fit in the hard case with two other rifles I brought out to shoot. When I pulled it out of the case and started to put it back together my dad said "I didn't know that came apart!" He apparently never questioned that big round knob on the left side.

I'll have to keep and eye out for a Marlin 39 now. Not that I 'need' any more guns, and especially not more .22s. But hey! What's need got to do with it? And I don't have any .22 lever guns (yet).

[North Country Gal]

Thanks. As far as 22 lever guns, it doesn't get any more classic than the Marlin 39. It's the granddaddy of all 22 lever guns. Everything else is a youngster by comparison. Shooting a 39 takes you back to another time. I get the same feeling with my pre-64 Model 94 Winchester.

I did upgrade the scope set up on the 39 just last week. It now wears a very rare 3x steel 5/8" tube Burris scout scope on an equally rare Bushnell Phantom scout mount. Optics are pristine, basically new in the box. This is a big upgrade over the jury rigged mount I was using. Once I get it loaded up, it's getting awfully hard to stop shooting this Marlin, now. It's become my favorite backyard plinker.

[Hatchdog]

That’s’ an interesting scope, 5/8” tube. Didn’t know modern scopes were available with such a small tube. That sure makes for a good looking set up.

[North Country Gal]

These 5/8", 3/4" and 7/8" tube scopes were from the early days of riflescopes, before everyone was scoping a rifle as an automatic thing. At the time, gun writers were pushing the new idea of using scopes on all rifles and gun makers responded by drilling and tapping more of their centerfire rifles for scope bases and adding grooved receivers to some of their older rimfire models. This would have been the 50s through the 70s, before 1" tube scopes became standard. No one on this side of the pond was using 30mm tube scopes, yet.

Some of these vintage steel tubed scopes in those old tube sizes have become quite collectible and now command some high prices.