140 years (+ -) Years Old, WCF Octagonal Barrel Lever Action.

This 1881 is number 257.  It has very distinctive markings and a beautiful patina on the stock.

In July 31, 2024  Issue of Guns & Ammo, an article by Dave Emary was published describing the historical path to the development of this magnificent fire arm.   The following are excerpts from the article:  

Curiously, the “model 1811” was not called that by Marlin until 1888.  It was initially referred to as the “Marlin Repeating Rifle.” and it was offered as a catalog item until 1891.  Approximately 20,500 Model 1881 rifles were produced.  The 1881 Marlin was the gun that set off the first horsepower race in the shooting sports industry, which has been ongoing for more than 140 years.  It also directly led to the John Browning - designed 1886 Winchester, 5 years later, an answer by Winchester to the 1881 Marlin. Since the first rounds of copper-cased fixed ammunition began to appear around the time of the Civil War, there has been a constant push for  more powerful cartridges and repeating rifles to fire them.  The sharps rifles chambered some very powerful cartridges for the time , but those were single-shot.

Along Came the 1881 Marlin

John Mahlon Marlin established a name for himself in the firearms business by the early 1870s by making small revolvers and derringers. The Marlin Firearms Company began manufacturing Ballard single-shot rifles in 1875, which further added to Marlin’s reputation for making fine firearms. Marlin was well aware of the desire for a repeating rifle that would handle the .45-­70 Gov’t, so he teamed with Andrew Burgess who already had patents for an under-barrel tubular magazine lever-action rifle design. The result of the collaboration produced Marlin’s first rifle, the Model 1881. It was the first lever-action repeating rifle that could handle the full power .45-­70 Gov’t cartridge. The 1878 Remington-­Keene bolt action, a tube-­fed rifle, was the first repeater to chamber the .45-­70, but lever-action rifles were much more in demand in the U.S. at this time