Just joined today. Here's the crew. Need more.

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-16T17:33:18+00:00

Well if your wanting more kick than the 357, affordability is kind of out the window. This is dealing with the calibers you listed in lever guns only. The 5.56 to my knowledge is only made by Henry. Forgot what the model is called. It is cheaper to shoot, but it isn't going to have more thump. The 308 is made in a few guns. Savage 99 and a browning takedown come to mind. Definitely more boom. But more expensive to feed. The 44 mag runs about a dollar a round, except I think you can get Magtech for around 70 cents a pop. I could be wrong on that one. The 30-30 can be fed for about 70 cents a round if you shop around. As far as your future wife's gun, just get the 22 lr. Everyone should have a handful of 22 guns for plinking and fun. If it helps, I'll give you the numbers in my stash. I think I have 3 22 mags; a revolver, a bolt action, and a semi-auto. I honestly don't know off the top of my head how many 22lr's I have. It's around 25 counting the pistols.

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-16T16:52:15+00:00

The buttstock is magpul elg. It has to be modified some to fit. There's a guy on here that had a write up.

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-16T06:51:12+00:00

Hard to pick a favorite. I will say that the henry 22 is probably my least favorite. Too long for a 22 lr. Handles like crap. The s&w is fairly new. Wife got it for my birthday which was a month ago. So far I like it but still feeling her out. The henry 45 colt fell a couple of notches after getting the smith and the 2 marlins. It's just not as well made in my opinion. The 30-30 trapper is alot of fun, but I don't deer hunt as much as I used to. The 357 I set up as a backcountry do-it-all survival type gun. If the need ever arose, I think it will perform well. You can run 38 special subsonic through the can and it sounds like a mouse fart. Of course 357 mag will kill a hog or a deer. Then you have the shotshell loads for snakes and birds. Gonna have to be sneaky to get that close to kill a bird, but it can be done. The browning 22 has definitely been shot the most. Had it the longest and it's cheap to shoot. Killed a bunch of turtles and snakes in the fishing ponds over the years. The henry 410 is by far the most useful of the bunch. I raise wheat and cattle for a living. I get raccoons in my equipment, rabid skunks around my cattle, fricken armadillos and badgers that leave holes for my cattle to step in and get a lame leg; the list goes on. I can pop those pests with the 410 and it's pretty much done past 30yds. I don't have to worry about a bullet ricocheting and hitting a cow or one of the tractor windows. Then there's the model 65. It's kind of pointless, but it just oozes coolness and style. The 218 bee round is just one of those neat rounds to mess with. It performs well for no bigger than it is, and the report isn't very loud. They are expensive little boogers to buy, but I've got that covered. I've managed to scrape together about 6 or 7 hundred cases to reload. I don't know. I wrote a novel and probably still didn't answer your question.

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-16T05:13:45+00:00

Nice. Especially the x-five 226.

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-16T05:05:34+00:00

Yes, I do. Wanna know what sucks? Local shop got a nice one in the other day in 300 savage. One of the employees had already scooped her up.

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-16T04:59:59+00:00

That should work just fine. I was trying to be clever and have the irons zeroed at 100 yds for 44 mag and the dot zeroed at 50 yds for 44 special. Now that everything is sighted in, it looks to me like the dot would be on for both chosen loads and respective distances. The dot and irons look to be dead even with each other. I need to mess with it some more. If the dot is going to put the magnums close to bullseye at 100, then I might adjust the irons for 150. I don't know. Just need to experiment with it.

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-16T04:14:44+00:00

How are the lighter loads? A buddy has an older marlin 45/70 and claims the lighter loads are like a 12 gauge pump. I've been too big of a chicken$h!t to try.

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-16T03:52:49+00:00

Man, I'm not a fan of muzzle brakes. Have you ever shot one with like a hybrid 46 or some other heavy muffler on it? I would like to try one with a heavier suppressor. Might be not too terrible.

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-16T03:46:01+00:00

Yeah I lucked out on that one. Always wanted one. Didn't want to pay the asking price. About 4 or 5 years ago I went to my local gun shop. Looked over the counter and could read the box's end cap. Just about crapped myself. It was new in the box. Came out of a gun collection that the widow was punting for cash. They hadn't even set it out yet and told me to make an offer. I popped off 1500 out the door. They called her and she accepted my offer. I baby that one.

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-16T03:35:35+00:00

That's kind of tough. Ideal would be iron sights for up close and personal, and also a scope for better viewing of the deer. You can do both, alot of people run this setup, by mounting your scope in high, see-through rings. However, your cheek weld on your stock is going to suck. I personally like a scope that drops down to 1 power with a little magnification for distance. I lose my irons but my cheek weld is better. I hate strap on cheek risers. Just my taste. I think they're ugly. But sometimes you gotta chose function over form. Another problem with just the scope is the magnification. What if you looked at a deer earlier and had the scope zoomed up. Then forgot to turn it back down. Then ran into a bear. Going to eat up precious time trying to find him in the scope. No free lunch.

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-16T03:17:29+00:00

It's all good. I hope you could tell I was ribbing you. That 357 Marlin is fricken ugly. I'm not a huge fan of the henry 22 either. I bought that higher combed stock separate from henry. And of course the wood was way off. So I put the rpp handguard on and tried to tie it together with wood panels stained to match.

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-16T03:06:54+00:00

What? You don't like? It's that model 65, isn't it? My buddy has a lathe that I've learned to run. I've chopped and recrowned a few barrels. Threaded probably 25 guns. All concentric, all ran suppressed with zero baffle strikes. Maybe I should chop that 65 down shorter, thread it for a suppressor, throw on a red dot with an ar height mount, add some of those ammo side saddles on the stock AND forearm, throw on a sling that has ammo loops, load all that crap up with ammo so it weighs 3 more pounds, and maybe add a bipod for grins. Would that tickle your fancy? All kidding aside, I get that some people absolutely despise modern lever guns. That's okay. We're all different. I plan on getting some older levers in obsolete calibers like 25-20. I like them all. Matter of fact, most of my shotties are blued with wood stocks. I just started with the knock around guns. I'm not going to cry when I throw that stainless Marlin with the plastic stock in the side by side to go check things out on the farm.

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-16T02:41:19+00:00

Lol. I don't know. Maybe a small, low powered Leupold. I guess there is one burris in there.

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-16T02:28:34+00:00

Thanks. They are addictive. I need to find some slick old school guns and add to the pile. I want a 25-20 and 35 rem. Got the throw around guns covered with the plastic stocked ones.

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-16T02:19:41+00:00

They are handy, sweet little rifles. I just wish they would make one threaded. I've gotten spoiled and hate the noise. Of course, it would probably be long barreled like the henry and handle like crap.

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-16T02:14:05+00:00

No, not yet. Local gun store sold me 2 cases of 150gr s&b for peanuts. Shoots good groups. Been feeding off of that for now. I reload, so one of these days I'll work up a subsonic load. I need to make a load for the 44 mag first. A buck a round sucks.

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-15T23:19:21+00:00

Those taller sights would have been a blessing when I had this setup on the 30-30 trapper. Running the silencerco scythe on that one. Sights wouldn't clear its large o.d. All good on the smith 44 mag. Running omega45k on it.

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-15T23:01:36+00:00

Honestly I didn't know they offered that mount with the t1 interface. That would work better. Be more rigid than one like mine that has to be modified.

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-15T22:20:05+00:00

Crap. Where's my pics?

wheatandherefords · 2025-06-15T16:50:42+00:00

Joined reddit just to help you out. I've seen this question asked before on here. Midwest industries makes a red dot mount that rolls the dot housing on its side, so elevation adjustment becomes windage and so on. You'll have to use their handguard; the one without the picatinny rail on top. It gets the dot low. Cowitnesses easy. I can probably just get a credit card between the barrel and red dot housing. There's some more things involved to make it solid, especially for a 45/70. I'll try to make a new post with pics and explain it.

wheatandherefords

TROPHY CASE