I have both guns. My Marlin is a pre-Remington takeover model.

As Clivej says, the Rossi is a top ejection model and this means that most people use a scout scope that is fitted forward of the ejection port. Scout scopes mean less magnification. Not necessarily a problem at 50m but I prefer higher magnification. I've never seen anybody use a shell deflector to allow an ordinary scope to be fitted to a Rossi.

An advantage of the scout scope is that you can have fractionally quicker target acquisition. So advantantages and disadvantages with scout scopes.

The Rossi is fractionally more difficult to load, I find it harder on the fingers when loading the gun but that can be overcome by practice and toughening up the fingers (and removing the sharp edges from the loading gate with a bit of emery paper).

I haven't weighed the guns but the Rossi seems lighter than the Marlin.

The Rossi does't have the reliability issues that plagued the first lot of Marlin guns that were produced by Remington. The new batch seem to be fine but just be careful you don't get a so-called 'Remlin'. That batch were sh1te. I've heard of reputable gunsmiths who couldn't make them reliable. In other words, you won't get a bad Rossi but you might get a bad Marlin (produced by Remington).

If I was allowed to use two guns in the one competition, I'd use the Rossi at 10m and 15m and I'd use the Marlin at 25m+.

I use the Marlin much more than I use the Rossi mainly because I prefer more magnification but the Rossi is a lovely gun and several top shooters use them and do very well indeed with them.

RS98 wrote: »

Just a couple more, how important is the round count on these and after how many should I be worried?

I only know of one shooter in the UK who had to change their barrel due to the round count so I don't think it's an issue. It did have an incredibly high round count if the shooter could be believed. He claimed that it had over 40,000 rounds through it. The only other times I've heard of someone having to change the barrel is due to damage or bulging in the barrel caused by a squib load.

It's nearly the price of a new gun to change the barrel on a Marlin. (again I'm open to correction on that).

Also, any advantage to the 44 over the 38 other than slightly bigger holes in paper? Worth it for the extra recoil?

The bigger holes from the .44 is an advantage and is favoured by many UK shooters but the extra recoil is a negative. The UK shooters have the advantage of being allowed to reload their ammo so they can tailor their rounds to reduce the amount of recoil. They can have .44's with less recoil than a .38. We don't have that advantage here.

How much can I expect to pay for the Rossi new/ second hand?

I think they are in around €800 - €900 for a new one. I've mine a good few years now so I could be a little out with that price.

Finally, would most restricted dealers have these in stock?

You'd be best off to phone around and see if anyone has them and they'd be best placed to tell you the price.

clivej wrote: »

up to .308 is unrestricted, everything bigger is restricted. .38 spl is bigger

Thanks for the explanations. I would have never thought of that.

Can pump action centrefires be used for gallery ? Never seen one used, but they are not as common as levers. IMI used do a pistol calibre centrefire, the timberwolf it was called.

RS98 wrote: »

Its not necessarily that all centerfire lever actions are restricted, it's just that the ones mentioned here use bullets of caliber > 0.308 inch which is the cut off for unrestricted.

If you had a 270 win lever action for example it'd be unrestricted as far as I know.

Would the rules of the sport allow you to fire an 1895 270 winchester in a CF gallery competition in Ireland?

tudderone wrote: »

So .500 S&W or .454 casull then :rolleyes: ?

No experience of the .500 S&W but the kick from the .454 casull pistol I shot before was something else. You wouldn't fire too many of those yokes without your shoulders coming loose at the sockets.