Have you grown AR weary? I’m not here to knock the AR–it is a wonderful platform that we’ve all watched evolve in the last couple decades. I own plenty of them, used to compete with them and trust my life to four SBR’s strategically located around my house. But honestly, I’ve grown bored with black guns. We’ve just been supersaturated with all things AR and frankly, it’s just hard to get excited about the Modern Sporting Rifle anymore. Am I selling my collection? Nope…just looking for something new that excites me the way Eugene Stoner’s most successful progeny used to.

I may have found it!

Brandon Trevino, a project manager for Ruger, recently brought some of the new Ruger manufactured Marlin rifles to an event at Gunsite. In case you missed it, Ruger bought the Marlin assets from Remington when they went belly up about five years ago. Reputation for Remington-built Marlins was hit or miss with most consumers scouring the used market to buy a gun manufactured before Remington acquired them. The first thing Ruger did was to study the drawings, make revisions and throw out the antiquated machinery used to build the guns and invest in all new fixtures. The result is Marlin-marked guns that are the best that have ever been made. 

Marlin’s New 1894 Trapper .357 Magnum

As I looked over the folding table filled with Ruger and Marlin long guns, one caught my eye. It was a Marlin 1894 Trapper chambered for .357 Magnum, which Ruger reintroduced in the summer of 2024. Picking it up was like shaking hands with an old friend. It came up to my shoulder effortlessly, and I had a solid stock weld when looking through the Skinner peep sight. Picking up a box of DoubleTap 158-grain Full Metal Jacket Flat Point, I loaded eight rounds into the loading gate and levered a round into the chamber. 

My target is what the instructors at Gunsite call the Gumdrop, and its steel profile approximates the heart and lung area of a man. It was as if I couldn’t miss! At 35-yards I fired as quickly as I could cycle the smooth lever gun and was rewarded with the metallic ping of a hit for each shot. Later on, we walked Gunsite’s Military Crest and engaged steel targets from 200-300-yards, and when I did my part I connected at those ranges. When we secured for the day, I made arrangements with Trevino to get a T&E sample of the Trapper to perform more in-depth accuracy testing.

Trapper Details

One of the things that impressed me about the Trapper is its tremendous balance. I could easily carry the gun with my hand around the receiver. Without an optic, the little carbine is trim and sleek with its balance point right at the lever’s pivot. Unloaded the Trapper weighs 6.3 pounds, but I would have guessed much less based on how easy it was to carry.

Just a week or so after my visit to Gunsite I received my sample of the Marlin 1894 Trapper chambered for .357 Magnum. I have to admit as I unboxed the carbine, I had the same excitement I felt shooting the gun a week earlier. As I held the gun I thought, whoever the project manager was on this gun had some really good people advising him or her. 

The 1894 Trapper is constructed from stainless steel and offers the user a certain degree of rust and corrosion resistance. Ruger heavily bead-blasts the main components to give the parts a frosted or satin look, which is less likely to spook game than a polished mirror-like finish. Smaller steel parts and lockwork are nickeled and match nicely. The Trapper’s black and gray laminated buttstock and forend are impregnated with resin to prevent them from warping due to moisture. 

Components Promote Shooting

Ruger outfits the Trapper with a rubber buttpad, not because of the .357 Magnum’s ferocious recoil, but because it has a gummy quality that won’t slide once the shooter mounts the rifle even if they’re wearing a nylon vest. Both the stock and forend have sling swivel studs for those that want to equip their Trapper with a sling, and both have checkering to provide the shooter with some gripping texture. 

The Trapper has a 16.1-inch stainless-steel barrel which has six-groove rifling with a 1:16 RH twist. The slow twist seemed to handle bullets from 100 grains all the way up through 158 grains equally well based on group size. Ruger threads the muzzle of the Trapper ½-28 for suppressor use and includes a thread-protector cap. 

Marlin’s oversized lever loop gives the Trapper its distinctive look and makes cycling the action easier when using gloves. The action on my Trapper operates smoothly and didn’t require any kind of break-in and the trigger breaks as crisply as any of my custom 1911s with 3.75 pounds of pressure. 

Safety Features

One feature Ruger included on the Trapper is the receiver crossbolt safety. You’ll notice the round button about an inch above the trigger and pushing it to the left disengages the safety and vice versa. When engaged the safety presents a mechanical block to the hammer. This rifle retains the half-cock position of the hammer. When carrying the Trapper with a round in the chamber, I activate the safety by pushing the button to the right. Then, while holding the hammer I apply pressure to the trigger and slowly lower the hammer to half cock. To get the rifle into action, simply push the button safety from left to right and thumb the hammer back to full cock.

One of the appealing things about the Marlin Trapper is that it is a short- range carbine and there are no optics on it to ruin its sleek lines. With its short barrel and smooth cycling action it’s a handy gun to keep in the truck, ATV or RV.

Skinner Sights

I’ve been friends with Andy Larsson at Skinner Sights for a lot of years and was glad to see Ruger included his excellent sights on the Marlin Trapper. The rear sight mounts on the receiver top, adjusting for windage by loosening the rear set screw and moving the sight right or left. Elevation on the peep sight adjusts by screwing the sight up or down.

Larsson calls his front sight the Bear Buster, and the snag-free sight has a ramp filled with white enamel for contrast. Larsson told me with a chuckle, “If you’re in polar bear territory you might want to color that ramp with florescent orange.” In use, the shooter simply looks through the peep rear sight and places the front sight on the target they need to hit. There is no lining up of sights and that makes the Skinner sights incredibly fast to use. 

Shots Fired

Because this is a fast-handling carbine designed for jump shooting and chambered for a pistol caliber, I tested it for accuracy at 50 yards. I fired each of my five-shot groups from a seated position using a DOA Tactical portable bench. I cradled the Trapper’s forend in a sand-filled Caldwell Tack-Driver bag for a rock-solid sight picture. Three groups were fired with each of the ammunitions tested with the best group being recorded in the accuracy chart.

I’d have saved myself a lot of trouble if I had read the manual before taking the Trapper out to shoot. I started my session using Blazer .357 Magnum 158-grain JHPs and quickly found the soft aluminum cases would not cycle through the action. In fact, I would have had a better chance of cycling a piece of chewing gum through the action. It took me at least 20 minutes to extract the five rounds from the gun. I was, however, able to shoot groups by single loading each round into the Trapper’s chamber. My first groups were about 3 inches high, so I screwed the rear sight down a half turn and that was all it took to get the Trapper on target.

Ammo Tested: Marlin 1894 Trapper

Doubletap’s .357 Magnum 158-grain FMJ-Flat Point rounds is a favorite of mine for range work with a revolver, and they proved to be the most accurate in the Trapper. I was able to place five rounds into a neat group that measured just over an inch. Federal’s .357 Magnum 158-grain Jacketed Solid Point churned up the most energy with 1,142 foot-pounds of energy and Remington’s 165-grain Core-Lokt right behind it with 1,039. Both of these loads were mild to shoot from the bench and the recoil barely noticeable. The .38 Special loads were more like shooting a .22 and would be the ideal way to introduce a new shooter to a centerfire rifle. Wadcutter rounds had virtually no recoil, but their short length required me to load them directly into the chamber rather than load them into the magazine.

Rounds fed smoothly through the Trapper and extraction and ejection were positive. Really the only problem I had was with the aluminum-cased Blazer rounds. I set out my MGM BC C-zone steel target at 50 yards and loaded a mixture of .357 Magnum and .38 Special in the tubular magazine. Firing as quickly as I could get a sight picture and cycle the action, I was rewarded with 100% hits. Repeating this process several times proved to me that mixing cases with different overall lengths in the Trapper’s tubular magazine does not interfere with its reliability. By the way, the magazine capacity for .357 Magnum is eight rounds and nine for .38 Special. 

Picking Nits

I have two very small criticisms of the Marlin Trapper. First, for a gun meant for quick handling and snap shooting, I found the buttstock a little long. The length of pull is 13.38 inches, and I’m thinking it would be just about perfect if I trim about a ½-inch off the stock. This job remains reserved for a professional gunsmith to handle; I want the rubber pad reinstalled after shortening the stock. I just don’t possess the necessary skill and tools to make it look like it left the factory this way. The second criticism I can handle myself. The loading gate cover has a sharp edge that drew blood during my range session. I’ll use a round hard Arkansas stone to bevel this knife-like edge.

Put the Fun Back in Funtastic

If you’ve never spent a range session with a lever gun you owe it to yourself to try one. I had a lot of fun shooting the new Marlin Trapper built by Ruger! It is a handsome gun and has great balance and fast-handling characteristics. It’s more accurate than I am, and the recoil is negligible. The Trapper is weather and corrosion resistant and it’s powerful enough for mid-size game, predators and vermin, both four- and two-legged. And the versatility of the .357 Magnum and .38 Special cartridges makes the Trapper mission adaptable for training recoil sensitive shooters to hunting to home or RV defense.

Best of all, the Marlin 1894 Trapper doesn’t carry with it all of the negative aspersions that an AR does. It should prove legal in any locale permitting firearms; a cool-handed and practiced individual will prove just as well protected with the Trapper in their hands!

For more info on the Marlin 1894 Trapper, visit marlinfirearms.com.

Marlin 1894 Trapper Specs

• Action: Lever
• Caliber: .357 Magnum
• Overall Capacity: 8 (.357 Magnum), 9 (.38 Special)
• Barrel: 16.1-inch Cold Hammer Forged; Stainless Steel
• Groove: 6
• Rifle Twist: 1:16″, RH
• Muzzle Thread: 1/2×28
• Overall Length: 33.25 inches
• Overall Weight: 6.3 pounds
• Finish: Matte Stainless Steel
• Stock & Forend: Laminated Black/Gray Wood, Checkering, Rubber Buttpad, Sling Swivel Studs
• Length of Pull: 13.38 inches
• Sights: Skinner
• MSRP: $1,499