By Jason Vincent
I grew up sitting on my grandfather’s lap at his reloading bench. Before I was even strong enough to run the press myself, he’d assist me in pulling the lever on his Rock Chucker to seat bullets. He’d pick up a finished cartridge, measure, inspect, and then place it in a sleeve. Mozart played in the background while he taught me to be slow and methodical. We were chasing true precision. The same lessons carried over on the range.
He died when I was 19, but that was more than enough time for him to imprint. I have his guns, his dyes, and his press. I even have some of the ammo we made together with his perfect cursive notations still on the sleeves. I can’t bring myself to shoot it. He’d rather I improve on his notes anyway.
Of all the things he taught me growing up, there was a lesson I completely missed because it was never vocalized. He must’ve thought it was self-explanatory, but I spent years wasting time because he overestimated my intelligence.
Don’t chase precision where it was never meant to exist.
I learned this lesson when I was around 30 years old. I was trying to find the most accurate load for my JM stamped Marlin 1895 in .444. I spent hours upon hours until I finally had it shooting one-inch groups at 100 yards. The only buck I shot with it that year was at 75 yards. The scoped rifle was ready for a 250-yard shot that I have not taken in the 13 years since, and never will. This is because I realized that while my grandfather and I chased precision in certain rifles, there were others in his collection that did not receive this same attention. He was ok with “good enough for the job” with certain guns because he was never going to rely on the minutia with them. I’m 43 now so I’ve had my “accuracy in all rifles” OCD in the rearview for over a decade.
Colonel Townsend Whelen once said, “Only accurate rifles are interesting.”
He was wrong.
A few months ago, on Instagram, I started showing the two-gun rifle battery I was taking to Australia for a buffalo, banteng and camel hunt. One of these was a Marlin Trapper .45-70 with an Aimpoint Acro mounted to a pic rail. Stainless everything with laminated stocks and a 16-inch barrel. It’s a compact, big-bore killing machine.
Immediately I started getting direct messages. “How’s the accuracy?” and “What size groups are you getting with the Buffalo Bore?” There’s nothing wrong with these questions, but my answer each time was something like, “I don’t really know how accurate the rifle is, but I’m able to shoot 3- to 4-inch groups at 100 yards with the red dot.”
The truth is, I’d spent less than an hour on the range shooting, getting a zero and deeming the rig good enough for what I’d be using it for. Accuracy wasn’t a priority. I was far more concerned with weather resistance, carry weight, and handiness in thick brush, and I knew my setup was dialed for these priorities.
When I got off the bush plane in Australia, I fired two rounds at 100 yards to confirm the airline-beating my rifle case took in transit didn’t change the Aimpoint’s zero. It didn’t, and my two shots fell under three inches from one another. Good enough.
Over the next two weeks, I didn’t miss a single shot on game with the Marlin. The rifle performed for running shots on feral donkeys, a fast double on a banteng in a thick wetland, and a walking boar. Dave Costarella borrowed it to kill a camel and made four fast hits before the animal went down.
For the rifle’s intended use, it’s exceptional. I still don’t know how accurate it could be, and I never will. It’s good enough, but it’ll never be Mozart…and it doesn’t have to be.
Pros: Lighter than most lever guns; short and handy in thick stuff; weather resistant; plenty accurate for its intended purpose as a brush gun; feeds and ejects perfectly; very well made
Cons: 385-pound trigger that’s probably drop-safe from the Sears Tower; the sights will rust in salty air
