I am a big marlin rifle fan. I currently own 5 and I bought one for my girlfriend.

All of them except for my 925 were used.

Yet, all of the used ones have given me nothing but reliability while my 925 has been one small thing after another.

When I first purchased it, the takedown screw was loose. I caught this before ever taking it to the range.

Then when I finally took it to the range, the POI was way off from the POA. I basically just let the rifle sit for months after its first run since I have other rifles which I don't need to screw with to get them to shoot.

I found some fiber optic sights (see my post under the optics section on firesights) sights I liked online and figured I would install them on the 925 since if I liked them, that would solve the sight issue on that gun and maybe inspire me to use it more and if I hated them, it was on a gun I didn't shoot anyway.

The sights worked out great, but less than 200 rounds (honestly not much more than 100 rounds) into the guns life (as in total rounds ever fired through it), the bolt starts failing to lock back so when you pull the trigger nothing happens.

I checked out the bolt and while the bolt is easy to take apart, the machining and materials look considerably cheaper than older marlins. There is a part on the bolt where the metal is broken through. It doesn't look like it will hurt anything, but it will let the firing pin return spring get clogged up with junk.

Anyway, the problem turned out to be the screw that holds the entire trigger in place was really loose. I tightened it back up and put some loctite in it. All was good again.

What gives though? How is it that older marlin rifles can go a lifetime and never have any problems and this new marlin rifle is just one small thing after another?

I love the rifle (even if the trigger does kind of blow compared to other .22 rifles), but should I really have to recheck that the people at Marlin tightened everything like they should?

-Zach