Ruger 10/22 vs Marlin Model 60 : The One the Internet Got Wrong

A man walks into a gun shop wanting a cheap 22 so he can stop burning through expensive rifle ammo every range trip finds these two sitting side by side on the rack $30 apart. The Ruger 1022 and the Marlin Model 60, the two most owned 22 rifles in American history. And he has to pick one.

So he does what we all do now. He goes home and watches somebody shoot them both at paper and crown a winner. And there is a good chance he just got told the wrong answer. Because here is what happens when you actually ask the people who have owned both of these for 40 years. They do not agree with the thumbnail. And by the end of this, you are going to know which of these two rifles genuinely shoots better and which one you should actually buy.

Those might not be the same answer. There is more going on with these two little rifles than anybody puts on a target. Let me tell you why this is even a fight worth having. These are not just two 22s. These are the 22s. The rifles that a whole country learned to shoot on. If you are watching this, there is a very good chance one of these two was the first gun you ever fired or the one you handed to your kid or the one sitting in the closet right now with 60 years of squirrel hunting on it.

And because they both fired the exact same little 22 long rifle cartridge, this is not a fight about ballistics. The bullet is identical. This is a fight about the rifle itself, about how it shoots, how it feeds, how it lasts, and whether the one you can still buy is actually the better gun.

That last part is where the story gets interesting. Start with where they came from, because that explains almost everything about how they behave. The Marlin Model 60 came first in 1960. It feeds from a tube that runs under the barrel the same way a lot of old lever guns do, and you load it by dropping rounds in one at a time.

It went on to become one of the most produced rifles of any single design in the history of the world with well over 11 million of them made. 11 million. Your family probably owns one and does not even think about it. It is just the 22 in the corner. The Ruger 1022 showed up 4 years later in 1964 from Bill Ruger. And it did one thing completely differently.

A thing that turned out to define the entire rest of its life. Instead of a tube, it feeds from a detachable magazine. A clever little 10 round rotary design that clicks in and out of the bottom of the rifle. That one decision, a removable box magazine instead of a fixed tube, is the seed that everything else grows from.

The reloading, the capacity, the customizing, all of it traces back to that single choice. And we will follow that thread all the way down. Now, the question everybody actually wants answered, which one shoots better? And here the answer is clear. It is a little surprising and it is the exact opposite of what a lot of these comparison videos conclude.

Out of the box bone stock, the Marlin Model 60 is generally the more accurate rifle. And the people who will tell you that loudest are the ones who own both. Ask around among lifelong shooters and you hear the same thing over and over. The old Marlin quietly outshoots the Ruger and it does it without a single dollar of modification. There is a reason for this and it is not an accident.

It comes down to the barrel. Back in 1953, Marlin started cutting their 22 barrels with something they called micro groove rifling. Now, the inside of a normal rifle barrel has a handful of spiral grooves cut into it, usually six or eight. They grip the bullet and spin it to make it fly straight. Marlin did something different.

Instead of six or eight deep grooves, they cut 16 very shallow ones. The idea is that a whole bunch of small shallow grooves grip that soft lead pill more gently and more evenly than a few deep ones. They deform it less as it goes down the barrel. And a bullet that leaves the barrel less deformed flies truer.

On a soft lead 22 bullet, it genuinely works. Pair that micro groove barrel with the long barrel the older Model 60s wore and you get a rifle that shoots tighter groups than it has any right to for the money. That is the whole secret of the Marlin, and it is a good one. But before you go sell your Ruger, I have to tell you the single most important thing about 22. Accuracy.

The thing that matters more than which rifle you are holding. And if you want the honest version of this stuff instead of a thumbnail crowning a winner, subscribe because that is the entire point of this channel. Here is the truth that every serious 22 shooter knows and every beginner learns the hard way.

With a 22, the ammunition matters more than the rifle. far more. These little rimfire rounds vary a lot from brand to brand, and every individual rifle has its own preferences, almost like a personality. One Model 60 will shoot one brand into a single ragged hole and throw another brand all over the paper. The Ruger next to it might have the exact opposite taste.

This is why an experienced shooter will buy five or six different kinds of .22 ammo and shoot them all. He finds the one his particular rifle loves and then feeds it nothing else. Pick one ammo, sight in for that one ammo, and stick with it. And this is exactly why you should be a little skeptical of any video that shoots three shots of a couple different brands and declares a winner.

That is not a test. That is noise. On a different afternoon with a different box of ammo, the loser becomes the winner. The rifle that wins a small casual accuracy test on Tuesday can lose it on Wednesday because the real variable being measured was the ammo the whole time. So, when you hear that one of these rifles beat the other by a hair on the bench, the honest response is with what ammo and how many times, real 22 accuracy is a long conversation between one specific rifle and one specific box of ammo. And it does not fit in three

shots. Quick thing before we go further, because it is the whole reason people end up with the wrong gun in the first place. The reason a man walks out of the shop with the wrong rifle is simple. He walked in not knowing what any of this actually costs or what each one is truly good at.

And the guy behind the counter just points at whatever is on the shelf. That is what the preer firearms guide is built to fix. 105 pages. Which guns are genuinely worth your money, what they really cost with the month and the year on every price. And how to think about what you actually need before you spend a dime.

Scan the QR code on your screen or the link is in the description. and that is the only time I will bring it up. Now, back to the rifles because the Ruger is about to make its case. So, if the Marlin quietly wins on accuracy, why on earth does the Ruger 1022 out sell it and outsell nearly everything else by a country mile? Because accuracy was never the only thing that mattered.

And in every other category, the Ruger has an answer. Start with that magazine. Because the Ruger feeds from a detachable box, reloading is instant. You drop an empty magazine, snap in a full one, and you are shooting again in 2 seconds. The Marlin with its tube you feed one round at a time down the loading port, and topping it off takes a while.

If you are plinking through brick after brick of ammo on a lazy afternoon, that speed adds up. And the Ruger capacity is flexible. It comes with a 10 round magazine, but you can drop in a 25 round magazine and keep going. The Marlin tube holds what it holds, and that is the end of it. Then there is the big one, the thing that truly made the Ruger, a legend, the aftermarket.

The 1022 is, without any real competition, the most customizable rifle on the planet. People call it the building block 22 or the 22 version of the AR-15. And it is not an exaggeration. There is an entire industry built around this one rifle. You can replace the barrel, the trigger, the stock, the bolt, every single part.

You can assemble a complete better than factory 1022 without using one original Ruger piece. Do not like the trigger? There are 100 replacements. Want a target barrel, a folding stock, a red dot setup? All of it drops right in. The Marlin Model 60, by contrast, is a rifle you shoot the way it left the factory.

There is almost nothing made to modify it. And that is the whole difference in one line. The Marlin is a finished rifle. The Ruger is a starting point. If that honest split is what you came for instead of a forced winner, subscribe because that is what this channel is for. Now, let me be fair and honest about the real weaknesses of the Marlin because it has a couple and you should know them going in.

First, the trigger. A stock Model 60 trigger is not great. It is heavier and rougher than it should be. And unlike on the Ruger, you cannot just order a better one. So, you are stuck learning to shoot the trigger it came with. The fact that the Marlin still outshoots the Ruger despite a worse trigger tells you just how good that micro groove barrel really is.

Second, there is a small plastic part inside called the buffer that takes the impact of the bolt. And on a well-used Model 60, it wears out and cracks. It is a cheap part and an easy fix, but it is a known weak spot and some owners find themselves replacing it more than they would like.

And third, that tube magazine really is slower to load. Though here, the old-timers have a trick worth knowing. They make their own speed loaders out of a length of clear tubing, loaded up with a full tube worth of rounds ahead of time. Then they just slide the whole thing into the tube [music] at once. Problem mostly solved. And unlike the Ruger, you have got nothing to lose or leave at home.

That tube versus box question actually cuts both ways. And it is worth sitting on for a second. Yes, the box magazine is faster and holds more and lets you swap in a fresh one instantly. But the tube has its own count of virtues. There is no magazine to lose, no magazine to buy three spares of, no magazine to leave in your other range bag.

The rifle is always complete, and a fixed tube feeds some ammo that a semi-automatic can choke on. There is a heavy, slow 60 grain subsonic round, for instance. That a lot of 1022s will not reliably cycle. It does not generate enough energy to work the action, [music] and the Marlin will feed it along without complaint.

For a certain kind of shooter, the tube is a feature, not a flaw. The one who wants a simple rifle just works with whatever is on the shelf and has no small parts to misplace. Now, here is something. The people who have owned these for decades will [music] tell you, and it matters for both rifles. The older ones are better across the board.

Shooters who have handled examples for multiple decades say the same thing. Both the Marlin and the Ruger were built to a higher standard years ago than they are today. The older Marlins with their longer barrels and their pre-corporate quality are the ones with the real reputation for tack driving accuracy.

The older Rugers are frequently described as noticeably better made than the newer production. This is partly a story about how both of these guns quietly got a little cheaper over the decades as companies changed hands and costs got trimmed. So, if you are shopping used and finding a good used one is very doable, an older example of either rifle is often the smart buy, not the new one on the shelf.

Which brings us to the strangest twist in this whole story. And it changes how you should think about the entire comparison. You cannot walk into a store today and buy a new Marlin Model 60. It is out of production. And the reason why is genuinely something. In 2020, the Remington Company, which owned Marlin at the time, went bankrupt and its brands were sold off.

And the company that stepped in and bought Marlin for around $30 million, was Ruger, the same Ruger that makes the 1022. So today, one single company owns both of these rival rifles. And Ruger made a choice. They restarted production of the expensive Marlin high-end lever action rifles, the ones that sell for real money.

and they left the humble Model 60 sitting on the shelf discontinued. Think about why [music] the Model 60 is cheaper than the 1022. If Ruger started cranking them out again, they would be selling a rifle that competes directly with their own 1022 at a lower price. Why would they do that? So, the more accurate rifle out of the box, the TC driver is the one they quietly chose not to make.

because it would undercut the customizable money maker they already own. And that has a real world effect on you, the buyer. Because they stopped making it, used Model [music] 60 prices have been climbing. And the little parts, those buffers and springs are getting harder to find and more expensive. The good news is that with 11 million of them out there, clean used ones are still everywhere [music] and still a genuine bargain.

But the window on that is slowly closing. And the smart move, if you want one, is not to wait. So, after all of that, which one do you actually buy? And the honest answer, the one that fits real people instead of a thumbnail, depends entirely on who you are. Do you want a rifle you can buy brand new today with a warranty in any gun store? One that feeds from quick swapping magazines and customizes into anything you can dream up? That is the Ruger 1022, and it is not close.

It is the better platform, the more practical rifle, and the more fun one to tinker with. And that is exactly why it has outsold everything for 60 years. For a first gun, a kids gun, or a lifelong plinker you will endlessly modify. Buy the Ruger and never look back. But say what you want is the most accurate 22 you can get for the least money.

A simple rifle that just shoots. Then hunt down a clean used Marlin Model 60, preferably an older one with the long barrel. feed it one good ammo that it likes and use it to actually hit squirrels and paper with boring precision. It will outshoot rifles costing three times as much. Just do it soon because they are not making any more of them and the people who know that are already buying.

And if you have a little room in the safe, the truth that half the owners of these rifles will tell you is the realest answer of all. Get both. They are two different tools that happen to look similar. One is a finished shooting and one is an endless project. And there is a reason so many people who set out to buy one came home over the years with both.

A couple of others worth a mention since [music] somebody is going to ask. Marlin made a version of the 60 called the 795 that takes a detachable magazine instead of the tube and it is also sadly discontinued now with parts drying up. The Savage 64 and the Mossberg family [music] of budget 22s are cheaper still and worth a look if money is the whole object.

And if this kind of head-to-head is your thing, the old lever guns, the Marlin 39 and the Henry [music] are a beautiful fight for another day. If you want the full breakdown of what every one of these rifles is really worth [music] and what to look for when you go shopping, that whole guide is linked below. That is [music] the last I will say about it.

We are a growing crowd here on the road to 100,000. 100,000 shooters who would rather have the honest answer than the easy one. If this one earned it, come along. Buy the Ruger to tinker with and buy the Marlin to shoot. Just do not wait too long.

Ruger 10/22 vs Marlin Model 60 : The One the Internet Got Wrong

A man walks into a gun shop wanting a cheap 22 so he can stop burning through expensive rifle ammo every range trip finds these two sitting side by side on the rack $30 apart. The Ruger 1022 and the Marlin Model 60, the two most owned 22 rifles in American history. And he has to pick one.

So he does what we all do now. He goes home and watches somebody shoot them both at paper and crown a winner. And there is a good chance he just got told the wrong answer. Because here is what happens when you actually ask the people who have owned both of these for 40 years. They do not agree with the thumbnail. And by the end of this, you are going to know which of these two rifles genuinely shoots better and which one you should actually buy.

Those might not be the same answer. There is more going on with these two little rifles than anybody puts on a target. Let me tell you why this is even a fight worth having. These are not just two 22s. These are the 22s. The rifles that a whole country learned to shoot on. If you are watching this, there is a very good chance one of these two was the first gun you ever fired or the one you handed to your kid or the one sitting in the closet right now with 60 years of squirrel hunting on it.

And because they both fired the exact same little 22 long rifle cartridge, this is not a fight about ballistics. The bullet is identical. This is a fight about the rifle itself, about how it shoots, how it feeds, how it lasts, and whether the one you can still buy is actually the better gun.

That last part is where the story gets interesting. Start with where they came from, because that explains almost everything about how they behave. The Marlin Model 60 came first in 1960. It feeds from a tube that runs under the barrel the same way a lot of old lever guns do, and you load it by dropping rounds in one at a time.

It went on to become one of the most produced rifles of any single design in the history of the world with well over 11 million of them made. 11 million. Your family probably owns one and does not even think about it. It is just the 22 in the corner. The Ruger 1022 showed up 4 years later in 1964 from Bill Ruger. And it did one thing completely differently.

A thing that turned out to define the entire rest of its life. Instead of a tube, it feeds from a detachable magazine. A clever little 10 round rotary design that clicks in and out of the bottom of the rifle. That one decision, a removable box magazine instead of a fixed tube, is the seed that everything else grows from.

The reloading, the capacity, the customizing, all of it traces back to that single choice. And we will follow that thread all the way down. Now, the question everybody actually wants answered, which one shoots better? And here the answer is clear. It is a little surprising and it is the exact opposite of what a lot of these comparison videos conclude.

Out of the box bone stock, the Marlin Model 60 is generally the more accurate rifle. And the people who will tell you that loudest are the ones who own both. Ask around among lifelong shooters and you hear the same thing over and over. The old Marlin quietly outshoots the Ruger and it does it without a single dollar of modification. There is a reason for this and it is not an accident.

It comes down to the barrel. Back in 1953, Marlin started cutting their 22 barrels with something they called micro groove rifling. Now, the inside of a normal rifle barrel has a handful of spiral grooves cut into it, usually six or eight. They grip the bullet and spin it to make it fly straight. Marlin did something different.

Instead of six or eight deep grooves, they cut 16 very shallow ones. The idea is that a whole bunch of small shallow grooves grip that soft lead pill more gently and more evenly than a few deep ones. They deform it less as it goes down the barrel. And a bullet that leaves the barrel less deformed flies truer.

On a soft lead 22 bullet, it genuinely works. Pair that micro groove barrel with the long barrel the older Model 60s wore and you get a rifle that shoots tighter groups than it has any right to for the money. That is the whole secret of the Marlin, and it is a good one. But before you go sell your Ruger, I have to tell you the single most important thing about 22. Accuracy.

The thing that matters more than which rifle you are holding. And if you want the honest version of this stuff instead of a thumbnail crowning a winner, subscribe because that is the entire point of this channel. Here is the truth that every serious 22 shooter knows and every beginner learns the hard way.

With a 22, the ammunition matters more than the rifle. far more. These little rimfire rounds vary a lot from brand to brand, and every individual rifle has its own preferences, almost like a personality. One Model 60 will shoot one brand into a single ragged hole and throw another brand all over the paper. The Ruger next to it might have the exact opposite taste.

This is why an experienced shooter will buy five or six different kinds of .22 ammo and shoot them all. He finds the one his particular rifle loves and then feeds it nothing else. Pick one ammo, sight in for that one ammo, and stick with it. And this is exactly why you should be a little skeptical of any video that shoots three shots of a couple different brands and declares a winner.

That is not a test. That is noise. On a different afternoon with a different box of ammo, the loser becomes the winner. The rifle that wins a small casual accuracy test on Tuesday can lose it on Wednesday because the real variable being measured was the ammo the whole time. So, when you hear that one of these rifles beat the other by a hair on the bench, the honest response is with what ammo and how many times, real 22 accuracy is a long conversation between one specific rifle and one specific box of ammo. And it does not fit in three

shots. Quick thing before we go further, because it is the whole reason people end up with the wrong gun in the first place. The reason a man walks out of the shop with the wrong rifle is simple. He walked in not knowing what any of this actually costs or what each one is truly good at.

And the guy behind the counter just points at whatever is on the shelf. That is what the preer firearms guide is built to fix. 105 pages. Which guns are genuinely worth your money, what they really cost with the month and the year on every price. And how to think about what you actually need before you spend a dime.

Scan the QR code on your screen or the link is in the description. and that is the only time I will bring it up. Now, back to the rifles because the Ruger is about to make its case. So, if the Marlin quietly wins on accuracy, why on earth does the Ruger 1022 out sell it and outsell nearly everything else by a country mile? Because accuracy was never the only thing that mattered.

And in every other category, the Ruger has an answer. Start with that magazine. Because the Ruger feeds from a detachable box, reloading is instant. You drop an empty magazine, snap in a full one, and you are shooting again in 2 seconds. The Marlin with its tube you feed one round at a time down the loading port, and topping it off takes a while.

If you are plinking through brick after brick of ammo on a lazy afternoon, that speed adds up. And the Ruger capacity is flexible. It comes with a 10 round magazine, but you can drop in a 25 round magazine and keep going. The Marlin tube holds what it holds, and that is the end of it. Then there is the big one, the thing that truly made the Ruger, a legend, the aftermarket.

The 1022 is, without any real competition, the most customizable rifle on the planet. People call it the building block 22 or the 22 version of the AR-15. And it is not an exaggeration. There is an entire industry built around this one rifle. You can replace the barrel, the trigger, the stock, the bolt, every single part.

You can assemble a complete better than factory 1022 without using one original Ruger piece. Do not like the trigger? There are 100 replacements. Want a target barrel, a folding stock, a red dot setup? All of it drops right in. The Marlin Model 60, by contrast, is a rifle you shoot the way it left the factory.

There is almost nothing made to modify it. And that is the whole difference in one line. The Marlin is a finished rifle. The Ruger is a starting point. If that honest split is what you came for instead of a forced winner, subscribe because that is what this channel is for. Now, let me be fair and honest about the real weaknesses of the Marlin because it has a couple and you should know them going in.

First, the trigger. A stock Model 60 trigger is not great. It is heavier and rougher than it should be. And unlike on the Ruger, you cannot just order a better one. So, you are stuck learning to shoot the trigger it came with. The fact that the Marlin still outshoots the Ruger despite a worse trigger tells you just how good that micro groove barrel really is.

Second, there is a small plastic part inside called the buffer that takes the impact of the bolt. And on a well-used Model 60, it wears out and cracks. It is a cheap part and an easy fix, but it is a known weak spot and some owners find themselves replacing it more than they would like.

And third, that tube magazine really is slower to load. Though here, the old-timers have a trick worth knowing. They make their own speed loaders out of a length of clear tubing, loaded up with a full tube worth of rounds ahead of time. Then they just slide the whole thing into the tube [music] at once. Problem mostly solved. And unlike the Ruger, you have got nothing to lose or leave at home.

That tube versus box question actually cuts both ways. And it is worth sitting on for a second. Yes, the box magazine is faster and holds more and lets you swap in a fresh one instantly. But the tube has its own count of virtues. There is no magazine to lose, no magazine to buy three spares of, no magazine to leave in your other range bag.

The rifle is always complete, and a fixed tube feeds some ammo that a semi-automatic can choke on. There is a heavy, slow 60 grain subsonic round, for instance. That a lot of 1022s will not reliably cycle. It does not generate enough energy to work the action, [music] and the Marlin will feed it along without complaint.

For a certain kind of shooter, the tube is a feature, not a flaw. The one who wants a simple rifle just works with whatever is on the shelf and has no small parts to misplace. Now, here is something. The people who have owned these for decades will [music] tell you, and it matters for both rifles. The older ones are better across the board.

Shooters who have handled examples for multiple decades say the same thing. Both the Marlin and the Ruger were built to a higher standard years ago than they are today. The older Marlins with their longer barrels and their pre-corporate quality are the ones with the real reputation for tack driving accuracy.

The older Rugers are frequently described as noticeably better made than the newer production. This is partly a story about how both of these guns quietly got a little cheaper over the decades as companies changed hands and costs got trimmed. So, if you are shopping used and finding a good used one is very doable, an older example of either rifle is often the smart buy, not the new one on the shelf.

Which brings us to the strangest twist in this whole story. And it changes how you should think about the entire comparison. You cannot walk into a store today and buy a new Marlin Model 60. It is out of production. And the reason why is genuinely something. In 2020, the Remington Company, which owned Marlin at the time, went bankrupt and its brands were sold off.

And the company that stepped in and bought Marlin for around $30 million, was Ruger, the same Ruger that makes the 1022. So today, one single company owns both of these rival rifles. And Ruger made a choice. They restarted production of the expensive Marlin high-end lever action rifles, the ones that sell for real money.

and they left the humble Model 60 sitting on the shelf discontinued. Think about why [music] the Model 60 is cheaper than the 1022. If Ruger started cranking them out again, they would be selling a rifle that competes directly with their own 1022 at a lower price. Why would they do that? So, the more accurate rifle out of the box, the TC driver is the one they quietly chose not to make.

because it would undercut the customizable money maker they already own. And that has a real world effect on you, the buyer. Because they stopped making it, used Model [music] 60 prices have been climbing. And the little parts, those buffers and springs are getting harder to find and more expensive. The good news is that with 11 million of them out there, clean used ones are still everywhere [music] and still a genuine bargain.

But the window on that is slowly closing. And the smart move, if you want one, is not to wait. So, after all of that, which one do you actually buy? And the honest answer, the one that fits real people instead of a thumbnail, depends entirely on who you are. Do you want a rifle you can buy brand new today with a warranty in any gun store? One that feeds from quick swapping magazines and customizes into anything you can dream up? That is the Ruger 1022, and it is not close.

It is the better platform, the more practical rifle, and the more fun one to tinker with. And that is exactly why it has outsold everything for 60 years. For a first gun, a kids gun, or a lifelong plinker you will endlessly modify. Buy the Ruger and never look back. But say what you want is the most accurate 22 you can get for the least money.

A simple rifle that just shoots. Then hunt down a clean used Marlin Model 60, preferably an older one with the long barrel. feed it one good ammo that it likes and use it to actually hit squirrels and paper with boring precision. It will outshoot rifles costing three times as much. Just do it soon because they are not making any more of them and the people who know that are already buying.

And if you have a little room in the safe, the truth that half the owners of these rifles will tell you is the realest answer of all. Get both. They are two different tools that happen to look similar. One is a finished shooting and one is an endless project. And there is a reason so many people who set out to buy one came home over the years with both.

A couple of others worth a mention since [music] somebody is going to ask. Marlin made a version of the 60 called the 795 that takes a detachable magazine instead of the tube and it is also sadly discontinued now with parts drying up. The Savage 64 and the Mossberg family [music] of budget 22s are cheaper still and worth a look if money is the whole object.

And if this kind of head-to-head is your thing, the old lever guns, the Marlin 39 and the Henry [music] are a beautiful fight for another day. If you want the full breakdown of what every one of these rifles is really worth [music] and what to look for when you go shopping, that whole guide is linked below. That is [music] the last I will say about it.

We are a growing crowd here on the road to 100,000. 100,000 shooters who would rather have the honest answer than the easy one. If this one earned it, come along. Buy the Ruger to tinker with and buy the Marlin to shoot. Just do not wait too long.