I have one that was reworked by Steve Young (Steve's Gunz). Have not shot it much yet. He did his action work, trigger job, put the sights, rebedded the wood, and removed the bolt safety. I highly recommend his work. I had limbsaver add one of their grind to fit recoil pads. "MULELOOPS Custom Levers" over on the marlinowners.com forum reshaped the lever. The last thing I need to do is send it to robar for their roguard treatment (all that stainless is a little to shiny). The rifle was OK to begin with, it is much, much, better now.
I want to say, and this is from memory (which seems to get worse the older I get), around $700.00 for everything. The action is so smooth and easy you can cycle the lever with one finger. The trigger is light, clean and crisp. Loading through the gate is so easy a 2 year old can do it (no sore fingers or thumbs). The recoil pad is cushy and gives me a longer LOP. The lever is just large enough to allow my pinky to pretty much just hang since I do not use it to hold the stock.
I have two, one blue that is superbly accurate that I use for black bear hunting and a NIB SS that is at Reeders shop getting the side plates vapor honed and a bit of engraving done on each plate. Deer and hogs. You can shoot anything up to grizzly bears and even larger animals with the 480 Ruger, rifle or handgun. I have both. The blue one I have will shoot 3 shots touching at 50 yards with factory 325 Hornady XTP's with the open sights. I don't need anything better than that for bear in eastern Pa. It is also very smooth w/o any additional smith work done. They are not very common either, especially in SS. I don't remember what I paid for the blue one and paid 750.00 for the SS one NIB. Nice rifle with big power for a very reasonable price.
Posts: 4115 | Location: Pa. | Registered: 21 April 2006
