NEF Sportster or Marlin 981T???

[Tye Bauserman]

Hey I guys I dont know if this the place to post this or not but here goes.

I want a new .22 (mostly to use like a pellet rifle and shoot shorts and CBs out of it)  I have narrowed it down to the NEF sportster or the Marlin 981T (a tube magazine bolt action).  Which would you recommend to me?  has anyone had expirence with the Marlin?

Any other advice or thoughts would be great too.  Thanks!

Tye Bauserman

[tallyho]

Tye,
On this forum, expect the answer to be the Sportster!

And based on your stated pupose, I'd recommend the Sportster anyway. My kids and I shoot Sportsters with Super Colibri (red box) ammo. We often shoot at a friend's house on the edge of town. This ammo has no powder, the bullet is propelled by a primer mix only.

They are very quiet (make less noise out of the Sportster barrel than my wife's pellet pistol makes!) By the way, don't use the blue/yellow box stuff in a rifle barrel, I've had the bullets stick in the barrel because they don't have quite enough ooomph to make it all the way through. Okay for handguns, but not rifles.

We also shoot regular .22 of course, and the Sportsters are quite adequately accurate with even the cheapo stuff.

I can't say anything about the Marlin, since I have never had one, but I do recommend the Sportster for just plain fun. It is lightweight, accurate and inexpensive... I just bought one at Walmart for my wife last week, list price was $108.00.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Kerry

[stimpylu32]

Tye

I have the older style 81ts Marlin and the Sportster , both shoot very well . I shoot them in my basement about every day so it boils down to what you want a , bolt gun or a single shot .

I like the Marlin for hunting but the Sportster is just a fun little gun to shoot .

[snicker]

I have both the 981T and the Sportster.  Both rifles shoot very well.  I haven't shot any shorts or CB's in the Sportster but the 981T does OK with them.  The Sportster has a better trigger but the 981T takes some getting used to or fix it with a Rifle Basix Trigger.  It breaks OK but it's pretty stiff, mine breaks at around 4.5 lbs while the Sportster breaks at around 2.75 lbs.  Both are good guns but the little Sportster is a neat little fun gun.  Just my opinion.