.44 Mag Levergun suggestions? A friend is in the market.

I had a 1886 Jap .45-90 and that ruined it for me. Fantastic quality and gun but every time I touched it I got pissed. Just me.

I know Marlins can handle longer bulleted reloads and still feed well. Maybe GNR can shed light on that trait. I have one he converted to the .454 Casull based .429 GNR and they handle longer rounds. I have a buddy that has bought a Henry .38/357 and it is absolutely choking on the rounds he initially purchased for it. I told him it was very likely the ammo and to try a different shape bullet ammo and shorter or longer. But he's already disappointed, not a reloader, just a consumer. I've never had any issues with Marlins myself. My 2 cents.

that, BS. When Marlin sold the company their tooling was totally worn out. The new folks tried to build the guns on that tooling and they came out rough. there were only a few that got out that were not up to par. They recalled them immediately. Then the company played it smart and shut down the company for 8 months while they put in all new tooling and did test runs. The new guns then were much better steel and better fitting than the older Marlins. That was when some idiots decided to be experts and claim the guns had to have the JM proof mark on them to be any good. Again that was total BS. The new guns are as good if not better than the older ones. We have been using the new guns for our heavy recoiling custom guns in calibers like 50 Alaskan and such and absolutely no problems. So any Marlin lever gun you buy, whether it be an old one or the new ones will be fine.

go for well more than I want to spend on any gun.
I have a friend who owns one. It is a neat little gun. He shoots what he calls mild loads and kills deer with it every year. He says it has ever given him trouble. I like how it carries easy. He likes it much better than my marlins, Rossi’s or Henry. He won’t sell and has asked me to outlying in his casket just before they close the lid. I told him I would but he can’t use it wherever he ends up so I’ll just stick in an extra 10/22 I have. He hates those!

We sold a few at our shop in Florida. A good friend who was one of the head honchos at RSR (our main distributor at the time) was the one that told me about the problems. He told me they had dropped them due to feeding problems. My gut feelings were the owners were trying to run flat nosed semi wadcutters thru them and they didn't feed well. That is just a guess. They were only around for 3 or 4 years, being dropped by '93 or so. After IMI dropped them Springfield Armory picked them up but they dropped them pretty quick too if I remember well.