POTD: Marlin’s First Swing – Deluxe Model 1881 in .40-60

Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have Marlin’s first try at a lever action rifle. This is a deluxe Model 1881 in 40-60 Marlin from the first year of production.

Before 1881, John Marlin was known for single shot pistols and small rifles. The Model 1881 pointed the company in a new direction and kicked off a rivalry with Winchester that ran for the next hundred years. It came out of patents from Andrew Burgess, H.F. Wheeler, E.A.F. Toepperwein and Marlin himself, and it was built heavy enough to handle the big cartridges of the day. Winchester’s Model 1876 could not say the same. Their toggle link action had a hard ceiling on cartridge length and pressure, and the 1881 walked right past it.

The earliest guns like this one wear what collectors call the heavy receiver, with a stepped or rebated lower front edge and a squared corner where the upper tang meets the frame. Marlin reworked that frame shape early on, so it only shows up on the first few hundred rifles out the door.

Total production came to somewhere around 20,500 through 1892, which is a rounding error next to Winchester’s numbers, but the 1881 sold to people who needed a repeater that would push a heavy bullet. Large game hunters out West took to them. This one was ordered with factory checkering and a shotgun buttplate, so somebody paid up front for a nice one.

Most of our POTDs utilize images from our friends at Rock Island Auction Company, the premier firearms auction in the United States. Take some time to browse their current auctions – who knows, maybe you’ll find a piece of history to take home!

“Early Production Special Order Marlin Deluxe Model 1881 Rifle.” Rock Island Auction, www.rockislandauction.com/detail/4097/27/early-production-special-order-marlin-deluxe-model-1881-rifle. Accessed 30 July 2026.

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