The Marlin Model 60 has been around for almost 50 years. Marlin's website states that they have sold over 11 million of the popular Model 60 and they dub it the most popular .22 in the world. Any rifle that has been in production for 50 years and has sold 11 million copies is a gun that has proven itself as reliable and useful. No small part of the Model 60's success has been due to its low price, but low price alone would not keep a gun (or anything else) on the market this long.
Though the Marlin Model 60 is not as well regarded as the Ruger Model 10/22 that was released a few years later, the Model 60 continues to find its place in the market. Again, although the Model 60 does not have quite the number of accessories as the 10/22 a lot of aftermarket products are made for the Model 60 so that you can personalize your Marlin Model 60 as you like.
Though the Marlin Model 60 is a well known commodity, I decided to buy some low priced .22 Long Rifle ammunition and give it a good work out. Any excuse to go shooting is good enough for me. I took along a Federal 550 round pack from Wal-Mart as well as a 50 round box of Remington Thunderbolts. With the copper plated hollow point Federals and the round nose Thunderbolts I could at least test the Model 60 for jams and other reliability issues with two different types of ammo.
The Marlin Model 60 that I was shooting does not wear a scope. The sights on the Marlin Model 60 are a bit rough but are perfectly serviceable for any reasonable shooting. The Marlin Model 60 is of course grooved for scope mounting. A neat looking aperture (peep) sight is available for the Model 60 from tech-sights.com and other sources.
Using the standard factory open sights I rapidly fired a string of the Federals at a sacrificial Coke can at 25 yards or so hanging from a tree limb. I emptied the 14 shots from the gun too quickly to have hit the can with every shot, but the gun went bang each time and cycled without any problems. Grabbing a new can to shoot at with a tube full of the Thunderbolts, the same process was repeated. For my less than precise accuracy testing a placed a square of duct tape on a pizza box at about 50 yards. Finding that my eyes needed a little bigger target I added some more tape and contemplated adding a scope for future squirrel hunting. Now aiming at about a 3" by 3" square of tape I was able to start shooting. Resting the gun off the side of a post the Thunderbolts shot a five round group of about 1 ½ and the Federals did a little better. Shocked that my eyes were able to aim that well, I gave up on accuracy and went back to shooting cans, plastic bottles, and other assorted stuff.
The bottom line is that with either the Remington or Federal loadings the Marlin Model 60 had no problems with reliability. I know that the Model 60 is capable of quite good accuracy from experience shooting it off of sandbags. With a new price tag well south of $200 and used models more in the $100 range, the Marlin Model 60 is a great rifle for having fun and hunting small game such as rabbit and squirrel.
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