Link for info: http://www.marlinfirearms.com/firearms/selfLoading22wTubularMag/index.htm
Honest to gosh, I don't work for Marlin. I just love their stuff. :-)
Another great .22 rifle is a Ruger 10/22 carbine. You absolutely can't go wrong with that.
well.....if one must be a Cowboy then it should be a 40 of some sort.
I actually shot a whitetail once on the run at about 75 yards with a Marlin .444..a very lucky shot..do they still make those?
We have on old checkered .30-30 Marlin with a cheap as dirt burris glass and I can't hit shite with it.
I'd get one of those inexpensive Savage or even Ruger heavy barreled bolts in a nice all arounder like 30-06 or .308 for my first hunting rifle if it were me.....and save my $$$ for the glass.....then work up to something Allemange or Finn.
I'm not aware of any Cowboy rifles that can compete with even a mediocre bolt with Nazi glass.
OK...tell me where I'm wrong...lol
** this made me wonder if ol Harp ever got to shoot that fancy 45-70 he was given at some giddy up about a year beore he passed..RIP
I have to confess that I and most of my buddies, all of which had a 10/22 at one time or another, traded these rifles for various bolt-action .22 rifles, which we all love far better to a man. A .22 LR boltgun will generally be noticeably more accurate than a 10/22 unless you dump more money into the 10/22 than a really nice magazine-fed boltgun would cost. The 10/22 is a cheap shooter, but not all that great of a shooter -- people tend to trade up after buying them.
There are plenty of good bolt-actions too. On the cheap side, the CZ rifles are quite good, though not quite as smooth as some other actions. The Win M52 is an old favorite (and not made for years now), and super-smooth if expensive used. My personal pick is the Anschutz sporter boltguns, which can be had for something like $400 new, and also have a very nice trigger; these guys are famous for their high-precision target rifles but make conventional rifles on the same platform. The nice thing about the Anschutz is that they are notorious for reliably shooting the $15/brick Winchester .40gr PowerPoints in the 0.6-0.75 MOA range (5-shot groups), which is awesome for cheap ammo. With fancy match ammo, you can easily do <0.5 MOA but it generally isn't worth it to spend the money.
If you go for a .22 LR, I'd recommend a bolt action over the 10/22. Of those, I would recommend the CZ on the low-end ($200+ new), or maybe something like an Anschutz sporter ($400+ new) if you want something you'll probably never get tired of.