Marlin XT-22 Series

Marlin XT-.22 – Bought new XT-22. I tried several different brands and quality ammunition. The spent case gets wedged into the barrel after firing. Actually have to use a pocket knife to dig it out of the barrel. The extracter and ejector are both fine. Sent to marlin twice to no avail. I’m sure all they did was run a patch through it and sent it back to me. I… Read more

keep all my firearms clean and very well maintained. I’ve owned several.22’s for many years now. By far this marlin xt-22 is junk! Not real pleased by the effort Marlin made to assess the issue the rifle is having and repair before returning it to me. Just don’t make anything like they used to.

Epic gun for a neat price – This thing is neat..... Only ejection problems are with rat shot. I belive this is the bullet as my mates ruger american also fails to eject them. The marlin shoots goldies, subs and Zs very accurately.....my gun is scoped.... U couldn't complain about this gun.... Absolutely awsome

Great rifle for the money – for people having ejecting problems change to cci! it worked for me. very rare it doesn't eject now.. but yea awesome little rifle, trigger is great! easy to clean , not the most accurate rifle but takes out bunnies at 75m no probs!

Shoots OK but flimsy and breaks mag wells – Gun shoots OK. Ejectors are poor and wont pull shells every time from the breach. Plastic magazine wells break very easily. Spare parts are subject to a long waiting time unless you are lucky enough to find a dealer who has bought enough parts. Dealers tend to run out of mag receivers quickly and the Marlin (Winchester I believe) supplier in Australia is very slow at getting the parts available.

Won't load or eject properly – I bought this rifle brand new but after 2 weeks needed a new magazine and it would not pick up spent shells to eject them .Sadly it nips the bullet when loading and at odd times spits 2 out of the magazine at once.....fantastic balance and appearance but not reliable when using the magazine otherwise ok if feeding ammo one by one....not very… Read more

efficent like that though....still having trouble on my third magazine in a year.

March 5th 2018 Update: Continuing saga

I have had the rifle back to the gun shop 5 times now, last time they pulled the rifle apart and found that one of the screws that holds the stock in place was too long and interfering with the bullet lining up to the chamber, thereby pinching the nose...with the screw shortened the bullets line up to the chamber much better...still has trouble ejecting now and then ...it feeds ok but it is a very fussy gun with Ammo... American Eagle .22 is favoured when I can get it or Winchester or Federal championship, if not, seem to be ok...you need to be fussy in the extreme when cleaning ...the slightest little thing will put it out...full Credit to Owen Guns in Gympie, Queensland for persisting with it and many thanks to Ron Owen for taking one and a half hours out of his day to sort it out.

Good Gun, Bad Accuracy – The stock and barrel seem pretty good. But the gun throws huge flyers and gets 7" groups at 25 yards. Best group I could get was 1" at 25 yards. In my opinion that is not accurate enough for a .22.

Works for me – I've had mine for a coming up 3 years. Just an XT22 with a laminated stock.Looks pretty good, the laminated stck is supposed to handle the weather well, and it seems to as i will go hunting in all weather. I go shooting up the farm every couple of weeks. Rabbit, fox, pidgeon, rat, wild cat and lots of tin cans. Great reliable little gun. I shoot… Read more

a variety of rounds in it with very few problems

Mostly Winchester Powerpoint Max, 42 grain at 1320fps, these do a good job. CCI Velocitor 40grain at 1435fps, I like shooting these, but they are a bit more expensive and don't poke any more of an impressive hole in a tin can than some of my other rounds. The gun seems to shoot Mini Mags well, and also Bushman 37.5 grain at 1290fps seem to like the gun. Hollow point subsonic Max, 42 grain at 1065fps are a real pleasure to shoot out of my Marlin XT22. CCI and Winchester quiet rounds pop out of the barrel at 720 fps and deliver a deadly silent impact out to 30 metres and beyond. I use Federal bird shot quite alot to cull vermin in the farm sheds and these are very effective on the vermin witout damaging the shed or equipment in the shed. Sometimes with the Federal bird shot , though, the spent cartridge doesn't eject properly, but I think this has more to do with the cartridge rather than the rifle. A quick flick with my pocket knife soon fixes that problem. I tried several types of Remmington 22LR and they worked "OK" I guess, but I was never that happy with Remmingtons, so I gave several boxes away to a mate. He said they worked fine in his gun, but I never felt happy with them in my XT22. So i moved on to one of my preferred brands. you pull the trigger it goes bang...every time. If you do your part it hits the target. I like the trigger alot, you can adjust it easily to what suits you. I have mine set to 3.5 lbs. The thumb safety is just where I like it and is nice and simple. Push it forward to shoot. Flick it back for safe. I use it all the time. At first the bolt wasn't as smooth as I wanted it, but after putting a couple of hundred rounds through the Marlin it dropped into a rythym. The 7 shot magazine works flawlessly and I carry three of them when I am out on a night. When plinking I can easily cycle the bolt and change mags and despite being old and creaky, put between 14 and 21 rounds into a tin can at 50 yards in a minute. Maybe not world record, but that works for me. I'm generally shooting at between 30 and 170 metres. I run an Artic Fox scope that does the job very nicely. I do alot of night work from the ute or on foot using a rife mounted torch...very happy with the results.from the XT22. I've not had anything break on the gun. I really like the versatility of the gun. I like how easy it is to clean and oil and maintain. The barrel strikes me as good, quite substantial in diameter and weight. I've never used the iron site, had a cheap scope from day one. It was a low priced rifle, but it works great for me. It is important to understand the ballistics of the actual bullet you are shooting, I think this is particularly so with the 22LR.The bullet can have quite a bit of drop and in WA the wind always has to be factored into the shot. If you know the drop and estimate the wind correctly, the little 22LR round is capable of delivering surprising results.

One of the benefits of the 22LR is the drop, (as long as you know what drop to expect at your range)because your round is not going to overshoot and when using a high quality hollow point, the round mushrooms sweetly and dumps its small but deadly energy into the target with lethal results. The round is unlikely to overpenetrate and cause problems else where.

Despite having a fairly low noise factor when shooting any of the 22LR from the XT22 you should always wear at least ear plugs when shooting. This becomes essential if shooting with someone else who with a different calibre eg shotgun or .308.

All in all Ive found my XT22 with laminate stock, 21" barrel and 1/16 twist with microgrooves a pleasure to hunt small game and tin cans with.

I have put thousands of rounds through the rifle, woked it hard, trated it with respect but as a real, working gun. I eye off fancier 22s in the shop from time but always end up staying with beaut little workhorse. If you want a good solid hunting and plinking rifle my experience has been good. I hope yours is too.

2 inch grouping – My is not extremely accurate. I have better grouping when the rifle is warm and using high velocity amo. Mini mags, Winchester power points atc. Last week at the range I started with Standard velocity amo and after 20 shots I switched to CCI Mini mags. What a difference it was. Also you need to watch your barrel screws. Do not over tight them.… Read more

The trigger one can actually go right up into the chamber and scratch your bolt! It's a budget rifle good for kids to bash around and still get some bunnies.

Xt-22 Plastic Magazine Well Repeated Failures $35ea – With all the rifles I've owned I've never had to buy replacement parts for them, some of them were 30 years old but with the Marlin XT-22 be sure to pick up a six pack of PLASTIC magazine wells for it. You are going to need them. I needed 2 within the warranty period.

Poor accuracy. Don't waste your money – I had been wanting to purchase an entry level .22 bolt action rifle for a little while mainly for rabbiting and to introduce my teenage daughter to the sport of target shooting. My larger caliber centrefire rifles at home just weren't the right tools for the job. So when I attended the SSAA gun show in Melbourne earlier this year and saw a stand… Read more

offering a Marlin XT-22 package which included rifle, 4 x 40 scope and gun bag all for $399 I thought "what a great deal." I held the display rifle (both the synthetic and wood versions) and it felt pretty well balanced and very simple to use. The bolt action has a 2 stage feel which (which I don't find ideal), but otherwise felt solid and looked well made for an entry level rifle. I asked the sales rep the usual questions about accuracy, reliability, etc to which he gave the standard replies of "it shoots well, I haven't heard any complaints" etc. I signed up there and then for the synthetic stock Marlin XT-22R and paid a deposit.

I tried to convince my mate who I was with to get one too, but he had his eye on a slightly more expensive Remington. How I wish I had of followed his lead.

The next week I eagerly picked up the rifle and unpackaged it at home. The scope and rings were cheap crap (which was expected) however the rifle looked and pretty good. I fitted the scope (with plans to buy a better one in the near future) and took the rifle to the range that weekend to sight it in.

I had enourmous difficulty bringing the grouping into anything resembling consistent. One shot would be near the centre, then the next would be 6 inches to the right or left. I spent hours dialling in the scope with not much improvement. After 3 frustrating hours, I gave up and went home.

I immediately thought the problem would be the scope, after all it was cheap crap. I purchased a Vortex Crossfire 3-9x40 and decent rings and fitted them to the Marlin thinking all my accuracy issues should now be fixed.

A couple weeks later I made it back to the range to sight in the new scope. Some how the accuracy on the Marlin was worse. At 50 metres I wasn't even hitting paper. To my embarrassment, some of my rounds hit the baffling on the ceiling! I have been shooting for years and consider myself a pretty good shot, so I knew there had to be a bigger issue. I had some of the other range members have a shoot and they too couldn't hit the target. No use of laser bore sightsers or other sighting tools assisted. I soon realised the issue was the rifle itself. The next day I took the rifle back to the firearms dealer where it has been sent off to be assessed.

So in short, if you are in the market for an entry level .22 rifle bolt action, my advice is to skip past the Marlin and purchase another brand. My mate loves his Remington which is what I will probably trade my Marlin in for when I get it back.

Very nice, but poor shooter – Picked up one of these new Marlin models 2 months ago when I went in to buy a new scope for another rifle. Was shown one by the sales assistant when I asked how they compared with the traditional and well respected CZ rifles. He replied with the familiar ..."reported to be very good". Wish I had asked him for a test fire first!! The rifle… Read more

looked a little "funky" and when I picked it up I had one of those very rare moments in which my brain said "yep, I have to have one of these"!! That has only ever happened to me once before in the world of firearms, and that was the case of a Brno (Now CZ) .308 I bought about 25 years ago when it felt so beautiful on the shoulder that it was love at first touch!! Have never been any regrets with that one.

The Marlin felt terrific - beautifully balanced, and for me a perfect fit. I signed up on the spot for what was, admittedly, a purely impulse purchase.

This model is a heavy barrel "varminter" - hence the V in the model designation ... allegedly purpose built for accuracy. The barrel is blued, 22 inches long and really didn't seem to feel like a heavy profile, as most others tend to. It is fully free-floating right back to the receiver, and is profiled on Marlin's proprietary "Microgroove" system. This system of increased albeit shallower rifling grooves is renowned for accuracy ... and my Microgrooved Marlin 1894 in .357 certainly attests to this!! But that's another story!

The stock is black synthetic, with a broad, very comfortable fore-end that sits well in the hand, and just as well in a sandbag. Moulded openings for quick detach type sling swivels form part of the stock. This model comes without iron sights, and bases suited for Weaver style rings as standard.

Magazine (plastic) capacity is 7, and I never recorded a misfire or ejection failure on testing. In fact the empties flew out with an occasional merry little spinning motion as they hit the concrete.

The black bolt is unusually long for this type of rifle, and quite slender. A little sticky to remove and replace, but this would almost certainly ease up a little with use. The "ProFire" Trigger provided as standard incorporates a "Glock" (and lately, "Savage") type safety with a fine metal leaf protruding from the surface of the trigger which must be depressed by the finger before the rifle will fire. The trigger on the purchased rifle felt fine as it was, but it is said to be fully and easily adjustable according to the manual. A traditional safety catch is provided as well, but I rarely use such things, so cannot comment upon its function.

I did notice that there was a number etched upon the outer surface of the bolt ... probably the serial number, which looked to have been scratched on by somebody with a very shaky hand .... don't quite know where Marlin is heading with this, but it looked shocking, and about the only visual disappointment in this otherwise handsome package.

Then came the load development. I mounted the new scope I had bought - a Leupold Firedot in 2-7X33 Ballistic dot in Leupold QD rings. After the normal barrel preparation, I sent down 5 shot groups of every rimfire ammo I could lay my hands on ... roughly 11 loadings of mixed high and standard velocity; and another 3 of ultra low velocity offerings from Winchester, CCI and Remington. The accuracy was, in a word, the most tragic I have seen in 38 years of shooting!!! The average group size at 50 metres (20 for the ultra-lows) on a still day seemed to be around 2.5 inches, with no particular rhyme nor reason to the groupings. The best group I could secure was just over 25MM (one inch) with some "old" stock of Winchester Subsonics. This works out at 2 minutes of angle for the best grouping and 5 for the average if my maths are right ....

I figured this simply could not be right, so I disassembled the rifle, tweaked the torque settings on the receiver's screws, re-confirmed that the barrel was in fact free floating, and scrubbed the bore yet again. All to no avail.

The rifle that I had bought the new scope for, a Ruger model 96/22, happily puts the same vintage Winchester Subsonics into 12 MM at 50 Metres all day long ... so there was no need whatsoever for me to hang onto this underperforming "Varmint" rifle.

It has now been sold, and the whole experience put down as a lesson in the virtues of "impulse buys" .... I guess some come off - and some don't!!! Appearance and balance were beautiful, smooth and faultless functioning, kind of funky, seems good value. Tragic engraving on the bolt; a truly rotten shooter.