The Perfect Pair

A Quest for Matching Rifles

- Layne Simpson

I became a fan of Jack O’Connor’s writing at a very young age and eventually accumulated most of his books. I also enjoyed the works of several other firearm writers, and one was Larry Kohler. In one of his books on hunting deer and small game, Kohler advocated the use of two rifles with the same type of action, preferably from the same manufacturer. A “perfect pair,” as he described it for eastern hunters, was illustrated by a photo of a Marlin 39A in .22 rimfire alongside a Marlin 336 .30-30. Young minds are easily influenced. I already had a 39A, so when becoming old enough to shop for a store-bought deer rifle I chose a Marlin 336, but in .35 Remington.

Years later, during the mid-1960s Dave Talley, who would eventually become well-known for his scope mounts and custom rifle parts, invited me to hunt deer in the heavily forested Pisgah National Forest of North Carolina. The particular area he hunted was in the middle of hundreds of acres of rugged terrain that had been ravaged by a huge forest fire during the 1940s. As growth of new vegetation rapidly spread over the rich soil, the country was transformed into better whitetail habitat than it had ever been before. Over the next decade or so, the deer population increased dramatically and big bucks got even bigger.