Coming Up Short

The Underappreciated Marlin Levermatic

- Terry Wieland

The name Kessler Arms doesn’t come up in too many conver-sations these days. The New York company was in business for only a couple of years in the early 1950s and produced only two low-priced, short-lived shotguns. One was a bolt action, the other a lever.

Historically, lever-action shotguns never achieved much popularity because the actions were too massive, and the resulting long lever throw was awkward. Kessler had some designers who tackled this problem and came up with a mechanical system that used a “cam-and-roller accelerator” to reduce the bolt throw. They called it the “Lever-Matic.”

Mechanics aside, the Kessler shotgun was anything but an aesthetic triumph, even for a remarkably tasteless era. However, it attracted the attention of engineers at Marlin, who saw some distinct possibilities. After Kessler’s demise, the company made a deal to acquire the patent and reworked it into an action for the .22 rimfire. In 1956, Marlin unveiled the first rifle in the series that was to become known as the Marlin Levermatic and released it into a market that was decidedly of two minds.

The 1950s saw the emergence of two distinct trends that greatly influenced gun design and sales. The first was the wave of TV westerns that turned the Colt Peacemaker and the Winchester lever action into American icons. When Colt did not resume manufacture of the Peacemaker after 1945, William Ruger stepped in, introduced his single-action Blackhawk and created a firearms dynasty. Colt later brought back the single action (1956), and it has remained in production. In the field of lever actions, both the Winchester 94 and the Marlin 336 sailed blithely along in a wide variety of models and different chamberings.