President John F. Kennedy promised to put a man on the moon. Bob Dylan and the Beetles started cranking out hits. James Meredith was the first black student to register at the University of Mississippi, and the Cuban Missile Crisis took the United States and the Soviet Union took the world to the brink of global nuclear war. It was 1962.
Much further down the list of significant world happenings that year was Marlin Firearms Company introducing their Levermatic rifle in a hot new cartridge, the .256 Winchester Magnum, calling it, simply, the Model 62.
Winchester got wind of what the competition was doing when the firearms industry started making noise about Smith & Wesson’s Model 53 revolver chambered in .22 Remington Jet. The .22 Jet started with a .357 Magnum case necked down to .22 caliber. Ruger and Winchester got on the same track when they modified a .357 Magnum case and necked it down to .25 caliber to fit in the now-rare Ruger Hawkeye pistol in 1961. Marlin soon followed with their own .357-based rifle chambered in the Winchester-Ruger collaboration .256 Win Mag.
Marlin’s Levermatic Family
The Marlin Levermatic was a family of lever-action rimfire rifles created by the company in the mid-1950s. The Levermatic differed from Marlin’s traditional lever-action rifles in that it employed a cam-and-roller system giving it an extremely smooth and short lever throw to eject and reload a fresh cartridge.
This cam-and-roller system was originally invented by Kessler Arms Company for their Model 50 “Lever-Matic” shotgun. Following Kessler’s dissolution, Marlin licensed the idea and began producing rifles using a similar design. The Model 56 .22 LR was shortly followed by the Model 57 .22 WMR, you guessed it, in 1956 and ’57, respectively.
Tom Robinson, one of Marlin’s top engineers after WW II, designed the Levermatic with a 25-degree lever stroke. This patent offered much quicker shell ejection and reloading than earlier lever-gun designs that required a 90 degree stroke. Moving the lever down just two inches allowed an action that worked faster than a turn-bolt, and nearly as fast as a semi-auto.
The Levermatic’s solid-top receiver also offered side ejection, making top-mounted optics possible, too. Continuing from the Model 56 and 57 designs, The Marlin Model 62 used Micro-Groove rifling. Another Robinson/Marlin patent, Micro-Groove rifling used 16 shallow grooves instead of the standard Ballard-type six deep grooves. In keeping with its then-modern design, the Model 62 retained the rimfires’ one-piece Monte Carlo profile carved from black walnut.
The Model 62 came from the factory with a 23-inch barrel, ramp front sight and removable sight hood. To feed this rifle, a 3-round detachable box was held in place via a button just fore of the lever. The safety is located beside the lever, just behind the trigger, and works to lock the trigger as well as the lever.
When the Model 62 launched in 1963, early promotion featured the .256 Win Mag as well as rifles chambered in .22 Rem Jet. The only .22 Rem Jet Model 62 known to exist is a rifle built and sent to Ken Waters and Bob Wallack for a test article in Gun Digest. A few years later, 1966, rifles chambered in .30 M1 Carbine joined the lineup. A Model 62 chambered in .357 Magnum got kicked around, but never materialized. Since the .256 Win Mag had little firearms support, Marlin started phasing out the cartridge when the .30 Carbine model went into production. Very few Model 62s in .256 Win Mag left the factory after 1966. Production ceased in 1969 with just 15,714 rifles manufactured, and all factory promotion discontinued completely by 1971. All told, 7,996 rifles chambered in .30 Carbine were produced with serial numbers. That leaves about 7,717 rifles chambered in .256 Win Mag, and the one that we know of in .22 Rem Jet.
An “Oops” at Marlin
One quirk about the Model 62 is that as many as 4,000 rifles were shipped from the factory without serial numbers. Prior to the Gun Control Act of 1968, firearms manufacturers were allowed to build and ship .22 rimfire rifles without serial numbers. Marlin had long serialized the Model 39A lever-action, but decided to forego serial numbers on the 56 and 57 models. Finally, someone at ATF heard about the .25 caliber center-fire rifles without serial numbers leaving the Marlin factory and put a halt to the mistake. Fewer than 4,000 rifles left the factory without numbers, but Marlin issued a recall to Model 62 owners to send their rifles back to get some digits. A few owners returned their rifles and these post-production-marked guns are quite rare. To this day, you can still send your Model 62 back to Marlin and get a serial number added to your rifle.
Auction Gold
Late spring 2020 I attended a local firearms estate auction that offered some interesting items. One that caught my eye was a Marlin Model 62. This rifle is an early gun without a serial number, and it’s chambered in .256 Win Mag. At the auction’s end, I had won some and lost most bidding wars on a host of collectible guns. Luckily, the little Marlin went home in my truck.
Researching this gun prior to the auction in Blue Book of Gun Values and other sources put a mint condition Model 62 in .256 Win Mag at $725. Dropping down to 98% condition, the value drops to $500. Close inspection of the rifle in question puts it somewhere between 95% and 98% condition, since it was missing the Marlin “Bullseye” plastic medallion along the belly of the butt stock, and the rear sight and front sight hood were missing as well. Further research into recent auctions revealed that this rifle in lesser condition was selling for $700 to $1,100. The $350 I paid at the auction made the purchase all the sweeter.
Launching Levermatic Loads
Winchester hung on to the .256 Win Mag cartridge for 29 years, dropping it from their line in 1990. Factory loads had previously been offered with 60- and 75-grain bullets. Factory 60-grain bullets were loaded to 2,700 fps, which is 300 fps faster than a comparable .25-20 WCF.
Since no factory fodder has been offered in more than a quarter century, handloads are the only choice for fresh .256 Win Mag fans. Cases are easily made from new .357 Magnum cases, if you do a little work. My first attempts met with failure when I tried to use Hornady .256 Win Mag dies to take the .35 caliber cases down to size in one step. I went back to the drawing board on case forming, or more precisely, went to Redding Reloading for a set of form dies. Redding makes a two dies that take the case neck diameter down gradually to allow their .256 Win Mag resizing die to do as little work as possible. The results were a lot more pleasing than the 20 or so crushed or wrinkled cases resulting from the Hornady die.
Bullet Choices
Bullet choices are rather scant in .256 that will work in the Model 62, and I found five. Four of the five bullets averaged about 3-inch, 5-shot groups at 100 yards, with the exception of one that hovered around 1 MOA.
I went through the process of finding the right bullet seating depth to keep the bullets’ ogive just out of the lands, but found that optimal bullet seating depth created rounds that were too long to fit in the magazine. I settled on the Hornady 75-grain bullet, but found that the polymer tip was too long for the magazine. After seating bullets, I cured the length problem by taking a pair of needle nose pliers and plucking the polymer tip out to create a wicked hollow point. This bullet produced sub-MOA groups with H4198 powder, so this will be my go-to hunting round.
Levergun fans and collectors can still find the Model 62 floating around at attainable prices. Find a .256 Win Mag, track down or load some ammo and you will possess an interesting Marlin and fun-to-shoot collectible.
PERFORMANCE
| Bullet | Powder | Velocity | Accuracy |
| Sierra 70 gr. Spitzer | 15.2 g. H4198 | 2,214 | 3.014 |
| Sierra 87 gr. Spitzer | 14.0 g. H4198 | 2,015 | 3.132 |
| Hornady 60 gr. Flat Point | 17.2 g. A1680 | 2,432 | 3.322 |
| Hornady 75-grain Spitzer | 15.2 g. H4198 | 2,170 | 1.008 |
SPECIFICATIONS
- Manufacturer: Marlin
- Model: 62 Levermatic
- Caliber: .256 Winchester Magnum
- Action: Lever
- Length: 42 3/4 inches
- Weight: 7 pounds, 11 ounces with optic and full magazine.
- Capacity: 3+1
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