.308 Marlin Express

The .308 Marlin Express is a new cartridge developed by Marlin Firearms and Hornady. It is based on the .307 Winchester with a goal to duplicate .308 Winchester performance. The cartridge uses a slightly shorter, rimmed case to function in lever action rifles. As introduced in Hornady's LEVERevolution line of cartridges, it is the highest velocity production cartridge designed for lever action rifles with tubular magazines.

Comparison
The .308 Marlin Express was designed to produce performance similar to the .308 Winchester. This would give lever-action hunters improved performance over their .30-30 Winchester rounds. The table below shows how the rounds compare. Note that reloading data for 160 grain bullets for some of the cartridges is not available. Extensive loading data for the .308 Marlin Express is not yet available. This round was designed with a polymer tip, so that the .308 designed would be safe for the tubular magazine of lever action rifles. This softer tip eliminates the hazards of stacking pointed rounds end to end in a tubular magazine.

Categories
Cartridge:rifles