Available from Morphys here:
https://auctions.morphyauctions.com/_C__MARBLES_1908_GAME_GETTER__22_RF____44_GAME_GET-LOT663251.aspx
Webster L. Marbles was a lifelong outdoorsman, who spent 30 years working as a surveyor, trapper, and lumberman among other jobs. He invented an axe with a safety cover to prevent accidents, and started the Marbles Safety Axe Company to produce it. Then in 1908, he designed a minimalist combination gun to provide everything he thought necessary in a firearm for surviving in the woods. It had a .22 rimfire barrel on top and a smoothbore .44 barrel below, with a break action system, single hammer to fire either barrel, folding stock, and both notch and aperture sights. As initially offered, the barrels were 12” (300mm) long. A variety of other options were added fairly quickly, including 15” and 18” barrels. A total of 9,981 of these Game Getters were made by the time production ended for the First World War. A simplified second model was reintroduced in 1921, but the guns were hit hard by the 1934 passage of the National Firearms Act, which required a $200 tax on all but the very longest barrel models. As a result, American sales fell off a cliff, and most of the remaining production went to Canada. Most Game Getters were never registered because of the exorbitant tax, and are contraband today. This example is one of the small number made with 18” barrels, the minimum needed to avoid NFA regulation and so it is legally treated like any normal rifle or shotgun.
“Webster L. Marbles(…)folding stock(…)”
Did Marbles envisaged firing said fire-arm with stock folded? If no can this be done safely (that is without endangering user’s hand)?
@Daweo,
The example I got to handle once did not strike me as something you’d want to try and shoot without the stock extended. You could probably do it, but… Why?
The real issue for me, with that entire set of firearms, was “How the hell do you carry this thing?”
There weren’t any provisions for any such thing as a sling on the one I saw; you’d have to improvise something, and because of the barrel length, a holster didn’t seem like a solution, either.
Neither I nor the collector who shared his with me could come up with a really easy and accessible way to carry one of these, other than something like a saddle scabbard. I remain puzzled by this aspect of the Game Getter to this day.
Something like this might be more for being part of a “bug out kit” or “survive being unintentionally stranded in the woods kit” than for regular use. In these cases, the lighter weight of the gun and being able to be used as both shotgun and rifle, thus having fewer things to carry in order to survive, is an advantage.
I inherited a Civil War Union rifled musket that had the barrel bored out to .58 caliber smoothbore, and a shortened barrel and stock. These were sold to the late 1800 homesteaders to use either with shot or ball. This saved the cost of two guns and took up less space in the wagons where space and cargo weight limitations were a factor to those heading west into the promised land. So I see the same philosophy at work with Marbles’ gun