Thinning the Herd

I am putting a lot of serious thought into thinning out the safe queens in my firearm collection.  I have a few rifles that, while they may be nice, I cannot think of any practicable use for for me.

Marlin 1894CSS.  I have a nice 357 carbine customized by Wild West Guns.  The carbine is a feather to carry (6 lbs) and well balanced to shoot, shoots around 1.5 MOA from the bench with cheap ammo, is quick handling and fast on target with nice ghost ring sights, pretty inexpensive to plink with, and lightly recoiling for anyone to shoot.  I've taken small game with it hunting.  In fact, my first stew pot ever was taken with the rifle.

The problem is that if I want to plink I am going to choose either .22 LR, cheap Russian ammo, or maybe bulk 5.56.  If I want to hunt, I'm going to shoot something I feel comfortable will bring down the animal.  While plenty of deer have been taken with 357, I feel like it is on the light end to do the job ethically.  I either grab my 45-70 (brush) or 308 (open) for hunting.

Right now I'm thinking of ditching all the .357 guns and perhaps replacing them with .44 if I want a carbine that's lighter to carry and kicks less than the 45-70.  Partnered with the rifle is a .357 Ruger GP-100 revolver that would also be swapped for .44.  A .44 carbine should put out something like 13 ft lbs with magnum ammo, which is half a 45-70 or a bit more than the 30-30.

Marlin 39M.  I have a wonderful near mint condition straight-stock .22 carbine.  Its beautiful.  The wood is lustrous.  It shoots 0.5 MOA from the bench or better with bulk pack ammo.  It also lives in the safe.  I am afraid to take it out for plinking or hunting because it is so beautiful I do not want to scuff it.  So, it sits in the safe, gathering dust, while the Ruger 10-22 gets brought out regularly.

WASR-10.  I picked up an AK for a pretty good price.  Yeah, it has some TAPCO crud on it but it also came with the original wood furniture (I haven't bothered to put it back on).  Its an ok shooter for an AK, running 4 MOA or so with cheap surplus ammo from the bench.  The ammo is dirt cheap.  The thing is that I am standardizing on the AR platform.  I want to invest my muscle memory and training time on the AR platform.

I am not sure what role an AK plays in my safe, other than as a familiarization platform and as a cool part of my C&R oriented military rifles collection.  I feel like this rifle either needs to be cleared out, or I need to double down on it by getting a second rifle chambered in 7.62x39 (whether it be a bolt gun, an SKS, a mini-30 or another AK likely) so that DW and I can run something in another caliber if we want to.

I also have a bunch of C&R bolt guns but they are generally inexpensive and useful.  I'm not sure what I want to do with these safe queens, though.

30-30.  DW has a cheap 30-30 which she is not attached to much at all as a deer rifle.  Kind of redundant with all the other hunting rifles, especially if we go to the .44 carbine.

Luckily I don't have to decide right away.  I'll have to stew on this for awhile and figure out what's going and what's staying.