Lever Guns On The Comeback Trail

Moving The Needle From Anachronism To Cool
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This Marlin 1894 in .357 was made when Remington owned Marlin.
The flat receiver top of the Marlin design makes it ideal for fitting optical sights.

“The Highwaymen” is an entertaining movie about legendary lawman Frank Hamer and his partner Maney Gault in their hunt for Bonnie and Clyde. Early in the movie, there’s a gun store scene where Hamer purchases a battery of weapons. Among them are a Thompson submachine gun, Colt Monitor, BAR, short-barreled 1911 shotgun and a couple of handguns.

Then Hamer says, “Let me have a look at that old Winchester .30-30.” He looks it over, cycles the action a few times and remarks, “I need at least one gun that won’t jam.” In the movie, as in reality, Hamer’s rifle choice for law enforcement was a Remington 8 semiautomatic. Maybe the Winchester thing never happened. The movie is set in 1934 when the Winchester 1894 was already a 40-year-old design and semi-obsolescent. Yet the old 1894 would have served quite admirably. It still will today.

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This Rossi 92 with 16" barrel remains a favorite of Dave’s. He feels it
has about the best trigger pull of any of his pistol cartridge lever carbines.

End Of An Era?

Back in the 1970s, it seemed as though lever-action rifles were about dead. The Winchester 94 still sold well but most were “commemoratives” of one sort or another, intended to be collected and stored away untouched and unused. Those who bought Marlin or Winchester .30-30 hunting rifles were either old timers or nostalgic youngsters who figured they should get one of the classics before they were discontinued. Lever-actions for “modern” cartridges were not faring well — the Winchester 88 and Sako Finnwolf were discontinued, the Savage 99 was barely hanging on. Only the relatively new Browning BLR seemed fairly secure. Big-bore lever-actions chambered for cartridges such as .444 Marlin, .45-70 or .375 Winchester had fans who certainly helped keep lever-actions alive. Such shooters never wavered in their devotion but hardly constituted a mass market.

Nonetheless, in recent years the lever-action has shown a remarkable comeback. Although it isn’t a development I expected or would have predicted, as one who grew up in an era of lever-actions, it is a development I welcome. Looking back, several elements came into play.

One was the growth of cowboy action shooting. It created a market for “traditional” western-style lever-actions generally chambered for pistol cartridges — Old West ones such as the .45 Colt and .44-40 WCF but also for cartridges such as the .38 Special and .357 Magnum. There’s a saying in marketing, “supply creates its own demand.”

For quite a few years in the ’60s and ’70s, law enforcement officers had come to appreciate the virtues of light, compact lever-action rifles. For a time there was a steady demand for vintage Winchester 92s. Those in .44-40 were usually used as-is (if ammunition was available) while many a .25-20 or .32-20 was converted to .357 Magnum. With the growth of cowboy action shooting, gunmakers responded with an array of new models — or rather, new reproductions of old models. No longer was it necessary to go to the time and expense of finding and converting an old 92; just buy a new one.

The late Jeff Cooper recognized the utility of pistol cartridge carbines for those whom, for whatever reason, couldn’t or wouldn’t acquire handguns for personal defense. He coined the term “Brooklyn assault rifle” to describe lever-action carbines for cartridges such as .357 and .44 Magnum.

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Positive experience with pistol cartridge lever-actions helped
renew Dave’s fondness for ’50s era model 94 Winchesters.
He currently has three, all in .30-30 WCF and with receiver sights.

Back To The Past

Personally, my motivation to purchase a model 92 clone was logistics. After 20 years of competitive handgun shooting I had substantial stocks of loading components including a bushel or two of .38 Spl cases and thousands of small rifle primers intended for .38 Super major loads. The training regimen needed to stay competitive had lost its charm, but I liked the idea of shooting just for fun again. A lever-action carbine seemed the ideal format.

So it would prove. I bought a Rossi 92 in .38 Spl/.357 Magnum. I loaded 158-grain bullets in .38 Spl cases, seated out to approximate .357 overall length. These were loaded to about 1,000 fps using tag ends of whatever appropriate powders I had stored on back shelves. Such loads are great fun to shoot, accurate, with little recoil and very effective on garden and farm pests such as skunks and raccoons.

On a whim I bought a couple of boxes of full-house .357 Magnums loaded with 158-grain JHP bullets. I found what others had long known — the .357 from a rifle barrel is a whole different critter than it is from a short revolver barrel. It even has a bit of recoil. I got so enthused with the concept I bought several more examples, a Marlin 1894, a Henry Big Boy and a Winchester 92 short rifle beautifully made by Miroku. The 16″ to 16 ½” barrels on the Rossi and Henry I find about ideal in terms of velocity and handling. My Marlin has an 18 ½” barrel, my Winchester a 20″ barrel. They add only a little in terms of velocity but do provide more magazine capacity and a longer sight radius.

If your current shooting regimen is becoming a bit jaded, I recommend you give one of these carbines a try. For me they made shooting fun again — they may do the same for you!

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