“It’s wonderful! Lightweight, quick to point. A slick action. And bullets go right to the bead!”
You’d expect that reaction from a youngster with his first rifle. It came from a professional hunter in Africa, who’s handled rifles for 50 years and shot many tons of big game. He has killed lions, buffalo and elephants with his .458 and now backs up clients with a double in .500 Nitro Express. He was gushing over a lever-action .30-30 Win. carbine, a Winchester 94.
Born in the United States, lever-action arms are sustained by markets here. Oddly enough, veteran hunters on foreign game fields stand in line to fire them. Credit a link to our “cowboy” West. But these carbines are also practical: fast-handling, and with open sights now routinely left off bolt rifles. In Africa, hunters learn to shoot close, partly because brush often excludes long shots. Also, killing is more certain at short range. While tracking dangerous game, when shots can come at mere feet, no PH wants a scope.
Now, neither the .30-30 nor the .357 is suitable for big game where officially the term applies to really big beasts, such as buffalo. But for light plains game and predators such as the black-backed jackal, either cartridge works. The .30-30 Win. can down elk-size animals.
Lever-action rifles include not just “classics” whose forms and chamberings emerged during the late 19th century. Today they include stainless, laminate-stocked models, also those with polymer and carbon fiber stocks and “tactical” matte black finish. Barrels are threaded for brakes and suppressors. Some stocks adjust for length and comb position. Forends feature M-Lok slots. Picatinny rails up front beckon lights and other paraphernalia.
The Birth of the Lever Gun
The mechanism dates as far back as the 1840s. Stephen Taylor patented a bullet whose hollow base held powder ignited by an external cap. Walter Hunt’s similar “Rocket Ball” inspired his “Volitional Repeater,” with a device to advance primers. A ring lever speeded reloading, but the rifle malfunctioned often. Lacking funds to refine it, Hunt sold patent rights to fellow New Yorker George Arrowsmith, who hired Lewis Jennings to solve the problems.
In 1849, Arrowsmith peddled the repeater, with Jennings’ patents, for $100,000 to hardware and railroad magnate Courtland Palmer. He engaged Horace Smith to improve it. With Daniel Wesson, Smith gave the Rocket Ball a copper base with internal priming. In 1854, Palmer and his two employees became a partnership. The next year, investors bought them out to form Volcanic Repeating Arms. The group’s chosen director, Oliver Winchester, moved Volcanic to New Haven, Connecticut. Sales flagged. Facing receivership in 1857, Winchester bought all assets for $40,000, reorganizing them as New Haven Arms. In 1860, his shop foreman, B. Tyler Henry, patented a 15-shot repeating rifle in .44 rimfire.
Hawking the Henry to the Army, Winchester teased: “Where is the military genius [to] develop the capacities of this terrible engine — the exclusive use of which would enable any government … to rule the world?” While few Henrys were issued, Confederates came to respect the “Yankee rifle you loaded on Sunday and fired all week.”
The Henry sired Winchester’s Model 1866, with a loading gate and wooden fore-stock. But the.44 Henry Flat rimfire cartridge was a wimp, 28 grains of blackpowder pushing a 216-grain bullet at around 1,000 fps. The 1866’s successor, the Model 1873, chambered the .44-40 (.44 W.C.F.), Winchester’s first centerfire cartridge. Its 40-grain charge drove a 200-grain bullet at 1,200 fps. Inspired by the Winchester ’73’s success, Colt bored its 1873 Single-Action Army revolver to .44-40. From 1878, shooters could use one load for rifle and pistol — a big benefit on the frontier. If one gun failed, the other could substitute; or the most appropriate arm could serve until all ammo was gone.
Not a Bear Stopper
In gun fights the .44-40 proved as lethal as the .45 Colt. It also killed top-end predators: wolves and mountain lions. But it faltered as a big-game cartridge. It was not a bear-stopper.
New Hampshire native William Wright traveled west in 1883 to explore the northern Rockies. Hunting elk along an alpine creek one day, he came across a bear. As it ambled by at 40 steps, Wright took aim with his Winchester ’73 and fired. Instead of flopping dead, the bear charged. Wright ran the lever with enthusiasm; but the extractor failed, leaving the spent case in the barrel. With no other option, he leaped into the freezing creek, submerging to his chin under the bank’s lip. After enduring the bone-biting cold as long as he could, Wright crawled ashore. The bear lay dead near his rifle. In 1909, Wright would write a book on grizzlies.
Winchester’s 1873 got a boost from William F. Cody, who declared: “… For general hunting or Indian fighting I pronounce your improved Winchester [1873] the boss. …” Model ’73s also figured heavily in his traveling Wild West Show — though after bullets broke greenhouse glass a block and a half from an 1885 Brooklyn event, Cody bought smoothbore ’73s and .44-40 loads with No. 7 shot!
Winchester’s 1876 lever rifle had a bigger action for longer cartridges but, with the same toggle lock-up, wasn’t much stronger. In .45-75 the heavy rifle impressed young T.R.; but it wasn’t bored for the .45-70 Govt. or the powerful Sharps cartridges favored by buffalo hunters. Winchester dropped it in 1897.
In 1883, Winchester got its buffalo rifle in a single shot designed and built by promising Ogden gunsmith, John Browning. It became the Model 1885. Then Winchester’s T.G. Bennett asked Browning for a lever rifle with the single-shot’s vertically sliding lugs. Browning’s genius was shown in the Winchester Model 1886, a stout, elegant rifle chambered in .45-70, .45-90 and .50-110.
“I’ll pay $10,000 for a short-action version if it’s here in three months,” said an impressed Bennett. Browning replied: “The price is $20,000. You’ll have it in 30 days or it’s free.” In two weeks John and his brothers built the Model 1892 for the .44-40. It was an instant hit. Browning followed with the Model 1894 for the mid-length .32-40 and .38-55. The .30-30 (.30 W.C.F.), our first smokeless sporting cartridge, joined them in 1895.
Meanwhile, John Marlin built lever rifles to compete. His top-ejecting Model 1881 in .40-60 and .45-70 gave way to the L.L. Hepburn-designed Model 1888, then the side-ejecting 1889. Hepburn’s 1893 in .30-30 Win. faced off with Winchester’s 1894; a Model 1894 Marlin challenged Winchester’s ’92.
Launch of the Smokeless Era
The smokeless era launched in the 1890s brought a hammerless lever rifle. Arthur Savage was in his mid-30s when he finished a prototype. But the Krag-Jorgensen bolt gun beat it out in ordnance trials. Undeterred, he formed Savage Repeating Arms Co. to make sporting rifles. The Model 1895 Savage was bored for the new .303 Savage cartridge. It featured side ejection, a rotary magazine. A through-bolt held the stock to the receiver. Improvements came in the Model 1899. In 1920, it would become the Model 99, bored not only for the zippy .250-3000, but for the powerful new .300 Savage.
Between world wars, bolt-action rifles firing fast-stepping centerfire .22s such as the .220 Swift and the then-wildcat .22-250 became popular for predator hunting. The rimmed .219 Zipper and Savage’s .22 High-Power didn’t shine in Marlin and Savage lever actions, whose breeching, trigger tolerances and tube magazines did nothing for accuracy. Varminters paired these hotrods with Winchester’s 1885 single shot. Meanwhile, lever actions became “deer rifles,” partly because they handled nimbly and delivered quick repeat shots in whitetail cover. Their slab-sided receivers slid easily into and out of scabbards. Also, the .30-30 Win. and kin killed deer as far away as anyone could shoot accurately with open sights.
By the time I was hunting deer in the ’60s, Marlin’s 336 had superseded its Model 1893 forebear, and most hunters had abandoned the 24- and 26-inch barrels of 19th century lever rifles. Winchesters and Marlins sold best with 20-inch barrels; Savage prospered with 22-inch barrels, a tad more appropriate for its cartridges. Also, the 99 had no tube magazine adding weight at the muzzle, or acting as a sail in wind.
Incidentally, barrels of 20 inches or less have traditionally (and arbitrarily) distinguished carbines. The term dates to when mounted troops were issued shorter arms than those borne by infantry. But other features, magazine length to grip style, also cleave carbines from rifles. There’s the “short rifle,” too, with a carbine-length barrel but a crescent-shaped butt-plate instead of the S-shaped over-the-heel carbine plate.
The Fall of the Lever Action
The last half of the 20th century wasn’t kind to lever actions. Winchester’s Model 71, offspring of the 1886, expired in 1957. In 1970, as Browning fielded its front-locking BLR for modern high-pressure cartridges, the hammerless Sako Finnwolf and Winchester 88 were on their way out. The 94 trundled on; but in 1963 accountants got their hands on it, replacing the forged receiver with sintered steel. Stamped parts, hollow pins and other desecrations dismayed the faithful.
Clearly, production costs of lever- and bolt-action rifles were on intersecting arcs. In ’63, as cost- cutting at Winchester also eviscerated the bolt-action Model 70, that rifle listed for $154. A Marlin 336 fetched $87. Within 30 years, the 70 would sell for $423, the 336 for $319. Eventually, you could buy a 70 for less than a 336. Building traditional lever rifles requires skilled labor. If bolt rifles were produced now as they were 130 years ago, their prices would be higher than they are. Bolt-action design has evolved to take advantage of automation. Bolt rifles also enjoy an “economy of scale” in a market that adores them.
In 1982, Winchester offered lever-action buffs a sop in angled ejection, which gave scopes a top-side perch. A decade later, after selling to Belgium’s FN Herstal, Winchester brought back solid pins and started CNC-machining receivers. Popular moves. It also nixed the standard half-cock hammer notch and added a safety. Unpopular. Lever-rifle production ceased when Winchester’s New Haven plant shuttered in 2006; but the 94 and selected 19th century lever actions are built to high quality standards by Miroku of Japan and imported by Winchester.
Marlin profited from new cartridges fashioned by Hornady for its Models 336 and 1895. The .444 Marlin appeared in 1965, the .450 Marlin in 2006. On its heels the .308 Win. and .338 Marlin Express offered hunters flatter bullet arcs and harder hits than traditional big bores. In 2007, Remington bought Marlin; in 2010 it moved production to Ilion, New York. The quality of Marlin rifles fell. In 2020, a U.S. bankruptcy court approved the sale of most Remington firearms holdings to The Roundhill Group. But Sturm Ruger snared Marlin, confident it could produce lever actions to equal the fit, finish and function of originals.
Savage kept raising prices on its 99 until sales no longer justified production. The last Savage 99, described in 1997 editions of Shooter’s Bible and Gun Digest, retailed for $650. It had a 22-inch barrel in .243 Win. or .308 Win. and a detachable box magazine. That year the company also built a 99-CE (Centennial Edition) in .300 Savage only, in a run of 1,000.
Resurging Interest
In 2005, Hornady LeverEvolution loads and pointed FTX bullets with resilient polymer tips gave traditional tube-fed lever rifles more reach, greater accuracy. Grandpa’s guns were trotted from closets to deer stands, joined by new, scoped lever rifles of stainless steel, with laminated stocks, firing frisky new cartridges. Cowboy Action matches were sparking an industry in 19th century style guns and accessories. Within a decade, Black Hills and other ammo makers would add mild lead-bullet loads specifically for Cowboy events. In scabbards and as “truck guns,” lever rifles returned to coyote country and lion hunts.
Brands have been built on the resurging interest in lever actions. The Henry name, revived in .22 lever rifles, now defines a growing centerfire stable. Henry’s X has the “tactical” look now thought cool. Its Long Ranger chambers the popular 6.5 Creedmoor. Rossi’s Brazilian-made R92, a Winchester 1892 clone, sells in .22 versions, including a “triple black” and a carbine in .454 Casull. In Wyoming, Big Horn Armory produces lever actions for the brawniest handgun cartridges: the .460 and .500 Smith & Wesson. These carriage-class carbines combine elements of Winchester’s 1886 and 1892.
A recent newcomer to the lever-rifle market is Smith & Wesson. The S&W Model 1854 is named for the birth year of the lever-action Volcanic pistol, developed by the company’s namesakes. Lock-up is like that of Marlin’s 336, the lever engaging a lug to bring the bolt into battery. The stainless receiver is forged, the stainless barrel manufactured and each rifle assembled at S&W’s Springfield, Massachusetts plant. A walnut-stocked version wears a black PVD steel finish. The stainless/synthetic version has naked, satin-polished metal. In .44 Magnum or .45 Colt, the 19.25-inch barrel is suppressor ready, with 11/16x24 threads. It has no front band; the nine-shot magazine is held there by a collar dovetailed to the barrel.
S&W got the butt-stock just right. Its comb is straight, its comfy top radius aligning my eye with the XS aperture on the rail, both supplied. Generous fluting accepts the heel of my hand so it doesn’t fight the comb nose. The open pistol grip seats a comfortably oversize lever. Neat stippling fore and aft is like that on S&W handguns. The forend has M-Lok slots; there are QD swivel studs, too.
The 1854’s hammer has a half-cock notch, so I don’t use the crossbolt safety. When the hammer is at full cock, pulling the trigger drops it, regardless of safety position. When “on,” the safety just keeps the hammer off the firing pin. Hearing a clack instead of a boom, you’ll wonder: “Is the rifle empty? Did the cartridge misfire? Or was the safety on?” The alerted game will have left you to ponder that alone.
Levers on the Hunt
An 1854 joined me on a hog hunt this past winter. Hours into a drizzly morning, a big black boar came over a ridge short yards away. The carbine jumped to cheek and fired as the bead caught his shoulder. He flinched at the impact, then dug for another gear. Flicking the lever, I swung fast. The .44 barked again. The boar collapsed in stride, skidding on his brisket.
Sweet on traditional lever actions, I’ve also used them to take deer, elk and black bears. Their link to history appeals to me. When game is scarce, cradling an old carbine makes the day worthwhile. Accuracy varies, and depends as much on loads as on the firearm. But it’s always been good enough for metallic-sight distances. And often it’s better than I expected. A Savage 1899 in .303 has printed 1-inch knots at 100 yards. Ditto a much-used Winchester 1892 in .25-35. Both with tang sights. With a scope, a new Marlin SBL in .45-70 drilled a ragged hole with three Hornady FTX bullets. I get similar precision with LeverEvolution ammo and Marlin’s latest 336 in .30-30 Win.
Brakes, suppressors, M-Lok slots and front rails still strike me as odd on rifles birthed during our Civil War. So do AR-15-style butt-stocks, as on Mossberg’s discontinued 464. But the lever-action isn’t just for the tradition-bound. It now suits many tastes. From banging silhouettes to collecting venison to pestering predators, lever actions will do well by you, Pilgrim.
What About Price?
Early levers selling for less than 20 bucks are far in the rearview mirror. New models could set you back four figures.
Price increases have been the most predictable and painful change in lever rifles since forever. In 1901, sales of Marlin’s Model 1894 fell shy of expectations. So Marlin cut the price from $18 — about that of a Winchester 1892 — to $10.40. It’s hard to imagine such largess, or to endure the cruel truth that it will never return.
Savage’s first catalog, circa 1900, listed Model 99s for $20, with engraving from $5, checkering from $2. A Lyman tang peep sight cost $3.50. Custom stock dimensions could be special-ordered, but in 1905 Savage admonished buyers that: “… deviation from (standard dimensions) requires the stock to be cut from the solid block by hand. This is expensive work and there is an extra charge of $10. …”
Prices crept up during the 20th century’s first half. Still, at the close of WW II, $41 would buy you a new Winchester 94. Today’s Miroku-built 94 lists at $1,400. Most well-made lever actions now sell for over a grand — including fine Italian reproductions imported by Benelli, Cimarron and Taylor’s. Last year, in Alberta timber on the last evening of a bear hunt, my open-sighted .45-70 downed a big red boar. That memory salves the sting of its four-figure price. — Wayne van Zwoll
