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by I’ve been pondering for a while the whole matter of rifles; their history and development and the uses to which we put them today. I have come to the difficult conclusion that the lever action as we now know it is obsolete. It certainly was effective enough for some tasks in decades gone by, but modern technology has given us better ways to get the job done and I have decided to embrace that. Many seem to cling to the levergun out of nostalgia, as a reminder of bygone glory. “The gun that won the West” is the oft-repeated claim in their favor. I have learned over the years that such claims need to be carefully examined. “Winning the West” required the accomplishment of one over-riding mission: that of defeating the various tribes of Indians and forcing them to live in peace on the reservations. This rather bloody endeavor was carried out by two groups of people: the US Army and the professional bison hunters. These groups were armed almost exclusively with single shot rifles, namely the Trapdoor Springfield and the Sharps. Combat at distances too close for rifles was found to be best handled with shotguns or sixshooters. In spite of Oliver Winchester’s best efforts, very few leverguns were ever adopted as standard issue by the world’s armies. In the 1870s and 1880s they were thought to lack power compared to the single shots and the few repeaters then in widespread use; by the 1890s technology was sealing the levergun’s fate as a military arm and bringing about its obsolescence as a hunting arm as well. In the 1890s rifle designers were finding that the turnbolt design couple with the newest cartridge designs offered big advantages in power, strength, flat trajectories, and quick reloading. The stripper clip and packet loading systems had been perfected by that point, enabling the shooter to load five rounds into a bolt gun as fast as he could ONE round into a levergun with tube magazine. It is interesting to note that the 1895 Winchester, John Browning’s last major levergun design and an attempt to compete with the modern bolt guns, never addressed this advantage at all. Its’ slow loading condemned it to second-line status for those few armies that did purchase quantities of them in emergencies. By 1900 riflemen had available to them designs like the 1898 Mauser that were utterly reliable under the worst conditions, accurate, able to launch high-velocity bullets for flat trajectories and excellent performance at long ranges, and able to be quickly reloaded. During World War I millions of Americans became well-acquainted with the superior qualities of excellent bolt guns, and the rest, as they say, is history. Since 1920 we have been blessed with a multitude of excellent bolt action designs and cartridges with efficiency and killing power of a sort unimaginable in the era when leverguns dominated. We continue to be blessed with rifles like the Mauser, to this day the Gold Standard for utter dependability. We have been blessed with some neat little carbines like the Remington 600 or the Steyr Scout that combine quick and easy handling with seriously powerful chamberings like the .350 Remington Magnum or the .376 Steyr, readily able to harvest any game animal on the planet. While my Marlin will try for an inch at a hundred yards, modern bolt guns with good ammo will do better. Often MUCH better. Another argument typically offered on the leverguns’ behalf is its ability to give you a quick repeat shot. Here, too, modern technology has given us a better way. Since the M1 Garand showed the 98 Mauser a thing or three about how a modern rifle performs, hunters and shooters have been offered a number of rifles that fill the bill very very well when firepower is called for. Whether the situation involves dealing with critters with two legs or four, rifles like the M16, the FAL, the M1A, or the civilian version of the BAR offered by Browning have long since proven that they should be called upon. With those rifles the shooter can choose from configurations ranging from varmint-gun heavy to light and quick-handling, a variety of calibers suitable for nearly any situation, and have the firepower advantage of a big magazine and the ability to quickly change them. Modern leverguns, with their slow-to-reload tube magazines, simply cannot compare. |
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