Lever action rifles

The Q&D IMHO summary:

Old Marlins are the best bestest, strongest and mightiest ever made
Henry's are second best, but some folks don't like how they go about loading.
The M92 is a great pistol caliber lever, but good luck finding one these days
Remlins are a crap shoot, so you better give it a good looking over in person before buying one.

Oh, also while I am at it... the .30-30 is at the same time the worlds greatest white tail deer round and an antiquated, out of date inaccurate piece of garbage. That's why real lever guns are chambered in .45-70, .45 Colt, .357 & .44

PS: Cross bolt safeties were invented by devilish lawyers to compensate for people that can't handle firearms properly. That's why some very nice people invented safety deletes.

Take this post with a whole salt lick. Not about that part about Old Marlins being the best though. That's 100% Gods honest fact.

Seriously though: What do you want the rifle for? Each manufacturer has their own strengths and weaknesses. Want a big bore for actual hunting? A Marlin Guide Rifle is the best. Want a gun for some non-serious competition cowboy shooting, a M92 is the best IMHO. Want a damn good looking rifle, Henry.

On my friends Henry rifle you have to twist the plunger tube near the muzzle of the rifle, pull it out most of the way extending it very far in front of the muzzle, fill the ammo tube with cartridges, push the punger tube back down and lock it with a quick 1/4 twist.

On my brother in laws Marlin you insert cartridges through the side plate on the action and can top it off with extra cartridges in a couple of seconds. I prefer the Marlin design over the Henry design. But they both appear to be solid reliable lever action rifles to me.

Marlinowners is a good site, as is this one. Just use the search function. But you need to be aware of bad, misleading, or inaccurate information, and be careful to separate opinion from fact. For example, clickclick's post above has a lot of opinion in it, and that's fine. I tend to agree with him, however, the Winchester 1892 action is stronger and less bulky than the Marlin 1894. Now, both are strong and safe actions, but technically the 92 is stronger.

Marlins scope better and are easier to work on than wincherster/Browning/Rossi designs. I don't really know much about Henry other than they originally were reintroduced, they had slicker actions than new Marlin or Rossi guns, but I feel like that has changed. I just personally don't like the Henry guns much. Modern Winchester and browning rifles are made by miroku in japan, and they are very nice and very expensive. The cowboy winchester reproduction guns are made by a couple companies in Italy and are pretty nice.

The Brazilian Rossi guns are fine, but need some spit and polish. Actually, they all can be vastly improved with an action job. You can polish up a new Glock or are and not see much difference, but you you lighten springs and polish internals you get a whole new and significantly better rifle with lever guns. Which brings me back to why I like Marlins the best: they are the easiest to improve. I started learning how to work on them from http://marauder.homestead.com/Rifles.html

When people talk about Marlins, and refer to remlin or bad Marlins, they're referring to when Remington bought Marlin back around 2009. They moved the factory but the employees did not move with it. Quality was so bad for the next few years they stopped production. These guns have poor wood to metal fit canted barrels stripped screws offset offset sites, they were just bad in every way possible. Within the last couple of years they have reintroduced them, and quality is apparently pretty good. People give the old Marlin rifles too much credit for spectacular fit-and-finish. Compared to the dad Remington's they were significantly better, but compared to what miroku was putting out, they were not that great. The old factory was using a lot of really old equipment and the new ones built with good equipment appear to be better. Or at least have the potential to be better.

The OP's post is pretty generic... if you can narrow down what you might be looking for, it would be easier to talk you through it.

Again, not to beat up on Click, the Marlins were not the strongest... even something like the 1895. The Winchester 1886 action is much stronger. With today's metallurgy, you would be good to go with anything in SAMMI spec, however, it's not really an issue of action strength anymore.

I prefer the Marlins because of the side eject and ease of cleaning, but I have a soft spot in my heart for the 1886/71 action.

There are rifle-cartridge lever-guns, and pistol-cartridge lever-guns... and even shotgun lever-guns.... just depends on what you are looking for.

Paco Kelly's Leverguns has both a ton of information and probably the most well informed bunch of forum members you can find. http://www.leverguns.com/

MarlinOwners was once pretty darned good. It got a new boss who could best be described as a "Net Nazi" His way or the highway. I don't know if it's improved, but back when if you badmouthed the .444 Marlin you were gone.

Another one that above average is Levergun Scoundrels https://login.proboards.com/forum_submit/login

ClickClickD'oh said:

Old Marlins are the best bestest, strongest and mightiest ever made

Click to expand...

Not really.

An 86 Winchester is just as strong or stronger, and the 95 is the only lever ever chambered in 30-06 until some of the Browning levers came on the scene. Their looks might not appeal to everyone, but they are immensely strong.

And don't forget the Winchester model 88, which was chambered in .243, 308, 358 and 284 Winchester.

Yeah .... the Winchester 1886 was the Hercules of lever rifles in its day, and it is still a fantasmagoricaly strong action. It's junior brother, the 1892 is also a titan in pistol caliber sized cartridges.
Now, Marlin is a very very strong action and in any caliber it is provided in, will do very well. Winchester lovers who remember that brand as "the rifle that won the west" (an apellation applied really to the 1873) might use that as a indice to claim it has a better pedigree than Marlin, but the truth is Marlin was back there too and had better stronger rifles than the Winchester and earlier. In fact, that's why Winchester bought the 1886 from John Moses Browning.
There were also other historical leverguns, the Spencer, the Kennedy Repeater, and even Colt's Burgess 1883 in limited numbers.
Today the strongest levers are the 1886, the various centerfire Marlins, a Mossberg copy of the Winchester 1894, the Henry Rifles which load from the front, are all good.
There are repros, usually by Uberti, of the true original Henry, the Winchester 1866, 1873, and 1876, and Burgess, which are used by Western reenactors and use specialty cartridges like .44-40 which are less potent than .44 magnum, and harder to find. Other calibers like that may be .38-40, .32-20, .25-20 that you might find. Theses are historically correct calibers, but are hard to locate, and if you're not into the reenact or style shooting, are probably not going to be what you would want.

Modern leverguns that fire .44 mag will fire 44 special, while .357 magnum will handle .38 special comfortably.
And .30-30, .45-70, and a few other rifle calibers will do if you want their greater power.

Marlinowners.com

ClickClickD'oh said:

Oh, also while I am at it... the .30-30 is at the same time the worlds greatest white tail deer round and an antiquated, out of date inaccurate piece of garbage. That's why real lever guns are chambered in .45-70, .45 Colt, .357 & .44

Click to expand...

IMO real lever guns are chambered in 30-30, .32 Winchester Special and .35 Remington.

There’s definitely a wide margin in that question, as a very general answer, and there are certainly exceptions:

-Toggle actions are the weakest 1860, 1873, 1876 (though the 1876 is an 1873 that was watered too much, so it could accept larger cartridges)....

-then comes the actions with locking bars like the 1886, 1892, 1894, 1885. Important to note is the 1894 and 1895 were designed specifically with smokeless powder in mind. The 1886 and 1892’s design are both essentially as strong as the 94 and 95 with the same metallurgy, though they were designed along with blackpowder cartridges and the strength is subject to the year it was manufactured.

Of course to clarify, the 92 is designed for pistol cartridges, the 94 for intermediate, 86 for full size and the 95 for high power spitzer cartridges. Action size plays into strength with all things being equal.

Modern day rotary and box mag levers like the BLR or Long Ranger are another level, but I don’t think we are talking about those.

IlikeSA said:

I don't know a whole lot about lever action rifles, particularly a comparison of strength between models and makers.

Is there a website that you would recommend giving the low down on various types of lever rifles, historic and modern?

If not, what information can you offer?

Click to expand...

Only lever guns in my stable are Savage Model 99s. The post-WW2 production 99s are often found chambered for .308 and .243 so the action is plenty strong. They use internal rotary or detachable box magazines so no issues with pointed bullets in a tube magazine. Mine are laser accurate, handy, and a joy to work and shoot.

Highly recommend them!

Tell me about some of the qualities common to most lever guns regardless of whether they're Marlin, Henry or Winchester. I have limited experience, but:

When handling lever-action rifles like the 336 and 1895, my boys found them really heavy. I mind a heavy gun less than they do, but what I notice about them is they seem to be front-heavy and they have a very different balance than a bolt-action rifle. What I know from shotguns is that the tubular magazine puts more weight on the front of the gun, especially when it has even more leverage at greater length and when it's full of a lot of lead-filled cartridges. Heavy barrels can have a stablizing effect, but they certainly balance differently than other rifles.

One of the most-often observed qualities of a lever-action rifle is how the tublar magazine dictates blunt or round-nosed bullets be used so as not to strike the primer of the cartridge in front of it. Soft-tipped "Leverevolution" type bullets give a little improvement in ballistic-coefficient. Another option is to load no more than one cartridge in the chamber and another in the magazine. Current production lever-action centerfire rifles are typically large-caliber (.30, 36, .43 or .45), and so they're still not the choice for very low drag projectiles, but they do allow for heavy bullets in cartridges less exotic than the African dangerous game chamberings, which pretty much fill out the rest of the rifle cartridges .40 caliber and greater with the rare exceptions like .450 Bushmaster and kin. "Thumpers" aren't limited to lever-actions, but it seems current lever-actions go from .22LR to one .30 caliber cartridge, and the rest of them are a lot bigger.

The near-ubiquitous thumper chamberings of lever-action rifles are probably concomitant with some of their features that make high precision and accuracy very difficult to produce with them. For example, they have a two-piece stock. They also often have the tubular magazine and the forestock strapped or clamped to the barrel. If you're going to hit a target at 50 yards with over 3000 ft lbs of energy, does it matter? But they're not popular in bench-rest shooting.

The action can be fast and CAS practitioners have probably demonstrated that most frequently, but are they practically any faster than a Lee Enfield? In an age of semi-automatics, does it even matter?

They tend to have short actions and that makes them shorter overall for a given barrel-length, but with more bolt-action receivers being made with short, mini, even micro actions, the bolt guns don't have to come with excessive length and if all you want to shoot is a little pistol cartridge, .17 or .223 derivative, there are very compact bolt and semi-auto guns that are not longer than a lever-action even with comparable barrel-lengths.

They're more complex than bolt-action guns and even some semi-automatics. That seems likely to make them more expensive to produce, particularly more expensive to produce with reliable function. I can't think of a lever-action rifle design that has a reputation for being unreliable, but some production certainly has a reputation for quality issues and that has to have some impact on reliability for the affected guns. I can imagine they're harder to clean too, at least harder to strip and clean than a Mauser.

What else can you tell me about lever-action rifles?

I don't care which is the best, which is the most "complex", which has the stronger action etc, etc. For me its about nostalgia.
I'm 78 YO. I've hunted deer for most of my life. Here in the hills and hollers of the Missouri Ozarks deer rifle, Marlin, 30-30 (and 35 Rem). are terms used interchangeably to describe a tool to hunt deer.
Nearly everyone I hunted with back in the day used a Marlin lever of some description with a Winchester and mil surp thrown in now and then. Most of my old hunting companions have passed. I have a Marlin 336 (JM) to remind me of those that I loved and hunted with back then.

I've owned 3 Marlin 336s in my life. This is the latest.

Had a Savage 99 .308. Have two each Marlins and Winchesters in 30-30 and 44 mag, one Rossi 45-70, and a Win 92 in 357. Love them all. In general, the Marlins edge the others in accuracy, the Winchesters for "cool" and "carry". If I could only keep one it would be dad's old 94 44 mag.

I have been a 30-30 fan since my first one in 1957, a Savage 219 (or 220 I don't remember) and on through a dozen or more of Win/Mar/Sav models. Now, a 94, a 336, a TC Contender and a TC Carbine. Ten moulds, piles of brass and a half dozen favorite loads. One or the other always accompanies me down to my land, Walnut Hill.

when it comes to lever action rifles. the older marlin and winchester are the best. if you are looking for new then it is the henry. there are other brands out there but marlin, winchester and henry is what i have and use for nra lever action silhouette matches.

IlikeSA said:

I left the question vague as that is my level of knowledge. I have been a part of THR and a gun owner for 20 years, but am more into handguns than rifles or shotguns. My only rifles are bolt action rifles. I prefer revolvers to semiautos. I am aware of the brands of the rifles.

I am always just curious what is meant by a 1892 and a 1886 and so on. I am somewhat aware of the history, having studied the Civil War. I am curious to increase my knowledge so that I understand what others are talking about when they are mentioning the numbers and debating the designs.

I would enjoy buying a lever gun, probably in 45 Colt or 45-70, but have other guns ahead in the line.

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Makes sense and, in review, is a reasonable question. It would be like asking 'Tell me about revolvers...' to someone like you... the question opens about 100 doors and would be difficult to sum up in one post. Understanding the evolution of the lever helps... from the blackpowder pistol cartridge days, into blackpowder rifle, into the 1900's and smokeless powder for both pistol and rifle cartridges. The rifle nomenclature by year released typically follows the evolution of lever-guns, with a few exceptions... and until they started random model numbers (like the 88 or 71, etc.)

frankmako said:

when it comes to lever action rifles. the older marlin and winchester are the best. if you are looking for new then it is the henry. there are other brands out there but marlin, winchester and henry is what i have and use for nra lever action silhouette matches.

Click to expand...

I’d have to say the new Winchester’s are the highest quality but they are pricey.

One of the best things Marlin ever done in my humble opinion was start offering their model 336 lever action rifle in 35 Remington caliber in 1953. Production has never stopped. A great old semi-auto caliber from 1908.

Marlin has built millions of 30-30 carbines but for some reason their model chambered for 35 Remington has never been as popular. This dandy buck was toppled with their 35 Remington model. This cartridge features a 200 grain bullet with muzzle velocity of about 2,000 fps. It has a long history of lethality on a variety of animals including moose in the far north country.

TR

Winchester Henry Marlin

ClickClickD'oh said:

That's why real lever guns are chambered in .45-70, .45 Colt, .357 & .44

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Don’t forget the 35 Remington, 444 and 375 Win.

I preferred Marlin lever actions, primarily due to the fact that removing the bolt and cleaning the barrel is a lot easier than Win M1892's, M1894's. Further take down is difficult with all of these rifles, involving removing the buttstock and a bunch of screws. At least with the Marlin, once I remove the one screw that holds the lever in, I can get a paper towel in the action and wipe things out. Also, the Marlin easily takes a scope:






Marlin went round bolt in 1948:



In terms of strength, the traditional lever actions are all rear locking actions and as a class, they are not appropriate for 50,000 psia loads. Pretty much these actions are upper 30 K to 40K psia, and that has to do with the flexibility of the bolt and action. With modern materials the modern actions are "stronger" but that does not mean higher pressure loads will function better in them. Due to the action designs, attempts to hot rod them will result in stuck cases and case head separations.

There are front locking lever actions that will fire 308 Win pressure level cartridges, typically they feed though a box magazine. They are plenty strong. The traditional actions are rugged, reliable, and that is something that should not be dismissed as inconsequential. These rifles have been used in world wide climatic conditions, hardly any maintenance, and yet, they go bang.