Eleven Mike
Member
Is the bolt handle of a bolt-action firearm also a lever, widening Tory's definition even more?
Simple. The lever does not actuate the action. The shooter's arm and hand function in that capacity. Hence a Martini-Henry has a lever (long or short) but that lever does not cycle the action, it merely opens the breech and ejects the spent shell. A lever ACTION will eject the spend shell and load up a new cartridge with a stroke forward and a stroke back.
Wouldn't make a difference now, of course, as we have tube mags on military shotguns and box mags which are not exactly indestructible. I would imagine a tube magazine on a rifle could be pretty tough, if made from steel of the appropriate guage.I've always heard that one of the reasons the lever action was not more widely regarded as a military arm was the risk of denting a tubular magazine and rendering it inoperative or at least into a single shot.
You don't say. Next thing you know, Winchester will make a lever-action shot gun, perhaps a 94 chambered in .410.Unspellable, Eleven Mike, the Winchester 1895 used a 5 shot box magazine, not a tube. That argument does not apply to that situation.