Why the lever gun? Like the Fiddler on the Roof said, it's TRADITION!. The decade 1890-1900 (approximately) saw the perfection of the early metallic cartridge repeating rifle. Smokeless powder was introduced. The models of '86, '92, '94, '95 were the first really powerful, long-range rifles commonly available to the common man. And they were all levers.
Maine is my home and in my shroud. My father, grandfather, uncles, all owned lever guns. Everyone they knew did. They were 'THE' deer rifle here. The bolt gun didn't come along until after WWI, when the Krag and Springfield began showing up in country gun shops. But by then, Grandpop's old lever gun, be it in .45-90 (as was mine, and unfortunately...I was never told that .45-70 shells would fire safely in the old cannon...) or in the more common .30-30, .32 Special, and short .44-40 and .38-40, were passed down to the next generation of impoverished Maine hunters, who found them more than adequate, still.
Vermin were still dispatched neatly with Winchester .25-20's and .32-20's. And when my turn came to buy my own FIRST rifle, a Marlin in .35 Remington was first choice, and the rifle that put down my first solo deer.
Almost all of those heirloom guns still lurk in the countryman's closet corner, still ready to serve as they have for nearly a century now.
Oh, we play with the 'new-fangled' needle-blowin' bolt guns, and a new generation, that weren't fostered by tradition, play with those self-firin' gadgets they learned about in Veet Nam or the movies. But the lever is still the time-honored, much used, just-right choice of true outdoorsmen: Here in Maine...and I suspect, just about everywhere.
