Lever Action Carbines

[PA PATRIOT]

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[PA PATRIOT]

Just added this red dot site to my Winchester Trapper 16" .44mag and I must say I was surprised how well it worked out. I got the mount which offered the protective body for the optic since the trapper will be a truck gun. The second thing I did was swap out the wood stock and forearm with a synthetic one which saved another half pound and should be a bit stronger.


Burris Fast Fire II

[DrJSW]

I quite agree with DocGKR's statements vis a vis using a large-bore, fast pistol caliber round in lever action carbines. I came to appreciate the ergonomics of the lever carbine when I took up cowboy action shooting a decade ago or so, and as it happens when I got into an off-duty situation where my (squad/cruiser-ready) Winchester M1892 .45 Colt was the only long gun at hand, I did not feel at all undergunned.

The Winchester and Marlin 1894 platforms in 357 Magnum can be handloaded to performance levels that approach the venerable .30-30, but one has to ask, "why"? If you want a .30-30, buy a .30-30. I do not favor tube-magazine weapons as fighting guns as a rule, whether shotgun or rifle... but in the case of a shotgun, I know each round carries a lot more wallop than most carbine rounds do, so I still train and deploy my M&P shotgun at biannual qualification time.

The sole advantage of a pistol-caliber lever carbine vs a rifle-caliber lever carbine is magazine capacity. You can feed 10 rounds of .44 Mag or .45 Colt in there, but only 4-6 rounds of .30-30, .358 Win, or .45-70. And reloading these rifles is SLOW. I've done many courses of fire requiring reloading the empty lever gun, and it sucks. It's faster (I've done the timed drills) to reload a double action revolver with loose ammo than it is to reload a lever carbine with loose ammo, which tells you it really sucks. Once you have become habituated to reloading your carbine with box magazines, it's really hard to return to the 19th century.

Hence my new quest for a Saiga 12-gauge shotgun for 3-gun matches and less formalized shooting situations.

Lever guns are cool, but the tube magazine can be a serious liability in a gunfight. My truck rifles are NOT lever guns. Not since my near-lotsa-paperwork experience.

I have two PD-surplus 760's (.308 Win) with a bunch of box magazines that have been flawless performers for me. I also very much like my recently acquired M1 carbine. Gary doesn't like the 7615, but I have no experience with that one. The 760 does not blow chunks in my hands.