Black
Powder by Chris Risebrook
Black Powder by Chris Risebrook
This month, Chris puts the black powder to one side and has a look at the lever- action rifle in its various configurations.
I must confess to a weakness (yet another one!) for lever-action rifles. I suppose it was all those early black and white TV series and the fabulous westerns of the fifties but, until the last Firearms Act I rarely encountered them, except for the occasional Marlin Mountie.
Then came the handgun ban and now we are wading about in the things as many shooters looked for a replacement for their pistols. In general, I must admit that the attraction was more in the celluloid than in the metal. I find them almost awkward and nowhere as slick as they appear on the screen. Some years ago, a club member brought along an original Winchester 92 in 44/40 and the action was like the proverbial ‘hot knife through butter’. Conversely, modern rifles seem to clunk and grind and require a lot of effort.
For a change, I thought it might be fun to assemble a small selection of these creatures, shown together in the photo, all of which are of modern manufacture.
Below is a Marlin 1894 in .44 Magnum kitted out with a scope sight and a professional trigger job.
The romance is still there but I cannot help but feel that in my hands the indians would have won every time. Either those movie guns were slicked up, or their innards had been removed to allow them to be used with such ease. And on that subject don’t ever try swinging the gun round the lever without an Alaskan guard - assuming you enjoy having your fingers attached to your hand! I once tried that trick with a little Marlin 94 and was lucky to get away with just bruises.
The next photo shows a standard Rossi Puma in .357, totally unmolested. This is a copy of John Brownings Winchester 92, and supposedly Winchester sold the machinery to Rossi after World 2, and Rossi have been happily turning them out for years, with a few modifications. Winchester 92s were made in 25- 20, 38-40 and 44-40, but Rossi make them in .357, 44Magnum and .45Colt.
82
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102