seriously considering a lever gun, could use some opinions.

[Strtspdlx]

I'm definitely going to get one. Right now its a matter of time and money that's holding it up. While its being held up I decided id look around and that's where I ran into trouble. rossi makes exactly what I want in 45 colt and 38/357, however henry also makes what looks to be a beautiful gun, the only thing that's keeping me from buying it is ; no loading gate. I really want a loading gate so if I need to just load one or two I can easily do that in a timely fashion. I don't think messing with a tube and all that would exactly be timely, but ive never fired or owned a levergun. I'm dead set on either 45 colt or 38/357 and I'm leaning more towards 45 colt right now as I already load in 45 acp and a tiny bit of that may transfer ( the one mold I have I can use). and I hate having a buncha of different calibers, I want to keep it simple. is it possible to have a loading gate installed on a henry? none of their models show a loading gate, but they look to be very well built and comfortable. I held a Winchester tonight, needless to say its in rifle caliber and I wasn't very impressed honestly. so if anyone can help PLEASE DO!!

[Outer Rondacker]

Sounds like Rossi might be for you. 45LC brass is a bit harder in my area to find then 357/38. You might not be able to use that 45 mold with that 45lc but then again I do not know what mold you have. Lets see 357/38 uses less lead. Henry does not have a loading gate that is kinda their sig. Most of the 357/38 rossi do not need crazy over sized bullets. I am not sure I am helping. Henry's are oh so nice but for me I buy shooters. I would cry if I messed up that golden gun jumping out my backhoe to shoot a tree rat. So you know what one I would buy.

[Strtspdlx]

To me a firearm has one sole purpose. To be shot, if I don't shoot it I don't want it. Which is why I'm getting rid of my ar to purchase a lever gun. I have a 452-230-tc Lee mold and I want to say I can use that for 45 colt shooting. I'm thinking the Rossi will end up being my choice. The loading gate is very important to me. However I am very new to this hobby (that's what it is to me).

[Jim K.]

Also mite consider a marlin 1894 in 45 colt. I have one and would not trade it. Also have one in 357 and 44-40. They're great!

Jim

[Ramjet-SS]

I am keeping my ARs and just adding another lever gun.........Life is GREAT

[jcren]

Don't have a lever YET, but the Lee tl452-230 tc (pc'd smoke's gloss black) is very accurate and hits like a hammer in the Rossi circuit judge carbine. I also want a loading gate model, throw back to shotgunning, so I can quickly pop in an alternative load.

[Strtspdlx]

I am keeping my ARs and just adding another lever gun.........Life is GREAT

one day I will be there, I haven't put in my fair share to earn that yet though.

[olafhardt]

I am a lever lover and have been for years. I have several and have traded off a few. That said I have to say that I find loading gates to be an amazing pain in the thumb. They are hard to load, hang up, and let in dirt. I find the slide out tubes on my rimfires to be superior. I have found the two best leveraction rounds to be 22lr and 30- 30. Since this is the forum we are on, I am assuming you are ameanable to casting and reloading. It is no trouble to cast and reload boolits for the 30-30 that are effective at 150 yards and will at that range shoot through a hog with very little holdover. 357's and 44's have looping trajectories. If loaded to the energy of a 30-30 they also have the recoil and use comparable lead and powder. A 30-30 can be loaded to become a farting mouse. True that a 30-30 doesn't have the magazine capacity of the pistol cartridges but even a carbine legnth 22 will put them in the shade. Don't get me wrong. I drool over the short cartridge levers and am planning on getting a 44 or 45.

[TXGunNut]

My second rifle was (and still is) a levergun. My most recent rifle was a levergun. (See a pattern here?) Most of them are older than I am, some over 100 yrs old. A couple are relatively new. My point is proceed with caution, they are addictive! I don't have a Henry but I picked one up the other day, I may be able to overlook the loading gate deficiency someday. It seems to truly be a well-made rifle. I don't have a Rossi yet either but a 357 could very easily make a home here. I have thousands of pieces of brass left over from my PPC days and a set of dies for my Dillon so it won't go hungry.

[Scharfschuetze]

I have or have had lever guns in 25/20 through 45/70 and many calibres in between. I think that the most useful or flexible for the lower 48 is the 30/30 or 32 Special. For Alaska... perhaps the 45/70. In the end, take a look at what you your end game is with it... hunting or plinking or both.

My worst experience was with a Marlin 1894 Cowboy rifle chambered in 45 Colt. I never could get that rifle to shoot well. It's chamber was too large and its slow rifling twist ruled out heavy for calibre boolits and it never did shoot light boolits well either.

Surprisingly, my funnest lever gun is a Marlin 1894 CL in 32/20. It's fun, accurate and pretty cheap to shoot. On the other end, a Marlin limited run 1895 in 45/70 is a hoot too.

The lever I shoot the most is a Marlin Cowboy in 357 Magnum. I always seem to have a lot of 357 loaded and laying around so that rifle gets the nod more often than not thanks to a Dillon press that cranks out that calibre almost as fast as I can think about it.

The one with the most class and value to me, is an 1893 Marlin in 30/30 with a 26" octagon barrel. It's been in the family since it was new and it's now well over 113 years old and still shoots just as well as any new 30/30.

Levers to stay away from are Winchesters made between 1964 and 1968 as well as the earlier production Marlins made by Remington.

[Outpost75]

If considering ONE levergun, for "back to the land", "rural-agricultural," hippie, hermit, survivalist, subsistance farmer-rancher, outdoorsman purpose, a .44 Magnum is the OBVIOUS choice!!!!

Factory ammo is sold everywhere! Factory .44 Specials will do the "Cat Sneeze" and discrete poaching roles with low recoil, low noise, no flash. Handguns and rifles are common as dirt, affordable, accurate enough and reliable, as are brass, molds, etc.

You can load .44 Mag with black, smokeless or BP substitutes. The guns are strong and you can't blow one up unless you get INSANELY stupid!

Frugal cheap SOB can get 1000 rounds per pound of fast burners like Bullseye, Titegroup or Clays and get most of the work done with cheap plainbased, cast bullets of wheelweights or backstop scrap which equal .44-40 or .45 Colt energy. Save your full power "Buffalo" loads for when you really need them, which is not very often.

If Jean-Luke Picard of the Starship Enterprise were to beam me to my own virgin planet rich with game and I could take only one rifle and one handgun, they would be my 5-1/2" Ruger .44 Mag. Vaquero and Marlin 1894S in the same caliber. Keeps things simple. Kills stuff!

[Buckshot]

..............I have two Rossi lever guns. One is their round barrel carbine 38/357, and the other is a rifle with octagon barrel in 45 Colt. I also have a JapChester 1892 which is also a rifle and it has a round barrel, and is chambered 45 Colt. The one thing about Rossi's are is that the amount of work it takes to get one smoothed up, and/or get it shooting can vary one to another. I believe the way they make them has much to do with this. That is I think the folks on the line who build them from parts are not only assemblers, but "Fitters" too.

The 38/357 carbine was a shooting Essobee from the git-go. The only thing that bothered me about it was that the lever lacked about a 1/4" from lying against the lower tang. Otherwise it was great. A bit of time with an acetylene torch and a judiciously applied rawhide mallet got that issue remedied. I do not have any pictures of the carbine.





It's a casecolored version. The action, crescent butt plate, and the forend cap are colorcased (or however they produced the effect?) The lever, barrel, and mag tube are blued. The octagon barrel isn't polished but it is nicely finished and the corners of the flats are sharp, and straight without any waves or whoopties. What IS polished is the action, lever, buttplate and forend cap. None of the screw holes are dished and whoever polished the parts knew what they were doing. It seems to me that barrel bore and grooves may vary. I don't know if Rossi (BrazTech) makes their own or sources them someplace else. The bore and groove of this rifle is tight with a .450" groove and a .446" bore. That gives grooves only .002" depth. I'd like it to be twice that, but to date I've not had any leading issues to speak of.

Me being me when I got the rifle I simply HAD to take it apart! Never had a 1892 apart before but with some online instructions getting it apart and then back together wasn't an issue. But lemme tell'ya is sure isn't as simple as a Marlin. There were a few places that could stand some attention in smoothing, but a Dremel and some Cratex abrasive bits made short work of them. Works slick as could be. Something I didn't like was that the ejector would sling the empties 4' up in the air and about 6' off to the right. I replaced the spring with one for a Japchester '92 and that took care of that. Operate the lever normally and they eject a couple inches high and maybe 4" off to the right. Operated energetically and they go maybe 6" to the right. The wood is some So. American hardwood of some type, but nicely done and stained a pleasing brown. I have no issues with it. The only real problem is that the chamber will accept a round with a .457" slug.



The above is the Lee 457 - 340F and it will feed, and surprisingly enough it shoots quite well, which was surprising with that slow twist.

This is the Miroku made 1892 Winchester:



It does have Walnut wood, and ALL the metal is polished.



This rifle has a perfect barrel dimension wise, as it slugs .443" x .451". It also has a 16" twist which is the pistol twist for the 45 Colt. However it really hasn't outshot the Rossi. About the best I can do with either rifle, their iron sights and my 63 year old Mk1 Mod1 eyeball detectors is 5 into 1.5" @ 50 yards. The Rossi was purchased brand new at $609. A year or so later I stumbled into another gunshop and this Japchester was in with a bunch of other guns on consignment. It was $350 but didn't have a buttplate. The store owner said a bunch of this guy's rifles were missing them, but they had one ordered for it. When it finally came in it was the buttplate for a carbine. They gave me $50 back so I ordered a buttplate and then paid a pal with woodworking skills to install it for me. I don't know what this rifle cost new, nor do I know when it was made but it didn't anything done to it (other then the buttplate) so far as "Playing with it" went.

Both rifles are a lot of fun to reload for, and shoot.

.................Buckshot

[MrWolf]

Love my Marlin levers. Started with the 45-70 and they kept multiplying. They are addictive. I keep hearing about the Henry in .41 so much I may actually have to see one some day. Have fun.

[TrashcanDan]

I would definitely recommend getting one, which one you want is a matter of preference.
I shoot left handed so its easier for me than a bolt action, I don't take hot casings to the face like I did with my a.r., and theres no need to special order a south-paw version.

I picked up a henry .22 for my stepson a while back. Fun little rifle. All the henry's, save a few, seem to be tube loaded, which for me wasn't convenient. Some people swear by them and say it feeds better, but again its a matter of preference. It is a smooth cycling fun little rifle though.

I have a marlin I picked up about 20 or so years ago. A 336 in 30/30. Again, nice rifle, was easy to put a peep sight on and I hear its even easier to mount a red dot on it. Ammos expensive and its a punishing round so I haven't put more than 2 boxes through it. Cycles nice, but I'm also told, around my way at least that marlins are getting harder to get. something about the manufacturing plant relocating.

I have a rossi 92 in .357, 20" octagonal barrel. Out of the box, it cycles nice for me at least. I like the side load feature. I'm told there are various sites that offer services or advice on how to "slick it", spring replacement, all that good stuff.
My 2 biggest complaints about the rifle are this, and i wouldn't really consider it a complaint.

Length of pull in the stock. Easily fixed for me with a slip on recoil pad or sleeve. With my a.r., it was swapping out the stock. With my Anschutz, it was adjusting the butt slider.

Rear sight. Tang sight is an option I'm looking into. The rear sight works, don't get me wrong, but I find that when I try to align the rear notch with the front sight, the elevation ramp wedge blocks the front sight. I could swap out the dovetail in the rear, but from what I've read, depending on the production run the dovetail is either 3/8ths or around 9mm. Again, easily fixed with a swiss file.

Aside from that, I like the rifle so much much that I'm sticking money away for the .44 version for no other reason other than thats what I have reloading dies for, brass, and different weight heads.

I'd love a winchester, but price is a big factor.

It comes down to what you want to spend.

Hope that helps man

[Ballistics in Scotland]

In one sense the choice is pretty easy - Marlin 94 if you plan to scope it, Winchester 92-type (and Buckshot's observations on the Rossi make a pretty good case) if you don't. I have never liked even early 94s as much as the 86 or 92, for I can imagine a lightbulb above John M. Browning's head as he thought "Who made the rule that we have to pivot the lever in the receiver at all?"

They beg the question "Why rule out the .44-40?" But although the only originally chambered cartridge for big game, I don't think it is as good a reloader's cartridge as the others people have recommended. My own choice, unless limited to small game, would be the .44 Magnum, for it is a better long range cartridge than the others, except maybe .454 Casull.

It is a pity they don't offer a button magazine, which I am convinced is less likely to interfere with barrel accuracy than the full-length one with an extra dovetailed mount. The one I have is a .32-40 which is no longer at the pinnacle of barrel accuracy anyway, but the reduced capacity isn't that much of an issue, and less with the short cartridges. Shooting a deer isn't like hosing down your motorcycle.

[Edster]

I have a Marlin 336, A Rossi 92 in 45 Colt like the one shown in a previous post, and 3 Henry's --a Golden Boy, a Silver Boy and a brass receiver 45-70. All have their strengths and I love each one of them. As far as the magazine tube loading while in a hurry to load one or 2 shells. You can load from the ejection port one at a time much like folks do for a shotgun. Like anything it takes practice to be proficient at it.

[OilyPablo]

Seems like it's a bit easier (lower cost) to find a used 44Mag (in my area).

My advice is to get and shoot BOTH. Just save for each. It's what I did and do. I have a Browning 44Mag and Win 357Mag. First, HOT loaded 44Mag are nothing to sneeze at out of a rifle. Yeah wow (friends are surprised at "the kick" from a hand gun cartridge. And 38Special are like .22 plinking, but more fun if you can believe that. 357Mag fine for normal deer. I also have a Winchester 9422 XTR Classic .22LR-L-S that is pristine. Lever guns are still my favorite, but AR's are may favorite to work and tinker on. My levers I just clean, but never change or tinker. I wonder why!

[fecmech]

Both the Henry and Rossi's are good guns IMO. The main difference between the Rossi 92 and Henry as you noted are the 92's loading gate and the Henry is a tube loader. I think you could get used to either. The Henry like marlins can be scoped with conventional scopes on the receiver. The 92 requires a scout or pistol scope on the barrel. This only matters if you want to scope it. The round barreled Rossi's Are D&T'd for scope mount under the rear sight. The steel framed Henry's are a solid pound heavier than the Rossi so that is something to consider and the brass frame with octagon heavier yet. Look them over make your choice but beware, levers are like potato chips, you can't have just one!

[Shawlerbrook]

Not easy or cheap, but look for a Ct.-made Marlin.

[hp246]

I use the same bullet in my .45 acp and .45 Colt loads. Works great. I got rid of my Rossi. I have two Ubertis. A 66 Carbine and a 73 rifle. love them. Not quite as strong, but they aren' breaking all the time like the Rossi did