Lever Rifles
The general consensus among the bulk of modern sports men seems to be that lever rifles have no place , in the hunting of dangerous game . People seem to cite all sorts of reasons , as to why a lever rifle is an extremely unsuitable choice for hunting dangerous game . The most common reasons , which I hear include ( but are not limited to ) :
> Lever rifles are not as accurate as bolt rifles .
> Lever rifles are prone to jamming , if not handled right
> Lever rifles can only safely use cartridges loaded with flat point bullets.
Alright , let us assess these statements for a moment , shall we ?
Fine . I will accept that ( on average ) , a bolt rifle will be ( comparatively ) more accurate than a lever rifle . However , a good lever rifle is plenty accurate for most practical shikar needs . Seriously , how far are you planning to shoot ? 100 yards ? 200 yards ? A decent lever rifle can easily accomplish that , in the hands of a competent operator . True ; a lever rifle is probably not a match grade target weapon . However .... lever rifles were never designed for this purpose to begin with .
A well maintained and good quality lever rifle leaves nothing to be desired in terms of reliability. You can get anything to jam if you do not operate it properly .
The argument that lever rifles can only safely shoot cartridges , loaded with flat point bullets does have a few grains of truth in it. Traditional lever rifles ( such as the Winchester Model 1982 , made infamous by the great " Duke " John Wayne ) employ a tubular magazine . In a tubular magazine , the cartridges are all horizontally stacked 1 after the other . The point of 1 cartridge's bullet therefore comes within close proximity of the primer of the cartridge right before it .
I need not belabor the obvious risks of this arrangement , should the rifle be loaded with pointed " spitzer " style or round nosed bullets . The possibility of the point of 1 cartridge hitting the primer of the cartridge loaded right before it , is significant. Even a slight jolt might cause a cartridge to detonate inside your rifle's tubular magazine and disaster will ensue. Manufacturers of tubular magazine lever rifles circumvent this problem , by chambering their wares only in calibres which use blunt point bullets . Take , for example .., the .30-30 Winchester or the .45-70 Government .
Below , I have provided 2 photographs taken from the internet of the .30-30 Winchester cartridge and the .45-70 Government cartridge for reference .
Of course , the argument can then be made that calibres meant for use in tubular magazines such as the .30-30 Winchester or .45-70 Government are not really suitable for the hunting of large dangerous game ( although personally , I do not wholeheartedly agree with radical blanket statements such as these . ) . Well... this is where the box magazine lever rifle comes in to the picture . Lever rifles with box magazines ( by design alone ) allow the use of pointed “ spitzer “ type bullets or round nosed bullets without any risk of a bullet tip of 1 cartridge hitting the primer of an another cartridge.
1 of the most prominent lever rifles , which utilizes a box magazine is the Winchester Model 1895 lever rifle . And I have extremely fond memories of this rifle.
My maternal grand father , Sepoy Jalaluddin Khan was a career soldier in the British Army and he was ( among other things ) an exceptionally skilled hunter . In 1932 , he purchased a Winchester Model 1895 lever rifle , chambered in .405 Winchester from the fire arms shop , Manton & Co. in Kolkata ( for only 50 Rupees ) and until 1968 , this grand old lever rifle afforded him the greatest sport . My grand father always used ICI Kynoch 300 grain soft point cartridges and ICI Kynoch 300 grain solid metal covered cartridges for all of his shikars. Aside from the ordinary table fare for the pot ... Sepoy Jalaluddin Khan also used this lever rifle to dispatch 2 man eating royal Bengal tigers , 5 man eating forest panthers and 1 rogue bull elephant . I certainly would not label any of these brutes , as harmless .
Below , I have provided a photograph of my maternal grand father , Sepoy Jalaluddin Khan with the rogue bull elephant which he had killed , prior to my birth ( back when India was still a British colony ) in 1937 in Tamil Nadu . His beloved Winchester Model 1895 lever rifle can be seen propped up against the slain brute . My grand father gave him 3 ICI Kynoch 300 grain solid metal covered bullets to the temple , throat and side of the head , in order to lay him low.
I shot my life’s very 1st sambhur deer with that rifle when I was a child and 1 of my life’s biggest regrets is letting my grand father sell off that rifle in 1968 , when ICI Kynoch ceased to manufacture cartridges for the .405 Winchester calibre and we had exhausted our stock of existing cartridges for that rifle . Little did I know at the time , that 1 day ammunition for the .405 Winchester would be widely available again .
My grand father actually used that rifle to save my life once in 1965 . We were hot on the heels of a man eating forest panther which I had foolishly wounded with an Eley Alphamax 2.75 inch LG cartridge which I wanted to test the effectiveness of ( as a side note : Never ever experiment with any ammunition on dangerous game ! Always use something which is tried and true . Sometimes , I myself have an extremely difficult time believing the sort of things which I got away with doing , back when I was young and stupid . ) . We had pursued the wounded brute in to a farm and he then sprung at me from a tree.
With reflexes faster than lightening , My grand father snapped up that old Winchester to his shoulder and fired a single 300 grain soft point cartridge in to the brute's head and that laid it low .
Below , I have provided a photograph taken by myself of the slain forest panther which would have nearly done me in , had it not been for my grand father's swift shooting .
The old rifle was not without it's flaws , however . Even though the rifle could hold a total of 5 cartridges ( 4 in the magazine + 1 in the chamber ) ... it was extremely risky to load the rifle to full capacity . Whenever my grand father would load his Model 1895 with 5 cartridges and operate the lever swiftly , he would invariably encounter a " jam " .
What my grand father would do to circumvent this problem , would be to load his Model 1895 with 4 cartridges ( 3 in the magazine + 1 in the chamber ) . This allowed the rifle to function flawlessly most of the time .
There was however , 1 hair raising incident which occurred with that rifle .
My grand father and I were on the pursuit of a man eating royal Bengal tigress and her fully grown male cub ( since the mother was a man eater , she had introduced her off spring to the flesh of man , as well . ) When we found them , my grand father instantly dispatched the royal Bengal tigress with a single 300 grain ICI Kynoch soft point cartridge to the head . As the royal Bengal tiger cub turned to face us , my grand father hastily placed an ICI Kynoch 300 grain soft point bullet behind the brute's shoulder . This wounded the royal Bengal tiger , but did not kill it . As my grand father hastily operated the lever of his Model 1895 , in order to chamber a fresh cartridge ... to our horror he realized that the rifle had " jammed " . To make matters worse , the wounded royal Bengal tiger cub charged us . I instinctively snapped up my 12 Bore Belgian shot gun to my shoulder , and gave it the contents of an Eley 2.5 inch Grand Prix Lethal Ball cartridge , right in the region between the brute's 2 eyes . This laid low the royal Bengal tiger cub , for good .
Below , I have provided a photograph taken by my servant boy , Ponual of my grand father and I with the 2 slain man eating royal Bengal tigers . My grand father proudly holds his beloved Model 1895 lever rifle , in his hands .
The rifle would also some times " jam " if the cartridges were loaded in a hurry.
For many years , I never really understood why my grand father's Model 1895 lever rifle , would occasionally experience a jam once in a blue moon .
However , these days ( based on my reading of the subject on the internet ) , I would subscribe the reason to the rimmed design of the .405 Winchester cartridge .
Today , Winchester has recently begun to manufacture the Model 1895 lever rifle once again , and this time , it is better than ever. My learned fellow forum member ,
@crs put his 1 to good use against ( among other things ) an African Cape Buffalo . Crs managed to modify his Model 1895 lever rifle to use 400 grain Woodleigh bullets ... which helped to boost the .405 Winchester's punch and make it similar in performance to a .450/400 Nitro Express . I also do not recall Crs ever experiencing any jams in his Winchester Model 1895 ( even with 5 cartridges loaded in to the rifle . ) Clearly Winchester has found a way to prevent their new Model 1895 lever rifles from experiencing the jamming problems , which would plague the pre 1936 Winchester Model 1895 lever rifles .
Alongside my grand father's Model 1895 , I have seen several other lever rifles , as well , in my life .
I have had countless international clients armed with lever rifles come to India for shikar , as well .
Below , is a photograph kindly provided to me by good , old Kawshik of a Middle Eastern client of his . The client's 2 rifles are braced against the post . Observe that the lever rifle in the photograph , is a Winchester Model 71 , chambered in .348 Winchester . This rifle was used by the client to successfully take a Neelgai.
Below , I have provided another photograph kindly provided to me by Kawshik , on his Nepalese gun bearer , Rishi Chokroborti carrying a client's Savage Model 99 lever rifle . This particular specimen was chambered in .243 Winchester . The Savage Model 99 , just like the Winchester Model 1895 does NOT employ a tubular magazine. Instead , it uses a rotary magazine. Later models utilized a conventional integral box magazine.
The 2 most popular lever rifles ever brought to India for shikar by any of my international clients were the :
> Winchester Model 1886 , chambered in .45-70 Government
> Winchester Model 1894 , chambered in .30-30 Winchester .
And indeed ... In the hands of my American clients , those lever rifles accounted for a GREAT deal of trophies.
The .30-30 Winchester calibre 170 grain soft point flat nose bullet yielded impressive results on bush boars , village panthers and even Asian Sloth Bears .
Oh , how much I would have loved to own a .30-30 Winchester calibre Model 1894 , during our wild boar culling programs in Kooch Bihar . It would have served me so well for dropping those 300 pound tusked menaces ! In my experience ... a quality lever rifle is quite unrivalled in usefulness , when it comes to hunting large groups of wild boars at short distances.
Below , I have provided a photograph taken by myself of some of the 63 crop damaging wild boars which fell to the guns of the employees of Allwyn Cooper Limited , during 1 of our wild boar culling programs.
The .45-70 Government 300 grain soft point bullet always worked like a charm , on even the largest and heaviest of royal Bengal tigers ... to say nothing of forest panthers and Asian Sloth Bears . In my 10 year career , I have never had even 1 of my clients even complain about any lack of penetration power , or punch on any of these brutes.
It must be remembered that no less an authority than the great American President ,
Theodore Roosevelt ( a true leader , sports man and conservationist, in every definition of the word . ) used a Winchester Model 1895 chambered in .405 Winchester for his African safari and found the 300 grain Winchester soft point cartridges to be quite the cricket for African lions . That filthy traitor to the international hunting community, Kenneth Anderson used a Winchester Model 1895 chambered in .405 Winchester kill all of his man eating panthers and quite a few of his man eating royal Bengal tigers ( although , he preferred a .450/400 Nitro Express double barreled side by side rifle, built by W Jeffery , for hunting the bulk of his royal Bengal tigers and the bigger of the 2 rogue bull elephants which he had shot .)
The beautiful and talented Osa Johnson used a Winchester Model 1895 , chambered in .405 Winchester to great effect to do the bulk of her hunting in Africa .
Me , personally ? I prefer bolt rifles over lever rifles myself , for the hunting of dangerous game. But that is mainly because most of my favorite rifle calibres are available only in bolt rifle platforms.
Coming up next .... " Most Reliable Rifles Personally Seen " .
