#levergun

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you may have noticed that lever guns have been gaining in popularity the past 3-5 years. Some companies have started to even ,market more “tactical” style lever rifles. Not sure exactly what’s caused the increase in popularity but I think it’s a great thing! I’ve wrote a few articles on some of my lever guns in the past, but let’s kind of analyze where I think this is going and why I don’t think it’s a fad. 

So I had been wanting a more tactical style lever gun for a couple of years. Henry rifles to my knowledge was the first company to actually offer a factory tactical lever rifle and since I already have a couple of heirloom traditional lever guns, I had wanted a Henry X model. Those Henry X models were rather scarce, so I picked up man all-weather .44 magnum from Brownells early last year and between MidPigCustoms and Ranger Point Precision, I created what could be considered a better version of what could be a Henry X All-weather rifle in .44 Magnum. Midwest Industries has been making lever gun goodies for some time as well. 

Last year Rossi introduced their version of a tactical lever gun and the new Ruger/Marlin introduced theirs. Then at SHOT show 2024…a whole slew of companies unveiled their new tactical lever rifles. Companies that we never even thought would start making lever guns jumped into the arena. I suspect since the demand has been so high for the Henry, Rossi and Ruger/Marlin lever guns, others saw an opportunity to join in. Aero Precision had a prototype lever rifle that looked really cool. I’ve been a long time fan of what Aero Precision brings to the table. Also Stag Arms released their lever rifle and out of nowhere, Smith & Wesson decided to release their 1854 lever rifle in .44 magnum at an outstanding price point. Smith & Wesson is known for their high quality revolvers as well as newer modern pistols. Since they’re probably the go to for revolvers, it only made sense that they decided to bring back a lever gun. This was their first lever gun offering in over 100 years. 

So other than a void in the market caused by high demand, what other factor could be driving this? Well unfortunately, many places here in the U.S. have rifler restrictions that outright ban tactical rifles such as the AR-15, but don’t affect lever guns. Plus the American tradition of a lever gun is appealing to a lot of folk. Let’s face it, lever guns are also effective at many roles as well as downright fun to shoot! I don’t think this is a fad that will fade away, but rather grow over time. Many folk are also quite tired of AR-15s and this gives them a new firearm avenue to explore. 

So in closing, do you plan on picking up a new lever gun this year? Brownells always has a number of lever guns in stock which is where my Henry came from. I’ve got my eye on the new Smith & Wesson myself, but we will see. 

A while back, I wrote a blog article talking about the new Henry All-Weather Big Boy in .44 Magnum that I picked up from the good folk over at Brownells. I also mentioned that I had absolutely no intention on keeping it in it’s stock form. Let’s just say that I had “big” plans for said rifle. I did get a chance to spend some tiem with it in it’s stock form and let me tell you, Henry makes a top quality lever rifle! It easily hit steel out to 100 yards using the factory iron sights. The fit and finish was superb and the wood stock and handguard were something like fine furniture would have. Now fast forward a few months later…and you’d barely recognize it from the way it originally shipped from Brownells.

To help me out with the transformation, I have to give a ton of credit to Pat RMG. I came to him with a ton of questions regarding upgrades and what I was trying to accomplish. Essentially, I wanted an All-Weather Big Boy X model, even though there is no such thing. I started to look towards Ranger Point Precision as they are super well known in the lever action world. Name a lever rifle and they most likely have some modern upgrades available for it. I knew for a fact that I wanted to change out the factory handguard for a modern one with attachment points for all those tactical goodies. I was also very interested in a better buttstock, mainly because I had plans to add an optic that would sit higher requiring a better way to get a good cheek weld. Ranger Point Precision had exactly the parts that I was after. I ended up ordering their stock and handguard setup to install on my new Henry rifle from Brownells. Next up was some of the small items, such as trigger upgrades, optic mounting point, extra round quivers as well as a hammer spur. RPP makes these things so I went ahead and picked up those as well as some quick takedown screws for the lever and the buttstock. I also swapped out the factory lever for a large loop lever.

The final pieces to the puzzle was the optic, the iron sights and I truly wanted to have the barrel and magazine chopped down from the factory 20” and threaded for a suppressor. I had a heck of a time finding anyone willing to do this work locally, so I sent the rifle out to levergun upgrade master, MadPigCustoms for a barrel/mag tube chop and thread. When I got the rifle back about a month later, I was super impressed with the job they did. They even added a set of HiViz sights to replace the factory buckhorn iron sights. To top it off, I decided to install the Brownells MPO 1-6 Donut LPVO inside of some EGW Keystone low rings. The RPP stock does an awesome job at provided the proper cheek weld for any optic.

So after a couple of months, I finally had my “Space Cowboy” lever rifle to coin the phrase that Pat uses. It’s an absolute amazing rifle! To say that tactical leverguns are gaining steam and popularity would be an understatement….they sure are hot right now and I’m so glad for the folks and companies that helped me make mine vision of a Space Cowboy blaster to come true!

My Dad who passed away back in 2017 was very fond of lever rifles. I remember as a boy growing up in the North part of Florida, not by the coast where there’s beaches and palm trees, but rather inland in a rural farming county, Suwannee county. My Dad always had a number of lever action rifles. Most of them were rimfire, either .22 long rifle or .22 magnum, but he also had one in .30-30 Winchester that he got from my uncle as well as a Marlin .44 magnum. Lever guns for the most part seemed to fit the bill for squirrel and rabbit hunting as well as hunting white tailed deer.

One of the lever action rifles my Dad owned, although purchased after I left home, was an old Marlin 39A Mountie. That particular rifle, with a cheap Tasco scope mounted up top was the dedicated squirrel rifle any time I came to visit. My parents used to have a Jack Russel Terrier and boy did she love finding which tree the squirrels were held up at. Knowing fully well that if she did this, I would take a shot at that squirrel. If successful, that squirrel would fall to the ground and she’d snatch it up and run off with it not to be seen for at least a half an hour. She sure was a smart dog.

The last time I saw my father, he gave his 1894 Marlin in .44 Magnum to my wife. She had borrowed it fairly recently to hunt pig and took a liking to it. We were talking about picking up a lever gun for her and he said to just take it home with her and keep it. Little did we know that would be the last time we saw my dad as he passed away a month after from a sudden heart attack. After he passed away, my siblings and mom thought that his Marlin 39A Mountie should stay paired up with Dad’s Marlin 1894 .44 Magnum rifle, so my wife and I also took it home with us.

Both of those rifles have been mostly sitting in the back of the safe. The Marlin .44 Magnum rifle was having some issues jamming, so I replaced the loading gate and cartridge carrier. Luckily at the time, Brownells had these parts available. That old Marlin 1894 was now smooth as butter after a trip to the range. The Marlin 39A Mountie hadn’t been shot since around the time my Dad passed. Recently around my Dad’s birthday…he would’ve been 69 years old, I took that old Marlin 39A Mountie out of the safe so it could see some sun. Shot some steel targets at about 25 yards… that little rimfire still has it even though the scope is in desperate need of replacement. I’m hoping to find a classic looking, but modern scope over at Brownells soon to replace it with. I sure missed shooting that little rifle and of course miss my Dad. Always great to handle something like that to remember him by. He sure loved his lever rifles.