I, too, am left-handed and shoot acceptably well other handed. I also hunt in heavily forested, severely vertical terrain where big bore revolvers and non-optically sighted long guns are perhaps more useful than telescopically sighted turn bolt rifles.
Regarding traditional lever actions' gas handling compared with bolt actions, lever rifles shooting rimmed cartridges have a demonstrable advantage compared with rifles shooting rimless cartridges because of inherently tighter headspacing on rimmed cartridges. Better, tighter, headspace translates to fewer opportunities for case failures and no worse than comparable protection were such failure to occur. I became convinced this conclusion was accurate when reading Hatcher's Notebook. Mr. Hatcher describes steel used for Krag receivers and bolts was the same steel used in first iteration Springfield made Model 1903 receivers. He identifies these first Springfield receivers as having the identical heat treat as Krag receivers and bolts. At that point he mentions the Camp Perry (I think???) episode of multiple 1903 actions failing, . . . and then mentions that (at the time of writing the book in 1948) no Krag receiver had ever failed. Bolts? Yes. But never a receiver. I attribute this to two factors: inherently better control of cartridge case; and lower cartridge operating pressure. Since my lever rifles function at no more than 30-40 Krag cartridge pressures, I feel comfortable disregarding my second named factor.
Regarding cleaning a rifle dropped in the muck, this is the reason I found the Youtuber's 1895 mud test, and that wartime use of substantial numbers of 1895 rifles, to be reassuring. In the absence of my replicating the test with my specific hunting rifle, I'll continue to exercise as much care as I can to avoid dropping it in the winter muck of partly melted snowy forest bed.
Oh yes. the back-up rifle back in camp is but marginally helpful when you and it are beyond arms length — hunting.
