Home Forums Lever Action Central Lever Actions - General What is your favorite lever action rifle.

Favorite for what?

For plinking fun, the Marlin 1895 in .45-70 (top) gets the call. A tiny bit of pistol powder and 300 or 350g hardcast bullets yield ~1100fps with recoil about half that of factory .30-30 loads. My girls love them, as do I. The Marlin 375 (2nd from top, in .375 Win) was my first Marlin and will always be special to me. The 336CS (3rd from top, .30-30) is the only one that remains a hunting virgin in my hands and is the one I shoot most often using hunting type loads. On bottom is the Browning B92 (.44 Mag) that Dad gave me back in the early 1980's. It's light, handy and has provided camp security many times with my family. Awesome little carbine.



The Ruger #1 (.280 Rem) on the right was my most recent purchase in big game legal levers. I think it will be my antelope rifle again this year.



Back in 1960 or 1961 there were a couple of these under the Christmas tree - Ithaca Model 49 rifles (.22 Short/Long/Long Rifle). Brothers still have theirs but mine got away from me in the summer of '69. I spent several years looking for a replacement and found this one a couple years back. It was in exceptionally good condition with an excellent trigger - better than the trigger on most bolt guns when they come from the factory. The price was ridiculously low, too. Had it at the range last weekend and was popping clay pigeons at 100 yards with the iron sights, hitting about 1 of 5 and (very) narrowly missing the others. Kept shooting just under at 6:00 because I had to bury the target under the front sight a tad to get the right elevation. If the rear sight was more finely adjustable I would have been hitting much more often. Very fun gun that goes to the range almost every time I do, to kill time popping pigeons while my bolt guns cool down.