Recently, David Petzal raised a minor ruckus with an article in Field & Stream Magazine that declared the death of the lever-action rifle. The gist is that since modern shooters are all about long-range rifles these days, the good ol’ lever gun has had it because classic lever gun calibers don’t do well out past 200 […]
I’ve rarely been dissatisfied with Leupold optics. Their consistent quality and durability are characteristics I have come to rely on throughout the years. For certain, that gold ring carries some weight. In late January Leupold announced their newest family of optics, the VX-Freedom Series. One hundred percent designed, machined, assembled, and (if necessary) serviced in […]
When Henry Repeating Arms revealed their box-fed lever-action Long Ranger series, I asked to test one in .308 Winchester. Without a round fired, I was impressed and intrigued. Why had Henry departed from its traditional tube-fed designs? “Because customers asked for it,” Henry GM Andy Wickstrom said, simply enough. The company figured they could make money selling a good product […]
What’s a lever-loving rifleman to do if he’s got a hankering for a pistol-caliber carbine? Marlins are garbage these days, and the rest of the lot (Henrys, Winchesters, Ubertis, Pedersolis and Cimarrons) are gorgeous and expensive heirlooms, almost too beautiful to carry afield. If you’re looking for a working man’s cowboy carbine, Rossi’s Model 92 is […]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijfb2kqCqQ0 I’m the resident lever-gun geek at TTAG, and this stunning reproduction of the classic Winchester Model 1873 is just my cup of tea steel and walnut. If you’ve never handled an 1873, its smooth action and mirror-bright bluing will show you why it’s always been considered one of the most elegant lever-action carbines ever […]
Call me a traditionalist, but I don’t think Cowboy Tactical gets any cooler than this Marlin .44 Magnum by Wild West Guns. If you want it, you’d better call them soon, though. Just like real estate, Marlin isn’t making them any more.
When you’re putting your wares on display for tens of thousands of purchasers, journalists, and enthusiasts, you shouldn’t need an MBA to tell you you really need to bring your best stuff. No ‘beta’ testing versions. No prototypes (unless you clearly label them as such) and no clunkers. Ever.
The Marlin Model 39 claims to be the oldest continually-produced cartridge rifle in history. Its parent design was born during the unexceptional presidency of Benjamin Harrison, whose bust never even made it onto the Mount Rushmore Commemorative Paperweight. Unlike that former Commander-In-Chief, this 19th Century Fox was blessed with what sales and marketing types like […]
Joe Grine and I spent a few leisurely hours pacing the aisles at Oregon’s biggest pre-Christmas gun show this morning. We’re not into ‘gun show reports’ much here, so suffice to say that guns and ammo were everywhere, Nazi fetish gear was nowhere to be found, and that I’ve never seen so many NFA dealers […]
Henry Repeating Arms president Anthony Imperato confirmed to me this morning that the New Jersey-based arms maker will be offering their steel-framed, round-barrel lever action rifle in the thundering .45-70 cartridge in March of 2012. We loved Henry’s Big Boy .44 Magnum earlier this year, and we’ve come to expect great things from them. […]
How should you feel when one of your favorite guns, an American classic that had served cowboys, lawmen, deer hunters and recreational shooters for over a century, simply vanishes from store shelves? It happened before: we lost a classic .22 pistol when High Standard vanished, and a little piece of us died when Winchester imploded […]
Our beloved jefe Farago has been waiting a long time for his over-the-top Cowboy Assault Rifle project (not pictured) to come to fruition. What a long, strange trip it’s been, starting with an unintentional ‘Paratrooper’ version of the Model 1894C complete with a folding walnut stock. After months of radio silence (during which my own […]
