happy I came back to lever shooting

[mickbr]

I used one many years ago, and always saw them as mostly fun. But using them again I am impressed with the job they do. I'm doing all my shooting with them at the moment .Can't find a lighter, faster handling and less obtrusive firearm, that can also fit behind a truck seat or in a boat. With cowboy loads you got the advantage of quiet and economical for small game and plinking. These things still work! duh says everyone..

[Pete44ru]

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duh.. .

Welcome back from the dark side ! .

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[3leggedturtle]

Life is mostly a never ending series of U-turns! Todd/3leg

[t.r.]

I started out with a top ejecting Winchester 30-30 that was borrowed from my Dad's best friend. Several white tails were felled with no problems. But I felt compelled to buy a short .308 bolt action carbine and hunted with that for several years. Perhaps influenced by too many magazine articles! But my shots never exceeded 75 yards and its high speed bullets wasted good meat when the exit shoulder was struck. So I went back to hunting with a new 30-30 in 1995 that has the angle-eject feature. I really love this carbine and its predictable performance on deer sized animals.

The photo shows a heavy bodied muley buck that my daughter toppled in the Black Hills of western South Dakota. She hunted with my Winchester.

TR

[AJMD429]

I've been a gun-hobbyist for over fifty years, and bought and sold and traded at least a dozen-dozen guns over that time. Pretty much any gun that cost under $1,000 in today's dollars would wind up in the collection at some point if it stuck my fancy, but 90% of them would become boring after awhile, or I'd find them flawed compared to others, and trade them off.

The bad thing about this was that I never acquired any "best-there-is" type firearms, but I did own lots of "pretty-darned-good" ones over the years, and the ones I've kept are either ones that:

a) I really enjoyed shooting, or
b) really seemed practical for hunting/defense, or
c) seemed good to keep because regulators were trying to ban them

Too many in the "c" category during the Klinton/Bush/Obummer years, as I also felt obligated to 'advance-buy' for my kids who were too young to buy firearms back then. Now that they're older, they've inherited those firearms, or if not interested, I've been selling those ones off, leaving me with pretty much the "really enjoy" and the "practical" ones.

LEVERGUNS are definitely in BOTH categories.

Everyone should have a super-accurate gun, and although leverguns can shoot sub-MOA (especially the bottleneck-cartridge ones), most people are going to be better able to afford and shoot a bolt-action or single-shot if they want to literally hit a dime at 100 yards, first-time, every-time.

Everyone should also have a lead-spewer in case of zombie apocalypse, because there ARE situations where an AR-15 with twenty loaded magazines would be superior to a levergun, though one hopes such a situation will never happen.

And everyone should have a shotgun of some sort, depending on whether they hunt, or just want one for home protection.

Now you could make a case for just having a Saiga 12 gauge for the 'shotgun' AND 'zombie' use, and a really good heavy-barreled AR for the pinpoint accuracy and doubling as a zombie-gun, so would only have to own TWO long guns that weren't leverguns, but probably three would make more sense.

Maybe these three non-leverguns:

> AR-15 set up as a home-defense carbine
> Bolt-action in 223, 22-250, 243, 308, or 338 Lapua, depending on how far away you want that 'pinpoint' accuracy
> Whatever configuration shotgun you like

Then LOTS of leverguns....!

I think I could 'get by' with only four leverguns:

> 22 LR (probably would be my Ruger 96 since it is integrally-suppressed and a good newbie gun - or a Henry)
> 32-20 (just because that is a GREAT small-game and plinking round, but a 327 Fed or 32 H&R would do)
> 45 Colt (in 16" format, just because it is SO handy and fun - but a 44 Mag or 357 Mag would do)
> 500 S&W (444 or 45-70 would work, but my Big Horn Armory is such a NICE gun I'd never want to part with it)

So if someone wanted me to suggest a 'ten-gun battery' for them, four of the seven long guns would be LEVERGUNS...!

The three handguns I'd add would be a 1911 or Taurus-92 (or if the person was petite, a SIG P938) for CCW, a double-action revolver in their favorite 'pistol' levergun chambering, and a Ruger Mk2 or Mk3 22 LR pistol just because they build handgun confidence since they are so easy to hit things with.