Classic lever-action rifles are extremely beautiful and have that ultimate western panache…But modern versions are more practical for everyday work. (Photo submitted by the author)
October 28, 2024
By Joseph von Benedikt
A century ago, hunters with a lever-action rifle wouldn’t have dreamed of putting an optic, sling, suppressor, bipod, or the like on their shootin’ iron. Simply put, that would have made the rifle unusable for its purpose, which in many cases was to fit comfortably in a saddle scabbard and to carry lightly in the hand while prowling big-woods country in search of deer, bear, and elk.
Nowadays, the opposite is true. Lever-actions as a type are booming in popularity, and tacti-cool variations are trendy. Debatably started with the “Dark” series Marlin introduced during the years when Remington owned Marlin, such rifles have synthetic, configurable stocks and forends with rails and M-LOK slots.
Being a working cowboy from southern Utah at my roots, I cringed when I first saw such lever-actions. What a travesty, I thought. I still cringe a bit when someone puts a collapsible AR-type stock on a good lever gun, but I’ve warmed to modern lever-actions fit with tasteful, configurable stocks and forends. One such is Marlin’s brand-new Model 1895 Trapper series carbine with Magpul ELG furniture. It’s the epitome of a modern lever gun , and we’ll use it to discuss the advantages of the type. That said, there are a lot of different rail-type forends and such that work great too. This one’s just my personal favorite of the modern type.
Let’s dive right into why modern lever guns aren’t just racy and cool; they’re actually practical.
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Durable Doug Turnbull—the world’s foremost Winchester restoration expert—and his PH dropped this charging cape buffalo at just four paces. Turnbull’s rifle is a rebarreled and restored second-year Model ’86 (made in 1887) chambered in .475 Turnbull. (Photo submitted by the author) While a finely blued lever-action with a good oil-finished walnut stock will always be my preference for looks, there’s no denying the fact that a rifle made of stainless or Cerakoted steel and fit with synthetic stocks is more robust and durable.
How many 100-year-old lever-actions do you see in pristine conditions? Almost none, right? That’s because when you use them, they take on wear and tear fast. Particularly if you live and hunt in an area with a lot of humidity and thick brush you’ve got to bust through while hunting. Stainless steel and quality composite stocks shrug off humidity, salt-sea air, and the hard knocks applied by hard hunters.
Easily Configurable Compact barrels on modern lever guns come discretely threaded for a suppressor. Installing one is as simple as spinning the thread protector off and screwing the silencer on. The rail atop the action makes it simple to add a red dot or a scope in quick-detach rings. (Photo submitted by the author) Old-timers would laugh and say, “Cowboy up!” But it’s a fact that being able to fit your stock length and cheekrest to your build is an advantage. This is particularly true if you are short. A lever-action should typically have a slightly shorter-than-usual stock to enable the user to whip it to the shoulder without the buttpad hanging up in loose clothing under the armpit. These rifles are often used for personal protection in bear country, and increasingly for home protection in areas where AR-type firearms are heavily regulated. The ability to get one into action quickly has always been a hallmark of a good lever-action carbine.
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On the other hand, if you have a turkey neck and monkey-long arms like me, a too-short stock can be painful. If you wrap your shooting-hand thumb firmly around the wrist of the stock to help control the sparky recoil of a heavy .45-70 load, a short stock can mean the base of your thumb clobbers you in the nose during recoil.
A stock configurable for length of pull—such as the one on the Marlin 1895 Trapper with Magpul ELG shown—eliminates those issues entirely. Additionally, the Magpul ELG stock comes with a cheekrest riser and spacers, enabling you to install it at various heights. This helps with quick sight acquisition. Candidly, I think it looks a bit funny, but it sure feels good!
Up front, the handguard has a whole bunch of M-LOK slots. Now, some consider anything hanging from a lever-action forend to be an obscenity, but I’m not one of them—at least in the modern lever-gun world. Attaching a bipod is a stretch but does enable you to shoot with a solid support up front. Really useful is a weapon light, for those times when an intruder goes bump in the night at the homestead, or a bear pops the lid on your elk-camp cooler and steals your pork chops.
Superior Sights Custom lever-actions these days are often fit with stock upgrades like this Cerakoted, pistol-grip version, and have protective Cerakote on the metal parts. Fast-handling carbines such as this are durable, reliable powerhouses suitable for any close-and-fast needs. (Photo submitted by the author) Modern lever-action rifles almost invariably wear sights that are significantly better than the barrel sights on classic versions. Now, there were some excellent sights back in the day, particularly the side-mounted “Climbin’ Lyman” sight used on Winchester 1895s; the tang-mounted peep sights mounted on the rifle’s wrist, and the click-adjustable bridge-type aperture sights that screwed to the side of Marlin and similar actions.
However, those were the exception, rather than the norm. Modern lever-actions by Marlin and its competitors come standard with an adjustable ghost-ring peep sight mounted in the rear of an optic rail. This not only provides an excellent, refined rear sight, it makes it super easy to install a scope or a fast-pointing red dot. That’s an extraordinary advantage.
Even the front sights on modern lever guns are better than historic versions. Rather than a bead, they feature a crisp, square-topped blade, which target shooters the world over have proven offers a more refined, consistent sight picture.
Suppressor-Ready As you can see this Marlin 1895 Trapper with Magpul furniture has been fit with a Spartan bipod. There’s also a weapon light on the other side of the forend. A quick-pointing Trijicon MRO red dot and a Silencer Central Banish 46 suppressor round out this modern setups’ features. (Photo submitted by the author) Lastly—and this is a big one—most modern lever-actions come with a threaded muzzle compatible with a suppressor. In case you’ve had your head buried under a log, the suppressor trend is arguably the biggest movement in the firearms world. Rightly so: the advantages of hearing-safe shooting cannot be overstated.
Plus, a good suppressor dampens recoil by a significant margin. A heavy-hitting .45-70 kicks little more than a .30-30 when mounted with a silencer. This is an undeniable benefit to fast, accurate shooting, not to mention the pure enjoyment of shooting your rifle.
Don’t want a suppressor? Don’t want a funny-looking knobby protrusion that’s anything but classic lever-gun-esque? Not to worry: Marlin and other modern manufacturers are savvy enough to engineer muzzles to have quite-traditional looks and to install seamless thread protectors so the fact that these lever guns are suppressor-ready is nearly invisible.
Classic Versus Cutting-Edge Iron-sighted lever guns with long octagon barrels are effective, there’s no question. This impala dropped to one 145-yard shot. The author was more concerned about protecting the fine wood and deeply blued steel than about getting his feet wet. (Photo submitted by the author) I’m old enough to be deeply rooted in lever-gun tradition. I grew up working cattle with a grand old wood-stocked, blued-steel rifle in the scabbard beneath my knee. So I’m a bit gutted at the appearance of the more radical modern lever actions.
However, I’ll be the first to admit, were I heading into the snowy Colorado mountains in pursuit of late-season elk, or into coastal Alaska after brown bear, I’d pick a rifle like Marlin’s new stainless-steel 1895 Trapper with Magpul ELG furniture.
For hard-core, real-world use in unforgiving terrain and conditions, it’s undeniably superior.
