Paranoia, shortages, and a blast from the past.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008 Filed in: General gun stuff, Rifles

Welcome to Post-Election 2008, where any rifle with a detachable magazine is selling like Haagen-Dazs in Hades. Prices are up (sometimes WAY up), supply is down, and demand appears downright insatiable.

There's no doubt that most of the rifles being sold are destined to be plinkers, used for nothing more than unstructured play time at the range. There is that small group of purchasers, however, that desires to have a rifle for defensive purposes, be it for home or farm. The magazine-fed autoloading rifle is superb in that role, but the current market is such that many people will not be able to find (or perhaps even afford) one.

What's a shooting enthusiast to do in such inhospitable circumstances?

Allow me to suggest an alternative: the lever-action rifle. Yes, the all-American lever action rifle, the gun with which your Dad (or perhaps Grand-Dad) hunted deer. The lever action has been serving Americans quite nicely for more than a century, and it has a lot to offer as a defensive tool even today.

A lever action chambered in a Magnum pistol cartridge is a serious combination. The .357 fired from a long barrel is a decidedly different beast than when limited to a handgun; it's an honest 100-yard deer cartridge, which means that it would make a dandy 100-yard defense tool. The .44 Magnum version gives you another 50-some yards of "edge."

Today's improved ammo in the traditional rifle cartridges (like the venerable .30WCF, aka "30-30") takes that range out well beyond 200 yards. The centerfire lever action, in any caliber, is a superb mid-range protection tool.

The lever action is easy to use; the manual of arms is simple and well-known. They have a streamlined design free of protrusions which can interfere with smooth deployment, and are seen as less threatening to the general public who consider it merely a "deer rifle."

They're light, fast into use, reliable, and that they're relatively cheap to buy is icing on the cake. In practiced hands, the lever action can be accurately fired at a surprisingly rapid pace, and those chambered in the handgun cartridges often boast magazine capacities of 10 rounds. You'd be hard pressed to conceive a defensive scenario where the lever gun wouldn't be a good choice.

Besides, the lever action is the perfect compliment to a good revolver!

-=[ Grant ]=-

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