So far as I know, it's a legitimate term, although there may be others.
“The rifle in question has a tubular magazine located under the barrel, as do many other lever action, slide action and semiautomatic firearms. Partially working the action allows a spring in the tubular magazine to push a cartridge back onto the lifter. Continuing to work the action allows the lifter to lift the cartridge up in line with the barrel so it can be pushed into the chamber.
So far as I know, it’s a legitimate term, although there may be others.”
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Correct. That explains the lifter. But it looks like an odd combination of rifles. In pictures of the right side of the rifle, it is a side load, and it has the under barrel magazine. In the xray it shows a rear tube feed with a cartridge still in the tube in the stock. Looks like a .45 long colt or maybe a .44 .
Was the 1873 capable of being loaded either way? I am only familiar with replicas and modern lever guns, which I have only seen to be either one way or the other.
IOW, The lever-action reloading of the rifle was disabled by it's absence, and made it a single-shot... Open the chamber with the lever, hand feed a shell into the chamber, close the chamber w/ the lever... ready to fire... yes?
“...and that its lifter was removed making it able to only fire a single shot at once.”
As a kid I wanted a tube-fed semi-auto .22 like all my buddies. My dad said the single-shot we had was better to learn with. Safer, and taught better shooting (hit it on the first time).
I wonder if the lifter was removed for a young shooter just learning? A youngster would also be more prone to leaving their rifle behind. (Well - once anyways!)
Seems to be a legitimate term. I’m always suspicious when media-ites start talking firearms.