Posted on 01/21/2006 9:24:23 AM PST by neverdem
A famous ad that most boy baby boomers will recall from Boys' Life, the old scouting magazine of the '50s, showed a happy lad, carrot-topped and freckly like any number of Peck's Bad Boys, his teeth haphazardly arrayed within his wide, gleeful mouth under eyes wide as pie platters as he exclaimed on Christmas morn, "Gee, Dad . . . A Winchester!"
All gone, all gone, all gone. The gun as family totem, the implied trust between generations, the implicit idea that marksmanship followed by hunting were a way of life to be pursued through the decades, the sense of tradition, respect, self-discipline and bright confidence that Winchester and the American kinship group would march forward to a happy tomorrow -- gone if not with the wind, then with the tide of inner-city and nutcase killings that have led America's once-proud and heavily bourgeois gun culture into the wilderness of marginalization.
And now Winchester is gone too, or at least the most interesting parts of it. The traditional company whose symbol was a fringed rider flying across the plains on a pinto, gripping his trusty Model '73, is finally biting the dust. The entity -- now technically U.S. Repeating Arms, which produces the rifles and shotguns as a licensee of the Olin Corp., which still owns Winchester ammunition -- announced Monday it was closing the plant in New Haven where the rifles and shotguns have been fabricated for a century and a half. Some Winchesters will continue to be built overseas, but three guns -- the classic lever-action rifle of western fame, the bolt-action hunting rifle (called the Model 70) and the Model 1300 pump-action shotgun -- will no longer be manufactured.
That lever-gun -- the quintessential cowboy rifle, the mechanism that "won the West" and maybe helped lose it...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Yes, very surprising. Thanks for the ping, Cacique. I'll ping my CT list.
Connecticut ping!
Please Freepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent Connecticut ping list.
Bump for later read and reference...
I'll bet you could "ding" a steel plate at 200 yards at a respectable rate of sustained fire with a 30-30 lever action.
Thanks for the ping!
The 94's are great for a truck gun: light, accurate, non scary looking, quick follow up shots.
Marlin and Savage make a slightly better lever rifle IMO. If I need to just head out quick on my family's land I just grab my Marlin in .444 and I am good for any preadator that may be a problem 2 leg or 4 leg
For SHTF having a lever action and revolver in .357 or .44 would be ideal
.22mag is a different brass casing from .22LR/.22short/.22CB. A .22LR can shoot all of the latter items. Head spacing is done on the rim.
I purchased a Ruger Deerfield .44 mag semi-auto rifle for my wife. It has a very narrow range of bullet weights that are acceptable to the action. 200-240 gr. My wife purchased some "cowboy" .44 mag ammo to try it out. She took aim, fired and hit the target. Then she looked perplexed. Where is the brass? It was still in the chamber. The "cowboy" loads are made for the wimpy revolvers favored by the "cowboy" shooters. They don't produce enough gas to operate the action. I popped the magazine out and replaced the wimpy stuff with PMC .44 mag 240 gr JHP. Real ammo. It cycled perfectly. A lever action doesn't care. You provide the "cycling". There is some merit in being able to handle a wider variety of ammo than the semi-auto demands.
Thanks. The .38-55 Model 1894 that I have was made in 1896. Pretty decent shape for a fellar that is 110 years young.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.