Leverguns: combat/duty usage.

[003]

[QUOTE=MissiontoMars;25564804]Henry .44-40 until the 1866 came out?
.44 Henry rimfire, not .44-40

[gorn5150]

In the late 1990's the Contra Costa Sheriffs Office allowed its reserve mounted unit to carry lever action rifles. I don't know if it is still allowed.

[TripleThreat]

Longmire uses a 30-30 lever.

[MissiontoMars]

Thanks for the correction on the .44 rimfire!

[MissiontoMars]

The Winchester 95 was used extensively in WW1 by the Russians, by the Republicans in the Spanish civil war, and by the Finns in their war of Independence against the Bolsheviks and later v the Soviet s in the winter war.

[Sully]

[smle-man]

About Little Big Horn, that isn't quite true. First, about half of the Regiment survived, it was split up and it was the divisional part with Custer that was killed. The soldiers that were killed there weren't wiped out because they tried to conserve ammunition, their tactics were wrong for the engagement and the leadership they had was poor. The soldiers were a mounted cavalry trying to fight dismounted, that is a fact and something for which they weren't trained to do well since they weren't trained all that well anyway. Once they dismounted they lost mobility and were completely defensive. It wasn't so much that they were poorly trained individually but that once the leadership failed they fell apart as a cohesive fighting force. There were no effective command at the battle.

It wasn't the rifles, trying to conserve ammo, it was the tactics poor training and piss poor leadership that got them killed. It also wasn't about the volume of fire, they were out maneuvered, tried to defend in place and got divided into smaller groups that couldn't support each other. Once that happened it was the end and it wouldn't have mattered how much ammo they could fire.

Well said. The Indians mentioned that many of the troopers shot too high. The standard of small arms training was abysmal then. I think the annual training ammunition allotment was 20 rounds per soldier.

[Darto]

I don't know, lever guns seem kinda slow firing, e.g. this guy who briefly played for the Boston Celtics... (all episodes on Prime free).

and the Dodgers too!

[plumbum]

I seem to remember seeing leverguns in cop cars when I was a kid in UT. Also I know the last person executed by firing squad in UT was with leverguns.

[oddjob]

Utah firing squad used lever action 30-30's on Gary Gilmore. I guess this counts?

[TRAP55]

Henry's were .44 rim fire, as was the Winchester 1866. Starting with the 1873 Winchesters were chambered in 44-40. A common misconception is that Winchesters were .45 Colt, but most were 44-40, since Sam Colt's widow would not release the patent on the .45 Colt round.

The two main reasons for that were one, the .45 Colt was a straight walled case, and there were too many problems then, to make it feed right. Two, Winchester wasn't going to stamp a caliber on their guns that said Colt.
A possible third reason, you wanted a pistol and rifle that shared the same ammo, and as long as the Winchester carbines, and Colt pistols were chambered for the same Winchester cartridge, guess who was selling more ammo?