Bolt vs Lever...I Need a History Lesson

Have you ever tried to cycle a lever action while lying prone?

That right there eliminated the lever action from most military service (aside from seated cavalry).
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Nah. That argument doesn't do much for me.

Martini-Henry
Sharps
Maynard
...Just a short list of single-shot designs that had the same, if not greater problem with operation; yet they were well-loved.
 
Probably the biggest failing of the lever action as a battle rifle is its insanely slow reload times (with the exception of the Winchester 1895 with charger guides, of course).

It's the same reason that tubular magazines in various French, Italian, and German bolt-action rifles were tried, and subsequently dropped quickly when Mannlicher enbloc clip, the charger-fed box magazine, and various other magazine improvements were adopted.


"Maynard"

Virtually all Maynard carbines used in the Civil War were issued to cavalry troops, either Union or Confederate.

"Martini-Henry"

I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think that the British Army at the time the MH was in use really taught or considered prone firing to be a thing. I'll have to dig around and see if I can find a period manual of arms.

"Sharps"

Not at all familiar with the service history of the Sharps.
 
I truly think that the bolt action would have come out as the choice as the primary action for the US military even if Europe had been completely pacifist and unarmed.
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History is not always inevitable, but I cannot see any other outcome than this. But, the US Army Ordnance Bureau tried, and tried their best, to stay rooted in the last war. After the Civil War, what the US Army wanted, was something as close to the 1861 Musket as possible. The Ordnance Bureau passed up several, better, single shot designs, the Rolling Block and the Martini for two, to adopt a rifle that was as close to a muzzle loading 58 Caliber musket as possible, and still use a cartridge! I am certain the requirements group knew of lever actions, and of course, many would have been familiar with the Spencer, which was an outstanding weapon in the hands of US Cavalry, and decisive, against musket armed Confederates. But what they wanted, was something so similar to the 1863 musket, that the Union troops in Buster Keton's movie, The General were using Trapdoors! Even in 1926, on a movie set, you could issue actors with the Trapdoor and the general public would not know the difference between the cartridge rifle and the musket!. The Ordnance Department had reached Nirvana!

By the 1890's is was getting to be obvious that the Springfield Trapdoor was outdated. By then the Russians, the Germans, the English, the French, the Swiss, had adopted bolt action rifles, the tube fed ones were in the reserves, the primary front line weapons were magazine fed bolt actions. And the US primary service arm was still the Trapdoor Springfield. When the US invaded Cuba, and 760 Spanish troops faced 15,000 Americans, the Spanish armed with Mausers, and the vast majority of Americans with Trapdoors. Even with these odds, the Americans suffered five times as many causalities as the Spanish! The most successful American action was with Gatling guns, and that lesson was ignored. Gatling guns and machine guns "wasted ammunition".

There were still lots of military, and military advisors, who were claiming single shots were still the best military service rifle, and a primary reason touted at the time, was to prevent "ammunition wastage". Logicians thought it much better for the troops not to shoot too much ammunition at the enemy, thus avoiding the vicious cycle of restocking ammunition. Obviously, a lever action would shoot too much ammunition at the enemy. It is a humorous fact that logistical laziness hampered combat weapon effectiveness. It was difficult to supply an Army in the field, and yes, it was costly, yes, but guess what, if you can't keep the food, clothing, shelters, ammunition, weapons, flowing, you will lose a protracted war against a foe who can.

One point not mentioned is how difficult lever actions are to dismount and clean. They simply have too many parts and are too complicated for not merely the average recruit, but the 95% recruit. You can verify this for yourself by going to the local gunstore and examining 100 year lever actions that were never cleaned by their owners! Too many screws and springs. I have examined a number of early military rifles, some are complicated and have too many parts, but, by the time you get to the 1880's, rifles are getting simplified. Maintenance actions are simplified. On the Martini Henry, you push out a split pin, lower the lever, and the breech block pops out. From there you can wipe out the mechanism. It does require a screwdriver to remove the trigger mechanism, but overall, you can clean the weapon without having to do that. The better designs don't require a screwdriver to dissemble the firing mechanism. Does anyone know of a lever action that does not require a screwdriver to remove the lever? That is a screw, and a screwdriver, that will be lost out in the field. Another important factor is that any military rifle which can be assembled incorrectly, will be assembled incorrectly. (Anyone remember the Ross?) Creating a design which the parts can only be assembled in one order, and it is "intuitive" how they go together, is hard.

There was some great debate between Edward Crossman and Charles Newton, in print, between the lever action and the bolt gun. I have never read any of the discussion, but it would have been interesting to read the arguments these ego manic's created, trying to prove the other wrong.
 
"After the Civil War, what the US Army wanted, was something as close to the 1861 Musket as possible."

I think you are greatly overplaying the "if it's not 1565-era technology (yes 1565), we don't want it," and VASTLY underplaying just how little money there was in the years after the Civil War to do much of anything and how reticent Congress was to release any kind of money to procure new equipment.
 
I think you are greatly overplaying the "if it's not 1565-era technology (yes 1565), we don't want it," and VASTLY underplaying just how little money there was in the years after the Civil War to do much of anything and how reticent Congress was to release any kind of money to procure new equipment.
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The Army played a game of "in for a penny, in for a pound". Now lets understand, the Department of Defense is always broke. Last year they got $603 Billion, but if you listen to the Chief of Staffs on CSPAN, they are all begging poverty. After the Civil War there was far less money than today, obviously, but how the Army spent it and on what, that was their decision. The post Civil War idea to use as many musket parts as possible in their new cartridge gun did not play out as advertised. From what I read, those Civil War parts were not interchangeable, improper steel, etc, and in the end, the US Army made its Trapdoors from completely new parts. If you are old enough you remember the same justification being used in the adoption of the M14 over the FAL. The Army claimed they could use parts from the Garand and make the M14 on Garand machinery and tooling. I think the triggers will swap out, maybe some trigger pins, not much else though. Whatever machinery was left over from the Korean war M1's, had been worn out and scrapped. And the whole thing was bogus anyway since the majority of M14's built were made by Contractors, not Springfield Armory. The Contractors got to buy nice new equipment, as no one had factories sitting around, collecting cobwebs, full of M1 Garand tooling. But the important thing was, the FAL went away, and the Army got a service rifle as close to the Garand as was possible, given that the new rifle had to have a box magazine and a different cartridge.

If you notice, the Ordnance Department decided to keep the low number 03's in service, even though they knew that 33% of the things would blow up in over pressure conditions. That was a time of poverty too, but the Chief of Staffs could have then, as they could have post Civil, gone to Congress and made a case for why they needed something other than a Trap door, or, why they needed the money to scrap 1,000,000 M1903's and replace them with new 03's. The latter would have been embarrassing as the Army made all those rifles, so they decided to leave the things in service, until they wore out, or blew up! As for the Trapdoor, it is obvious they wanted the Trapdoor, as they could have built, from ground up, any other single shot design on the market, and there were a lot of better ones in existence. I don't have the records, but without a doubt, the Ordnance Department plead poverty if pressed, which would have been a smoke screen for their natural intransigence to change.

This is true, and has always been true for the US Army: They like what the have, they want something better but only a little different, and they totally reject revolutionary change.

Just change the color of their berets and listen to the howling!! I remember when the BDU cap was changed over to the beret, and the BDU to the ACU. You never met such an unhappy group as the guys in uniform.
 
"but how the Army spent it and on what, that was their decision."

Actually, no it wasn't. Congress exercised a huge amount of review and interference over not only proposed funds, but also allocated funds, and did so right up through the 1920s and 1930s.

A large part of the reason as to why the US Army tried to make Trapdoors out of Springfield rifled muskets (SRMs) of Civil War vintage was the continuing interference and parsimony of Congress.

A number of prototype rifles were tested as complete replacements for the Springfield, but Congressional overseers made it very clear that the Army was going to find a way to use some, or all, of the more than 3 million SRMs that were in stock at the conclusion of the War.

It's true that the military has always been conservative, but it wasn't as conservative as you're making it out to be.

Were that truly the case, the Colt 1873 never would have been adopted and the military would have soldiered on with cap and ball Colts and Remingtons, eventually converting some or most of them to rimfire.

In fact, many of the Remingtons in stock after the war WERE converted to rimfire (.46 Short Rimfire) and were issued to the US 9th and 10th Cavalry, and some to the 25th Infantry, which were all Buffalo Soldier units fighting Indians in the South West.
 
It's true that the military has always been conservative, but it wasn't as conservative as you're making it out to be.
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Yes, the poor Army, such a victim. We are all victims. :rolleyes:

Congress was then, as they are now, managing their careers full time and giving away the wealth of the country to deserving campaign contributors. They only get involved in minutia when they can make a scandal to embarrass the Political party in power.

You are free to believe whatever version of history makes you happy.
 
"Yes, the poor Army, such a victim. We are all victims."

Oh, get off the cross. It's already occupied. You're not him.

"Congress was then, as they are now, managing their careers full time and giving away the wealth of the country to deserving campaign contributors. They only get involved in minutia when they can make a scandal to embarrass the Political party in power."

You're ignoring another critical factor in Congressional interference in military affairs after the Civil War.

Starting from about 1870, just about every member of Congress had served in the military, either Northern or Southern, and thought that they knew how the military should be spending its money in a post war environment, only now they thought they could do it better than the military AND cheaper.

Deadly combination. And I don't need to believe what I want to believe. The Congressional Record is complete and accurate and provides exhaustive details on Congressional oversight of the military.

If you want a REALLY interesting look at how Congress interfered in military affairs, read up on the appropriations for what would become the USS Mississippi and the USS Idaho.
 
In addition to the points raised already, I wonder if they might have considered it advantageous to be able to smack the bolt open. After all they were using corrosive ammo with no chrome-lined chambers.
 
Nah. That argument doesn't do much for me.

Martini-Henry
Sharps
Maynard
...Just a short list of single-shot designs that had the same, if not greater problem with operation; yet they were well-loved.
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And yet the bolt-action is still better-suited for firing prone, regardless of how well-loved these designs were.

It was the way forward, and these designs were not.
 
For some reason the lever action never really caught on with military (apparently there is no plural for military). Some were used here and there but not that much. The lever was THE sporting rifle for Americans until after WW I when returning Doughboys liked the power and accuracy of their 1903s and 1917s. Also one advantage to the lever was being flat so it carried well in a saddle scabbard. By the 1920s the horse was being replaced by automobiles.
 
Jumping back to the government interference in military affairs after the Civil War, I'd forgotten about this tidbit...

From 1874 to 1876 General of the Army William T. Sherman moved his headquarters from Washington, DC, to St. Louis because of constant interference by several Secretaries of War and other members of Congress.

He only moved his command back after a new Secretary of War promised to stop interfering with his duties as commanding general.

Interference from Congress continued, but was easier to deal with, apparently.
 
People on "the sharp end" have a saying amongst themselves. probably had some version of it before the Roman legions...

"The real enemy is always behind you..."

Sometimes with the added "we only get to kill the ones in front of us"...

Here's another thought, about why the lever was popular here and not so much elsewhere...

By the time you get to cartridge repeaters, who are you fighting??

In the US wild west, it was "renegade red Indians". And often civilians doing the fighting to protect themselves. In Europe who are you fighting? Other nations military units.

And that requires a rifle capable of being both effective at, and surviving hand to hand combat. Something that lever guns aren't really good at, even if you figure out how to put a bayonet on them!
 
03 Springfield is the cat's ass. Still one of the best military rifles ( best any kind of rifle ) ever manufactured. I have one ( full military ) with a Kahles competition telescopic sight. The scope cost many many times more than the rifle.
 
"Please Mister Custer, I don't want to go."
One thing against the Spencer by 1876 was that the company was long out of business with no guns or parts being made.

Winchester sold a bunch of 1895 lever actions to the Russians in 7.62 MN, complete with stripper guides. They were reportedly not nearly as sturdy as the MN bolt action.
 
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