Okay, I expect to get run out of town for my comments but I have no affection for the big looped levers: I hate how they look and feel (granted, an entirely subjective opinion) and I don't like the fact that they won't fit into a normal sized scabbard and/or gun case. The few times I have handled one, I found them to be slower to operate the lever to fire repeat shots than when shooting with rifles having conventional size levers. Finally, though I have fairly large sized hands and often wear gloves when hunting deer, I have never experienced a problem getting my hand inside the levers of my Winchester Models 94 and 1886 rifles nor into the lever of a Savage Model 99 I own.
Okay, I've had my say, and I'm on the way out of town and will try to stay ahead of the posse.
Okay, I've had my say, and I'm on the way out of town and will try to stay ahead of the posse.
-- and I fully understand others who have done at least one of their lever brood that way. However, I have small hands, especially for the rest of me, and while I find the standard loops fine (on both 92s and 94s--nearly identical--I find there's zero extra room...so I can't imagine how folks with large or even "normal" hands--or any hands gloved--fit! If I were the Winchester designer, I would have made the exact same shape standard lever, but about 10-15% bigger. Then again, folks were also on average probably at least 15% smaller back in the days of yore!