Relative Rifle Action Strength

If you do a search on the top ten most popular deer hunting rifles in the US today you'll get countless results, typically for caliber it's 30-06-270-7rem mag and 243 with the 12guage in there as well in the first eight or nine entries, down near the bottom you'll see the 30-30. They'll mostly be bolt guns-model 70's and 700's with one lever action near the bottom.
I would blame the decrease in lever gun use for deer hunting on an aging population who need to use scopes, lever guns and scopes sort of don't look right together and some are difficult to mount a scope on. Younger hunters are much more inclined to be fixated on accuracy and trajectories, another weak point of lever guns.
 
I'll fully concede that lever guns don't dominate the deer woods they way they once did, but I think that they are still a long way from circling the drain or only being kept alive by cowboy games.

Another point to consider is how many lever gun are in use, have been for generations and will continue in use for a long time, and when sold go through private sales or gun shops and not the big box stores.

Scopes? sure, on Marlins, Savage 99s and a few others easy, on Winchesters (other than the 88) not so much. After carrying an iron sighted Win 94 .32Spl for decades, my Dad's last deer gun was a Browning BLR in .308 Win, with a 3-9x scope. Not quite as accurate as many bolt guns but more than enough for deer, and with a "modern" round's trajectory.

Bolt guns rule? ok, but I thought all you kids were buying ARs.....:rolleyes:
 
Rewind back in time to when bows were becoming the preferred hunting weapon, I could see some older guys sitting around the fire arguing the relevancy of spears.:D
 
Scorch sed
Shoulda got a High Wall
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Probably true. Last week a friend of mine needed a good solid pickup, and bought an F-150.
I told him he shoulda got a Lincoln Mark LT.

Appreciate the thought.

-jb :rolleyes:
 
If you can't judge the popularity of a genre of firearms by sales of new guns or participation in shooting sports how do you measure it?
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Exactly my point earlier in this discussion. Here are a bunch of us old farts sitting around arguing about whether or not lever guns are dying or not, and truth is that bolt guns are fading too. Walnut is virually non-existant, blued steel has been replaced by satellite paint. My shop is in one of the largest gun stores in the area, and 90% of what's on the wall is AR, AK, FN, M1A, tactical shotguns, and oh yeah, here are a dozen bolt actions and a couple lever actions. I do feel kinda justified, though, when some young (under 40) guy walks in with a 1911 and says he likes it better than plastic (errrr, polymer).:rolleyes:
 
I am curious about your question of strength in a replica 1800's big bore, tang sighted rifle.

specifically because "strength" is a nebulous term with different meanings to different people. Often it means absolute failure point (blow up strength) but it can also be used for the "rigidity" or "flex" of an action type.

IF you aren't looking to blow up the gun what's the point of worrying about blow up strength?? Put another way, if rifle A lets go at 118,000psi and rifle B doesn't fail until 123,000psi, rifle B is "stronger" but what possible practical difference can it make??

Period lever guns are "springy" by modern standards, even the best of them made with the best steel of the day. But again, its not something that matters on the practical level shooting black powder pressure levels and using cases headspacing on the rim.

A tang sight can be fitted to any action that has enough tang.
 
Scorch

Your right about wood guns, I've bought 2 wood stocked rifles in the last 30years and only because they weren't available in synthetic.
Bolt guns are not going away, every AR-15 loving millennial I know has at least one in one of those weird looking metal chassis "stocks".
 
Your right about wood guns, I've bought 2 wood stocked rifles in the last 30years and only because they weren't available in synthetic.
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I guess I'm on the old side of the coin, I've only bought a couple of synthetic stocked rifles in the last 30 years, and only because there was no wood stocked model.

(and those were both semis, not bolt guns)

Yes, I see where times have changed, the market has changed, but I haven't, and the up side is the stuff I like and want is cheaper...now..sometimes, comparatively speaking...
 
As a gunsmith, I build rifles for a living. 10 years ago I built at least 1 rifle/month, mostly bolt actions with wood stocks, but a few fiberglass or carbon fiber stocks for the lightweight hunter crowd. 5 years ago or so it was down to 5 rifles/year, almost all fiberglass bolt guns, camoed and plain jane. I haven't built a wood stocked rifle in 2 years, camoed fiberglass tactical stuff is what the younger crowd is looking for, McMillan stocks and Badger Ordnance hardware with custom actions and scopes that cost as much as a small car. Makes me feel sad that people don't want checkered walnut and blued steel any more. I don't know, maybe this is how the old smiths felt when we wouldn't build custom rifles on Krag actions any more?
 
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