Long Live The Lever Gun

In 1887, Stevens Arms Company developed the 22 Long Rifle cartridge, and despite the thousands of cartridges that have come and gone since, it remains the world’s most popular one. Lever-action rifles were all the rage in the late nineteenth century when the 22 LR hit the scene, so it should come as no surprise that it took just a few years for a firearms brand to develop the world’s first commercially successful lever-action chambered for the cartridge, the Marlin 1891.

Today, more than 130 years later, lever-action rimfires are still running strong, serving for plinking, small game hunting, varmint shooting and much more. Feed them the right ammunition in the right situations, and you’ll reap the benefits the platform and cartridges have to offer.

Versatile & Fun

One of the first .22 rifles I ever fired was a Marlin 39A lever-action, an offspring of the original 1891. Early in my shooting career I used my dad’s 39A to hunt small game including squirrels and rabbits. I still remember him shooting rats in our corn crib with that rifle, and in my younger days when we ran coonhounds the Marlin was called upon to make clean head-shots on raccoons, which was essential to preserve the hide and dispatch the animal humanely. When I was older, I used the 39A to hunt groundhogs that cultivated tunnels under bean fields on the family farm.

That 39A still resides in my gun room, though groundhogs are few and far between and I haven’t followed a coonhound through moonlit river bottoms in search of raccoons for some time. Nevertheless, the .22 still sees active duty from time to time, primarily for target shooting and plinking.

One of the great attributes of many 22 LR lever guns (my Marlin included) is that they also function with 22 Long and 22 Short ammunition—one of the few .22s still on the market to do so. The mild-mannered 22 Short is quieter than the 22 LR by a substantial margin and still has enough zip to dispatch small vermin. If you don’t own a suppressor, shooting shorts is still the best way to turn down the volume on your rimfire shooting.

The Marlin has a special place in my heart, but it’s hardly the only lever-action .22 available today. Henry offers a full line of .22 lever-actions including its iconic Golden Boy which is a perennial best-seller and appears in the rifle rack of most every gun store in America. Rossi’s Rio Bravo .22 lever gun comes with a tough polymer stock, weighs just over 5 pounds and carries an MSRP of just over $350. If you want a bit more power from your rimfire lever-action rifle, Rossi also offers a 22 WMR version of the Rio Bravo, and Henry offers both 22 WMR and 17 HMR versions of its stylish lever-actions.

Great Loads For Lever Guns

Quality lever-action rifles require great ammo, and not all .22 rimfire loads are created equal. Your shooting experience will always be better with higher-quality ammunition, and this is particularly true with rimfires. Poor quality ammunition results in more failures to fire, greater extreme velocity spreads, and inaccurate groups.

When I shoot 22 Shorts, my go-to round is CCI’s hollow-point 27-grain load. With a velocity of more than 1,100 fps, this mild load still packs plenty of punch for stopping pests and small game, but CCI’s CB 22 Long 29-grain load at 710 feet per second is even quieter and makes a great round for dispatching small vermin.

Under most circumstances you’ll want a supply of both training loads like the ones mentioned above as well as hunting loads. There are loads of good 22 LR hunting rounds, but my favorites are Mini-Mag 36-grain, Velocitor 40-grain HP, and Stinger 32-grain HP. Terminal effects with all these loads has been excellent for me on squirrel- and rabbit-size game, and the hollow-point design dispatches animals quickly and efficiently. I’ve likely used the Stinger (which achieves an impressive 1,640 fps muzzle velocity) most, and that’s because it shoots so well in my rifle and hits with authority.

For 22 WMR lever rifles, consider CCI’s Maxi-Mag 46-grain Clean-22 Segmenting Hollow Point. There are lots of a fantastic options, but this one is my favorite because it combines so many of CCI’s technologies like polymer bullet coatings that reduce friction and fouling and a devastating SHP bullet that transfer energy effectively. There’s also a CCI shotshell 22 WMR load packed with 52-grains of #12 shot that’s a seriously effective pest control round. For 17 HMR lever-action hunting rifles it’s difficult to top the performance of CCI’s VNT and Gamepoint loads, which blend precision accuracy with rapid expansion on small game.

Many firearms come and go from our lives, but the best ones stick around because they’ve earned a spot in our gun safes. Such is the case with my 39A lever-action. It owes me nothing, as they say, because it has served dutifully for decades in several roles and its value to my family has far exceeded the original price of the rifle. Hopefully someday my grandkids will hoist that rifle as they do their best job to perforate a pop can in classic fashion. If you don’t have a lever-action rimfire, I suggest you set about adding one to your collection, paired with ammunition. Few combinations are as fun or effective to shoot.