What Is A Lever Action Classified As?

[4v50 Gary]

Lever operated self-cocking straight-pull bolt dropping lock smokeless metallic catridge center-fire breechloader.

OK, the 1861 Henry is a toggle lock but the Win 94 and Marlin actions both have a form of the dropping lock (my term).

ETA: smokeless metallic cartridge center-fire & self cocking just to make it post-Civil War.

Where's my prize?

 

[M65Man]

The Levergun is as far as my knowledge of it, is the only rifle that's 100% entirely thought up, designed, perfected, and re-perfected with updates, and has an enormous list of cartridges made entirely and mostly for it, that both gun & ammo can hunt from ground squirrels to Brown Bear, and even eventually covered Africa!

It has done everything needed by gun & ammo, without compromise taken from other types guns or ammos by conversion! It gave repeatable hunting accuracy at distances the eye could possibly shoot with iron sights, before optics!
It was not designed for warfare, but first and foremost the daily needs of survival, provisions, defense of its time!
The American Levergun is the top of the list of classifications, and in its own!

 

[Varminterror]

It was not designed for warfare

Um… The first leverguns were all designed for warfare… The Colt First Model were used in the Seminole war, the Volcanic Pistol wasn’t exactly a hunting firearm, the Spencer was a war machine, as was the Henry…

 

[jmorris]

If I was trying to communicate with someone I would class them as “lever action” and not try and confuse the subject.

That said, this one is a machinegun per NFA branch.

 

[M65Man]

I said for all purposes, defense being one of them! Not solely for warfare alone. Even the first guns as where all personal hunting and survival guns used in warfare. Wars are always there, we use our boots in them but that's not the original purposes.

 

[herrwalther]

19th century assault rifle. Probably.

Realistically they are in the same category as bolt actions. You need a manual process to cycle the action. Unlock chamber, load a round, lock the chamber, and cock the hammer/striker (maybe depending on model). In an AR-15 and similar rifles, those are done faster than you can blink when you pull the trigger on a live round. Levers, bolts, and rarer pump rifles don't. You have to do the work. But not quite as much work as a Springfield trapdoor and certainly not a musket.

 

[hawg]

Now I'm intrigued.

How is a gun semi auto but single shot?

I've got a semi auto bolt action repeater. Seriously.

 

[DeepSouth]

Now I'm intrigued.

How is a gun semi auto but single shot?

It's a Winchester Model 55. I saw one at a gun show with a sign on it that said, "Winchester's Edsel."
Just like any other semi-auto, you have to "cock it" for the first shot, then when you shove a round into the chamber through the trapdoor like thing on top, it automatically put's the rifle on "safe."
When you take it off "safe" and fire it, it automatically ejects the empty case out through a port in the bottom of the stock, and re-cocks itself - again, just like any other semi-auto.
My mom and dad gave me my Winchester Model 55 for my 10th birthday in 1958. I'm not sure exactly why Winchester ever came out with such a rifle, but I suspect somebody might have thought it would be a great design for a kid's first gun. I know that's what my mom and dad thought - they told me so.
The thing is though, it wasn't a great design for every kid's first gun. That port in the bottom of the stock where the HOT, spent cases fall out is located right where I placed my left hand when I was 10 years old. I had an almost constant blister in the palm of my left hand until I grew a little.
BTW, I still have that rifle, and it still shoot great 64 years later.

I have an H&R 760 that’s similar. You put the round in the chamber close the bolt, when you fire it opens the bolt, cocks it, and ejects the case.

 

[ACES&8S]

If memory serves me correctly, Ted Kennedy classified the lever action a long time ago.
He held one up as the circle of GREAT GIANT HEADS, and declared it as an example of the ASSAULT RIFLE
in civilian hands.
Shows how out of touch the big leaders are.
Saw one tv report on a shooting incident that said the person was carrying an AR-47, maybe that was a lever action.

 

[Dave DeLaurant]

In a classified ad, it is whatever the seller thinks it is. Try correcting the seller, I dare you!

For me, the important criterion is that it refers to a type of manually-operated magazine repeater.

Single shots are defined by the action of the breech mechanism rather than the method of manual operation. It's far from precise -- a Martini is variously called a dropping, tipping or swinging block, but never a lever action.

Semiauto rifles with levers are uncommon but exist. They're still called semiautomatic rather than lever action.

 

[Mosin77]

A breech-loading, tube-or-box magazine-fed repeating rifle, with lever-action cartridge feeding, if we want to be really technical. But many of them have a resemblance between hammer and trigger with a classic single action revolver.

There’s not really such a thing as a “double action” rifle, unless maybe you are talking about one of those buntline-like things they make nowadays that are basically overgrown revolvers with shoulder stocks and 16” barrels.