Link For part one kzfaq.infoxUV19gGKAr0?feature=share

Again, the lever action wasn’t really *replaced* by the bolt action. Most countries went straight from single shot rifles to bolt actions. Lever actions were largely an American luxury, and mostly in civilian hands.

One reason that we switched is due to the fact if your lying down like in a trench or something you would have trouble with cocking your gun and still looking down your sight's bolt actions didn't have that problem

I love the part where he tells why they were replaced

Don’t mean to be a Mauser snob or anything but I’m pretty sure the 1895 Mausers had a stripper clip cutout to ease in feeding the internal magazine with stripper clips. I believe even the Spanish 93s had them as well. Still though, I enjoy your videos!

Whoa....hoss. Points of order. 1. Stripper clips were part of Mauser's rifles going back to 1891, and en bloc chargers go back to at least 1888. 2. The needle rifle, while technically a centerfire, was a paper cartridge with a percussion cap inside the paper wrapper. 3. Spitzer bullets came into common usage around 1907. Prior to that, the same cartridges had bottlenose projectiles. These are not to be confused with heavy, black powder cartridges like 45-70 and 11mm Mauser.

I thought the bolt replaced the Martini action mainly because it's stronger and easier hence cheaper to make.

The biggest misconception is that lever actions were never really adopted in the first place. The bolt action replaced single shot breechloading rifles, not lever actions

Both of these are dependent on internal magazine vs tube magazine. I believe you can make either on either platform (like the Lebel bolt action tube fed or Browning's mag fed Winchester 1895 lever action, that the Russians used a ton of in ww1). The transition from one action to the next was about at the same time as the transition from one feed system to the next.

Russian Winchester m1895: Am i joke for you?

As I recall, bolt actions became the miltary rifle because they could be fired in the prone position easier.

Also, the Russians contracted a Winchester lever action that fed from stripper clips if I’m not mistaken

The Winchester Model 1895 and the Lebel are also a good proof that stripper clips weren't the issue (the former being a lever action using stripper clips and the later being a bolt action with a tubular magazine).

Pure simplicity is why it replaced the lever action

When you say replace that implies that a lot of countries and militaries were actually using lever action rifles as a standard rifle which most weren't most went from the breach block to the bolt action, level action rifle weren't normal chambered in large caliber rifle rounds, but in pistol calibers

well the fact that most militaries never formally adopted lever action by any military wholesale, the Henry the Spencer and the 1895 Winchester remain the only lever action rifles adopted in any way. Even the US never formally adopted a lever action. the Trapdoor Springfield rifle remained the standard rifle from 1867 til 1895. The Remington rolling block, and falling block rifles were standards in foreign countries.

Since then, sticking a bit of nylon over the pointy tip prevents accidental discharge while in the tube due to pointy tip possibly striking the primer of the bullet ahead of it. However, I'd say the range of motion and free space needed while cycling a lever action in certain tactical positions is partly why bolt action replaced them, because they are so much tighter vertically. Also, it's probably easier to engineer a thicker stronger block into a bolt action than on a lever -thus allowing for much higher pressure loads. But, I could be wrong...

Early bolt action rifles were in fact single shot rifles. Bolt action rifles were often chosen by militaries because accuracy was important at one point. The US military chose the bolt actions over lever actions because they were afraid if a soldier was able to shoot rapidly he would shoot up all his ammunition without hitting his target. This was the mentality until just before ww2 the British held on to their bolt actions until the 1960's for similar reasons.

Cost of weapon production and ease of repairability come to mind

En bloc clips were developed early to mid 1880s. And while spitzer bullets weren't developed until later, you could have a bottleneck cartridge easier, allowing for a smaller diameter bullet with a bigger powder charge and therefore increased pressure and range of the firearm over traditional cartridges developed before the use of bolt actions.

Stripper clips sound a lot more fun than they are

People also forget that lever guns were never really fully serviced in militaries at all

The us army didnt formally adopt a lever action gun, although they did like them. They chose the bolt action because it would be hard to cock (giggity) the lever action from some positions whereas the bolt action could be fired standing, laying or any other position

Bolt actuations (especially early ones like the Dryse) are much less complicated, and can be reloaded much easier, and did not have magazines. We could actually see this in many countries, which were extremely hesitant to adopt magazine fed guns, partially because they were afraid soldiers would blow through all of their ammo extremely quickly and ineffectively

I recall seeing somewhere that the British were considering a lever action around the time of the Boer War, but after they had several rounds detonate in the tube magazine (caused by pressure in the primer from the top of the round behind it) they decided that lever action was not safe for the rigors of military service?

plus there was the Winchester M1895 which was lever-action but accepted stripper clips and early bolt-action rifles like the Lebel M1886 which had to be painstakingly single-loaded

Two reasons. One, easier to fire accurately from prone position. Two, easier to manufacture.

I only learnt why Not but the title said it will tell me why

There's also lever actions that can take stripper clips like the Russian contract Winchesters that also could use spritzer cartridges

He straight up didn’t tell us why it was replaced if it were replaced at all

Stripper clips were in use with bolt actions well before the 98K Mauser. And it seems to be common knowledge by this point that the American experience in the Spanish-American was the motivating factor in adopting the modern M1903 to replace old trapdoor Springfields and side-loading Krags -- the US Army didn't use lever action rifles.

There are also examples of box-mag fed (no issues with spitzer rounds) lever-actions, that could take stripper clips. Namely, the Winchester 1895 Russian Contract rifles. Chambered in 7.62x54R, had box mags, and took stripper clips, as required by the Russian Imperial Army.

Stripper clips were around for nearly 10 years before the 98. The Mauser 1889, 1890, and 1891 used them.

Actually the first stripper clip was on the Mauser 1889, this was carried over on later Mauser rifles, including the famous Gewehr 98. En bloc clips are even older.

I always assumed it was complexity that kept lever guns from the trenches. More bits and moving parts for mud and grime to get into

that Carcano Ammo flex cut deep

the biggest thing was action strength. In the 1870s, the vast majority of lever actions were brass receivers, but some were made of a protosteel. Steel did exist obviously, but it was really hard to make in large scale and so it was used rather sparingly. Gun barrels by that time were already steel. but receivers arent barrels. Receivers have complex shapes and can require hundreds of hours if shaped by hand out of steel. But if you cast a receiver out of brass, you can finish shaping it by hand in only 5 or 10 hours and with a lot less skill. This mean lever actions were only capable of being chambered in much weaker cartridges. The advantage of the bolt action was that because the receiver is mostly round, its much easier to make out of steel. You simply forge a round bar, forge in the impression of where you want to remove material, and then drill out the center and proceed to file away until you reach the desired shape, youre still looking at around 20 to 25 hours to make a complete receiver, however, compare that to the 10 hours of a lever action with a brass receiver that can only be chambered in small rounds, or the hypothetical steel receiver lever action that could chamber large rounds but would take hundreds of hours to finish. And it really wasnt until the early 1890s when steel production and shaping became cheap enough that an all steel lever action could be made easily for the military and civilian market, which culminated in the Winchester 1894, 1895, and the Marlin 1896. But by that point, bolt actions were even easier to make and so still much cheaper than a steel lever action. This also came at the time where military doctrine was changing. By the 1890s, line formations were dead, no one used them, repeating arms and the recent invention of smokeless powder made line formations obsolete. Some militaries were sort of in this grey zone where all they had to draw on in this new age of warfare, (keep in mind, the Maxim gun was invented in 1884) was light infantry tactics left over from the various wars of the period, so you had entire armies of light infantry. Well heres your problem, light infantry found themselves shooting in all positions. Line infantry only fought standing or kneeling. Light infantry could be standing, kneeling, prone, propped up on cover, leaning against walls, etc. All this made the lever action less useful as it required the user to either lift themselves off the ground to cycle it, or they had to take themselves off target and rotate the gun or themselves to cycle it. all while the bolt action allowed a soldier to not move at all. And finally, reliability. While both systems are manually operated, there are far fewer parts in a bolt action than there are in a lever action. Lever actions have opening on 3 sides, you have gaps around the loading gate, the ejection port, and the lever itself. All this makes it very vulnerable to mud and dirt, while a bolt action is relatively sealed with the only opening being the ejection port and the trigger. The bolt action beat the lever action because at the time, it made sense. Now a days, both guns can be made equally as cheap with modern manufacturing and theres not really a caliber you can out in a bolt gun that you cant put in a lever gun. and with semi and full autos having long sense replaced the bolt action in military service, its much more up to personal preference now.

There are a few reasons why lever action guns were not adapted by militaries 1. They are more expensive and more difficult to mass produce 2. More moving parts, thus more diffucult to maintain and more prone to malfunction 3. Not exactly easy to use while crawling 4. Related to part 2, takes longer to disassemble, which is important as what soldiers did with their bolt action weapons if they had to leave them and not allow the enemy to use them was to take out the bolt and yeet it somewhere it can't easily be found.

Lever actions can also use stripper clips if they're the cowboy type action, there the breach is on top.

I have seen that the lever action was also "better" while the shooter í on the ground ( as in easier to use while on the "belly" and "hiding/being behind cover).

The Gewehr 1888 used stripper clips, so did the Mosin Nagant and Lee Metford

The lever action wasn't really replaced by anything because it wasn't ever adopted as a rifle for any military except in very minor and limited instances. However, I maintain the fact that lever action rifles combined with modern tactics would make for a better weapon than a bolt action gun. The main thing holding back the lever action from being implemented was lack of willingness to update tactics.

Plus, the Winchester 1895 existed. A lever-action with a internal magazine. The Russians used these rifles in their 7.62x54r during the first world war. However, it prove cheaper to build bolt-actions over lever-action due to bolt-actions being more durable and easier to make.

“Lever guns fell out of use because of spitzer bullets and stripper clips” Winchester 1895: “allow me to introduce myself”

It is also worth noting that if they wanted to make lever action rifles accept clips, they could, case in point Win Model 1895 made for Russian Empire chambered in 7.62x54 had built guide for mosin stripper clips. The guides were pretty easy and cheap to make so its a no brainer to say stripper clips are one of the reasons.

Well also the more durable action for higher pressure rounds, shooting prone with a lever gun is more likely to get dirt in the action as well.

Lever guns didn't see large scale adoption in the US military because the difficulty reloading in prone position and military brass thought troops would waste ammo if they had so many in the magazine. Lever guns were really only adopted by mounted fighter forces and guerilla fighters.

Cost, ease of cleaning and repair in the field. Prone position shooting was improved shooting a bolt action rifle. Less movement in the body of the person using it. There's several reasons why that contributed

And don't forget that the Russian contract Winchester 1895 lever actions used stripper clips.

Between the increased cost, fitting, and complexity of a lever, it was more difficult to produce a locking system capable of containing the new and more powerful cartridges comingnat the turn of the century. Between increased range, simplicity, reliability, accuracy, and reduced cost, most European powers never really made the jump from single shots to levers.

Guns aside, whoever does your laundry, does it well

they even made the Winchester 1895 for stripper clips and Spitzer rounds

I was always told the biggest reason for the bolt action becoming the dominant one is the same reason the cavalry troops preferred the breech loaders, trap door rifles. Because they didn't give from horseback, they fought from prone fighting positions. With a lever gun you often have to roll to the side to work the action in a prone position, or at the very least rotate the rifle, which took your barrel off target or exposed your position. It also put moving parts of the action down in the dirt. Bolt actions don't require you to reposition to rechamber, their action is up out of the dirt, then they figure out they're faster for reloads, you can use spitzer rounds, and going into WW1 is all trench warfare where lever actions would've been a worse option than bolts in trench combat. Add to all of that the higher chamber pressures you can get with a bolt gun, they're easier to manufacture, easier to maintain, it's really just a whole ton of reasons that in a combat environment, a bolt action is better. With all that said, when I go pushing deer in the brush, or just need a good wilderness gun, I'll take the lever every time because of it's size, weight, and handling. But I'm not in combat, do I imagine my opinion would change if I were.

Sustained fire rates over the course of a days action probably fairly similar. Especially considering Ammunition supply pre-petrol engine would be pretty limited.

The ability to cycle the action while prone, and reliability.

my guess would be much easier to mass produce given how simple a bolt mechanism is vs a lever action one not to mention how lever actions had a tendency to bind if they weren't worn in or tolerances weren't right

💡Pointed bullets resting on the primer could make the bullet in front explode in the tube👍

Russian Empire actually ended up using a spitzer cartridge fed by stripper clips in a lever action. So the idea that the idea that the spitzer cartridge and the stripper cartridge is already flawed there.

Also was the requirement for soldiers to be able to effectively fire from the prone position. Lever action rifles made this more difficult.

This may be a duplicate, but the text editor somehow lost the original. Bolt action rifles can generally handle higher pressure cartridges than typical lever action rifles. Winchester produced a lever action in the mid 1990s that fed from a stacked magazine and chambered for first .30-03, then .30-06. Producing them in quantities REQUIRED for general issue would have been prohibitively expensive. This was before the 16th amendment enabled the income tax that enabled government to siphon huge quantities of money from the economy using methods that before this amendment would have been unconstitutional. Off the top of my head, violates fifth amendment prohibition against self incrimination. Normally, government has to prove you guilty. Here, YOU have to prove yourself innocent. Anyway, lever action rifles were auxiliary if not standard issue during the Indian wars, usually in .44 Winchester. Siamese Mausers that can feed rimmed cartridges can be rebarreled and chambered for .45-70 cartridges loaded to pressures that would blow up trapdoor Springfields and damage 1886 Winchesters and 1895 Marlins.

The Winchester model 1895 could be loaded with Spitzer rounds from stripper clips.

It’s really the tale of two applications: opening the Western United States and lessons learned by European & American military post-American Civil War & Franco Prussian War. Late 19th Century, many cowboys, ranchers, lawmen & calvary units opted for lever actions that shot the same round as their pistol. Aside from a few purchases on the civilian market and rare pictures of the Spanish American War I cannot think of any 20th Century US Army or Marines deploying with a lever action carbine.

I just started collecting with my first surplus rifle. Got a Yugo Mauser m24/47 for $400. Same shop has an m44 mosin for $350 and a carcano for $250. Going to get those soon.

I have a lever action with spitzer rounds, but it doesn's have a tube magazine. It can also be loaded with stripper clips. It's a Savage 99. It was introduced in late 1800s so around the same time armies started to adopt bolt action rifles.

Lever actions were never replaced because it never caught on😂😂😂

Wasn't Winchester 1895 Russian both using vertical magazine ie not affected by spitzer bullets hitting primers of other bullets AND had a quick loader too(not sure if it was clip or not)? The version I heard is also connected to it. People call it the high end of lever actions. Bolt action provides more solid lock up and thus can use more powerful ammo. So for the time when military believed that way forward is somehow bigger loads and longer barrels, they chose that option. Backwards Napoleonic War era like thinking of having line battles in the future that led to so many casualties in WWI \/(-_-)\/

Stripper clips did come on lever guns 1895 Winchester Russian contracts come to mind It was because they were far more expensive, easier to jam in mud, and harder to work lying prone

The Prussian Dreyse was a paper cartridge, breech loading rifle, not really centre fire in the modern sense of the term.

Also there were lever-action made by Winchester in the late 1800s that used stripper clips

You left out the part about lever action rifles never really getting adopted on a wide scale militarily. They were great civilian rifles, but they had too many issues that would inconvenience a hunter, but get a soldier killed. The tubes were very easily dented when dropped, mechanically complicated with some fragile/finicky parts and needed actual tools for cleaning & maintenance. And in the case of Winchester rifles you could loose your rear sight if you dropped of banged it the wrong way. By the time metallurgy & machining could correct for these issues the bolt action had already become the basic infantry weapon would wide.

Never understood why pump-action rifles never gained more popularity.

It seems clear a bolt action rifle is simpler to produce, load, relode, fire and maintain. What eludes me is why the British adopted the Martini-Henry single shot lever action when the American Henry's magazine lever action was already in production.

if im not mistaken it was because the bolt action could be more easily operated in the prone.

Besides, Lever Actions could be modified to accept stripper clips. The primary example? Russian Contract Model 1895 Winchesters, which were made to accept 1891 Mosin 7.62x54mmR five round stripper clips.

Don’t forget about the 1891 Argentine 7.65x53 Mauser.

Stripper clips came about with the Mauser 1889.

I thought it was mostly a complexity and price thing. It is a lot easier to churn out the huge numbers of guns needed for the scale of conflicts in Europe if they were bolt actions over lever action. I also imagine lever actions are harder to maintain.

Use of spitzer bullets in the Winchester 1895 or the Savage 99 is no problem. Also, if they REALLY wanted to use spitzer bullets in a lever action that still used a tube magazine (with the technology of the day), they could have done it using a rimfire cartridge. Of course we now have LEVERevolution

There were lever actions that too loaded and used striped clips one of my dream guns did it a Winchester model 1895

Bolt actions are more simple to design. Especially, if you are trying to design a lever action to accommodate a longer cartridge. John Browning showed it can be done but the design ends up far more complex.

Prime also forget that the 1895 Winchester had a stripper clip guide.

Summing it up, it was the type of ammunition and the fact that if you’re prone the weapon isn’t off target as long ..🎉

There are several examples of "spritzer safe" tubular magazine rifles (Lebel - spiral magazine tube and case head grooving that kept the point from the proceeding cartridge's primer), and one should likely mention the 1895 Winchester that was sold to the Russian empire - magazine fed lever action rifle that took stripper clips (same stripper clips and cartridge for the Mosin Nagant - 7.62x54R). Good video!

I'm no expert , far from it . But I thought the bolt action was a simpler , stronger , more reliable mechanism , that could handle more powerful rounds . While the lever action was faster , it was a more complicated , weaker mechanism , that couldn't handle the more powerful military rounds of the day , and was more prone to failure .

I remember the Lebel 1886 ammo having tapered rims in order to have spitzer bullets but also have a tubular magazine

Could've sworn there was a lever gun that fired rifle rounds like that spitzer projectile

Plus, you can make a lever gun work with both of those, it just wasn’t needed

Main reason: is way cooler chambering a round in a bolt action that a lever

I've heard that bolt is easier to fire while laying down. That's another reason why they switched

In militaries, bolt actions replaced lever actions because it's easier to go prone and cycle a bolt action than a lever action.

I’m confident that only one major factor was involved; money. Well two as the bolt action is much more simple and easier and quicker to field strip.

To add, Lever actions are way harder and more expensive to mass produce compared to a bolt action.

Bolt Action laughs while cycling a round in prone position.

There is ONE lever action that uses stripper clips. It's the Winchester M1895 and it was marketed to the US and Europe before Russia decided to buy it. It didn't last long though. The Mosin-Nagant was overall a better weapon.

Dude, that 1871/84 is so0o0o0o clean, how even? lol

If you are saying the single shot bolt action rifle replaced the lever action repeating rifle because it was a superior weapon I am calling BS. And in todays lever rifles it is accepted that a floating barrel, no forehand contact, is best. Not that long wood thing.

Bolt action easy to maintain and less malfunctioning .can be used in prone position but lever action is difficult to use in prone position

Besides, both of those problems are easily overcome in lever-action rifles, for example the Winchester '95.

its funny how the French Lebel use a 10 round tube with a flat tip Round and later the pointy tip got introduce so they just come up with the idea of tilting the round so it wouldn't detonate while reloading

You didn't actually explain why the bolt action replaced the lever action though?