Quality lever guns are available in 44, 38/357, and 45 Colt.

Why not offer them in 9mm, 40, 45, even the 10mm?

I know it's the economics, but still....

I think there might be difficulty with the short rimless cartridges...but if somebody found a way to make one work, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

Browning BLR's come in a variety of rimless rifle calibers. So, they have an extractor design that obviously works. It would seem an extractor redesign might cure the problem, if it exists in traditional lever gun designs.

Lack of demand. It's mechanically feasible, but most likely not economically feasible.

Whereas it's harder to make a semiauto rifle for a rimmed cartridge. Otherwise, I think we'd see fewer lever rifles and more semiautos in .357, .44, etc. nowadays. (Although traditionally, semiautos like the Ruger .44 carbines were slow sellers, even though demand seems to be slightly higher these days, since they were discontinued.)

I also think nostalgia plays a part in the rimmed cartridge lever rifle demand, as well as cowboy action shooting. There's a certain niche of folks who want lever rifles and revolvers, in matching calibers. (And yes, while it's also possible on the flip side to have a revolver in rimless pistol cartridges, those have historically been slow sellers too... Again, mechanically feasible but economically questionable.)

I think it's a combination of some of the points already made here.

I don't think rimless cartridges are the big problem, per se, I think it's the "aspect ratio" of the semi pistol cartridges - relatively, much shorter and fatter. That makes them a lot harder to feed in a traditional levergun layout where the next cartridge is pulled from a tube magazine below the barrel and has to be tipped up and inserted into the barrel.

That can obviously be overcome, but it would require significant modification to existing designs, or more likely a completely new design.

The BLR is an obvious example of redesigning to accommodate something untraditional - pointy-nosed rifle rounds. If you put pointy-nosed rifle rounds in a tube magazine, the point of one bullet can ignite the primer of the next cartridge in line. So they went to a box magazine.

It would be relatively easy to design a box magazine-fed lever action for common rimless pistol cartridges, or even to adapt an existing semiauto design.

But then we come back to RogueJSK's point... which is how many of them could you actually sell?

Not all lever guns use tube magazines, although most do.

And it's not just modern designs like the BLR that have gotten around that.

The Winchester 1895 and Savage 1895/1899 are both examples of popular 125 year old lever rifle designs that used internal box or rotary magazines to accommodate full size rifle cartridges, and allow the use of spitzer (pointed) bullets.

Interesting guns, thanks for posting those.

Out in the world there are old Spanish made "El Tigre" Win 92 clones in 45ACP, though I haven't seen one come up for sale in almost 20 years. No idea how well they actually fed and functioned. (AFAIK they didn't come that way from the factory, but somewhere at some time, someone converted some somehow to 45ACP)

I would think it would be easy with a spring fed magazine. No elevators needed.

quote:

Originally posted by cas:
Out in the world there are old Spanish made "El Tigre" Win 92 clones in 45ACP, though I haven't seen one come up for sale in almost 20 years. No idea how well they actually fed and functioned. (AFAIK they didn't come that way from the factory, but somewhere at some time, someone converted some somehow to 45ACP)

Correct, they were originally in .44-40 before some were (reportedly rather poorly) converted to .45 ACP at some point.

Similarly, some Winchester 1892s in .44-40 in use by the Argentine police were converted to .45 ACP before being sold on the US surplus market a few decades ago.

I also wonder how popular they would be and how many would they sell. Don't get me wrong, I think they would be neat and I have been hit by the lever gun bug, but I don't think there would be a big market for them. Especially with most younger people wanting semi-autos and not "old timer's guns". I don't see many people shooting lever action guns by me,when I go to different ranges, other than us older guys. As hard as hollywood tries to make westerns for modern day, they just don't capture that nostalgia of lever guns. Just my 2 cents

^^^ I'd like to argue with that, but I can't. Tube magazines were, IIRC, unaffected by the nonsense of '94, and it seemed like every trick in the book became (at least theoretically) commercially viable. If boosting the round capacity of a tube magazine by shifting to semiauto cartridges didn't appeal then, I suspect there's no way it would make an impression on people now.

For me, (and I have a PCC AR 15 in 9mm) it's more a matter of power. The .357, .44 and .45 can be handloaded or purchased from companies like Buffalo Bore and Garrett with pretty significant power, making them usable deer and pig guns. I don't see the same allure in standard semi auto cartridges. The rimmed, straight wall revolver cartridges turn in some pretty respectable fps numbers, even with heavy for caliber bullets and seem to benefit from longer barrels. On the other hand, many semi auto cartridges achieve peak performance in barrels shorter than 16 inches.

In addition, there have often been semi auto PCCs available from Marlin, Ruger, and various AR conversions to give folk the option of having long guns in semi auto pistol cartridges.

For all of these reasons, I just don't see the market for a lever gun in these calibers.

Would someone be able to come up with one where it’s modular and you could buy caliber conversion kits for it? You know, like the original intent of the MPX.

quote:

Why doesn't anyone make a lever action in pistol calibers?

Just not much demand. Ruger made the Model 96 lever with its rotary magazine for about 10 years in 17HMR, 22LR, 22 mag, and 44 mag and they were very slow sellers in those calibers.

^^^ A bit OT, but I never understood why Ruger didn't offer those and their semiauto cousins in 7.62x39. Even now, I imagine they'd sell a few in places like California.

As previously mentioned, most pistol cartridges run out of steam right around the minimum 16” barrel length for quality SD rounds, slightly less for fmj . A 45acp would be a lot of cheap fun and you could really stack up the rounds down the mag tube. For comparison, a 16” Marlin .44 can fit 8 rounds. With a full tube of Gold Dots, it would make for a handy little truck or RV carbine.

There is a relatively new cartridge out now that might make a good cartridge for levers:
.350 Legend.
And I have wondered if the .30 Carbine would be feasible in a trapper length lever.

quote:

And I have wondered if the .30 Carbine would be feasible in a trapper length lever.

There is already something superior that doesn’t require engineering around the rimless case- the .357 magnum.

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:

quote:

And I have wondered if the .30 Carbine would be feasible in a trapper length lever.

There is already something superior that doesn’t require engineering around the rimless case- the .357 magnum.

Henry is also doing a 327 Federal Magnum. That’s virtually a twin of .30 carbine.