I have always loved leveraction rifles and especially the Winchesters. I guess its all those cowboy movies one looked at as a little kid that have influenced me. The problem for me was that I was living in Scandinavia and not in the US so leveraction rifles are very rare and seldom used for hunting. The reason for this are mainly two, they are imported from the US and by this very expensive but the largest drawback is that they are chambered in very odd calibres.
I mean a calibre as the 7.62 x 51 (30-30 Win) cant be found in most gunshops and if one finds a dealer that can bring home a box for you it will be very expensive.
Anyway..
I still wanted a Winchester 94 but they they are hard to find here since not many of them are sold as new but the good side of this is that when a dealer has a rifle like this on the shelf it will be very inexpensive because its very hard to find a buyer for such a odd looking and working rifle.
In 2006 I got a little money over and I was about to make the dream of a Winchester come trough but then they had just stopped making them. At last I was prepared to buy this $1000 rifle and then - suddenly its not available any more.
So I had to start a quest to find a used one somewere. After months of search and dialing dealers all across the country I found one..
It was a used rifle of the model "Trails End" in very good condition, a little worn but not used much, as in not shot much - I was soon about to realize why..
The rifle was mine for just $250 (a quarter of the new rifle MSRP here in Sweden) but the dealer had no ammo for it to sell...
I was about to discover that it was chambered in a even more unusual calibre then 30-30, it was a 44 Magnum...
The 44 Mag is, as you know, a handgun round and handguns are VERY uncommon here. To own a handgun is very difficult and expensive so the market for those firearms and calibres are very limited indeed. Another day of making calls around the country was up. Finally I found a dealer about 63 miles away that had a box sitting on the shelf for years. The guy that ordered them forgot to renew his license for the revolver he owned and therefor lost it, with no future need for the round on order.
It was a 50 round box of Magtech for just $60 - a bargin.
At last I could actually use my rifle and began trying it out at our local range when getting a lot of attention from fellow shooters curious of this funny looking rifle. I was then on known as "that dude with the cowboy rifle". Most of the guys at the range had never seen a lever action rifle in real life. They deemed it antique since it had no provision for mounting a scope. Among the more common rifles such as Blaser R93, Sauer 202 and Tikka T3s with their plastic outfits it sure looked like an oldtimer from the 19:th century.
It was however quite accurate using only factory open sights and the 44 Mag had a lot of poke for being such a short round, most other guys here use the 6 x 55, 30-06 or 9.3 x 62 that are way longer but they were anyway very impressed by the sheer torque of the 44 Mag. The only thing I didn't like was the loud report of it. Over here almost everybody uses sound moderators on their rifles to lessen the bang but this was not possible for my rifle so I was very happy when I learned that there is a more quiet version of the 44 Magnum around, known as 44 Special.
The downside of this discovery was that most dealers had not heard about this round and far less of them had actually seen one of those in real life. After calling around yet again (getting used to this now) nobody have them in stock so now I realize I have to handload them instead.
Now I wont bore you with more chat about this, what I wanted to say (that became a long rant) is that I'm very happy about this fine rifle - a Win 94 AE Trails End made in the year 2000 and I have also added a XS Ghostsight ordered all the way from the US.
I really look forward to start handloading some rounds to try out a combination of ammunition that will give my rifle optimal performance. One 44 Mag load for hunting and one 44 Special load for plinking will be good enough for me.
When I have got everything working as it should and when I feel confidant in this rifle I will try to use it for hunting too.
Sorry to say my Government view handgun cartridges as inferior for use as hunting rounds and the 44 Mag is limited to animals of the maximum size of 35 kg (60 lbs), making Roe Deer the largest game I can harvest with it. Larger animals as elk, moose or wild hogs are off the limit for what the Government views as just a tiny handgun cartridge. BTW the 357 Mag is seen as equally powerful and the 6.5 x 55 is legal for everything including brown bear and moose.
I have a good respect for the 6.5 x 55 but I bet that the 44 Mag with hard cast 300 gn Keith style bullet travelling in 1500 fps would make the job done even with the largest moose in those close quarters (up to 100 yards) that most mooses are hunted.
Thanks for reading and happy safe shooting out there...
