I've talked about how the National Firearms Action of 1934 effectively destroyed the market in the US for what is being called the trapper rifle. Prior to the NFA, Winchester and Marlin with other lever action rifle manufacturers offered versions of their rifles and some shotguns with barrel lengths that are well under the original minimum length of 18 inches found in the NFA. The guns were never banned but what did happen is that a tax was required for ownership of such rifles and shotguns. That tax was a flat $200. If you aren't aware, the Progressive inflation of the US dollar now has that value of 1934 money at $4,773 in today's dollar per a specific calculator you can find on the internet. Simply put, $200 back in 1934 was way more valuable than it is today. Thankfully, the tax hasn't changed.
Today, many lever action platforms cost around $1000 which would be around $40 in 1933 money. I chose 1933 specifically because I want you to put yourself in the idea that you just bought a brand new Winchester 1892 in 32-20 Winchester with a 14 inch barrel in the Spring of 1933 to small game hunt as you cruise the woods. Then in 1934, you are being told that you have to pay a tax that is 5 times more expensive than your rifle is worth new because the barrel is 4 inches too short. What would you do?
Pretty stupid if you ask me but I think the objective was to make the cost so prohibitive, that normal everyday folks couldn't pay the tax. Congress claimed it was about fighting organized crime. Numerous people just put these rifles away and didn't say anything and occasionally, one shows up.
Today, the minimum barrel length is 16 inches for rifles. I haven't found when that change happened as the original length was 18 inches. As a result, most rifles have a 16 inch barrel option and that includes most lever action platforms available on the market. This includes the Winchester model 92, Marlin's 1894 and newer stuff like the 336 and all the rifles based off of that design such as the Henry's and the Smith and Wesson 1854.
Marlin and Rossi both refer to their 16 inch rifles as Trappers but as far as I can work out, original Winchester and Marlin short rifles didn't have 16 inches. I have only ever seen 14 and 15 inch models. Some would say that it's close enough.
A more interesting option that's been available for a long while are the lever action pistols. Usually called a Mare's Leg after the Winchester carried by Steve McQueen in the TV show Wanted Dead or Alive, NFA Title 1 pistols have various barrel lengths close to the original short rifles.
A few options such as Henry and Rossi have been available but as people are becoming less afraid of the bureaucratic non-sense that is the NFA paperwork, people have taken to making their own lever action rifles with nice, short barrels. A few companies have even offered conversion services. The process of making your own Short Barrel Rifle involves filing a Form 1 with the ATF then paying the $200 tax. There's a little more that needs to happen but once approved, the conversion process of either converting a pistol or 16+ inch barrel to whatever length can begin.
Now that we've laid out a primer on the topic, at NRAAM 2025, I got to see first hand Rossi's new Triple Black Pistol. These are a 13.25 inch lever action pistol based on their newer R95 which is based, I think, off of the 336. As far as I am concerned, the Henrys, Rossi R95 and S&W are based off of the 336. That's just fine with me as the 336 is a great platform. What makes these interesting is the caliber options of their typical revolver chamberings of .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum and .454 Casull but they are also offering this in .45-70. I wasn't aware of any Mare's Leg type guns in .45-70 so we will see if that's worth anything in terms of performance. With the Rossi, you are getting a picatinny rail section with the gun for optics. There are no provisions for open sights but they are tricked out with an all black finish and a threaded barrel.
Henry's offering is a new pistol based on their X series and will be starting off with both .30-30 and .45-70. They call it the Bear's Leg. I like the pun. These will come with a 12.9 or 13 inch barrel based on statements made at NRAAM. To some degree, I like these a little more as they come with iron sights. They also feature a threaded barrel but have the X series plastic furniture with an MLOK slot on the handguard. The iron sights is a very attractive feature though they have the fiber optic version instead of a more traditional sight. That's fine as those can be replaced as you might want.
If you've read my stuff before, you've probably run into my interest in having an SBR lever action with a silencer. These new pistols offer a person like myself new options for this but you are probably wondering are the rifle cartridges actually worth anything in the short barrels? I know the pistol calibers make for great candidates and I think .30-30 can do good work but could .45-70 make the cut with sub-16 inch barrels?
To be fair, since I don't have anything in .45-70, I currently can't answer that from a personal standpoint but seeing that .454 Casull has a case capacity less than .45-70 and that +P versions of .45 Colt are functional for hunting applications, I think .45-70 can be made to work just fine. Personally, I didn't want to get into .45-70 for cost reasons. The old .45-70 is just expensive and resource intensive. Lots of powder and heavy bullets. It's pretty much a reloader's cartridge if you want to shoot a bunch. I knew that if I did acquire something, then I really should learn how to make my own black powder. I did however, just recently learn about gallery loads for the .45-70. Basically, by putting a round lead ball way down inside a .45-70 case over top a very tiny charge of powder, you have a very soft shooting and relatively inexpensive option. The video I saw from Everything Black Powder used actual black powder and both round and conical .454 bullets but I wonder if I can get away with other options. Do these gallery loads work with black powder substitutes like 777 or Pyrodex? They used a Trapdoor type rifle but I think we can make this work in a lever action.
For a while now, I have been working an article going over the efficacy of 16 and sub-16 inch barrels in the older calibers like these guns are found in. Again, the topic of the revolver cartridges isn't really in the discussion because you effectively only need around a 10 inch barrel to make .357 Magnum and .44 Magnum reach out to the 100 yard mark. 100 yards being around the typical hunting distance. I've gone over the revolver cartridge topic a bunch. But what about .30-30?
The generic answer is yes it works from shorter barrels. We can see this with the old Thompson Center single shot pistols such as the Super 14. Those Contender options included .30-30 but there are .45-70 Contenders out there. While you wouldn't be taking nearly full advantage of the cartridge's potential with a 13 inch barrel, the velocities achieved is still sufficient for regular folk's needs. For example, in testing done by American Handgunner using the 14 inch T/C Contender, the 160 grain LeverEvolution .30-30 load still achieved a velocity of 2100 fps. At 150 yards, that velocity drops to 1761 fps or so. That should be plenty for expansion and penetration in whitetail. You aren't going to lose that much by dropping to the 13 inch barrels. As it were, that is still faster than what a .357 Magnum 158 grain bullet is doing from even a 16 inch barrel and they do just fine. Ultimately, the performance aspect is something that the end user will need to understand to make these shorter barrels work for them. Know your ammunition.
In thinking through how I would build out one of these pistols into an SBR and it occurs to me that Henry and Rossi missed an opportunity. Both of these use nearly 13 inch barrels. Had they gone with the traditional length of 14 to 15 inch like Winchester had back in the day, we could have gone the pin-and-weld route. Simply put, a person could have screwed on an appropriately sized muzzle device and had a gunsmith permanently attach that muzzle device. Once completed, the firearm now has a 16 inch barrel. This allows you attach a stock without need for the $200 tax stamp while having a rifle that can host a silencer and still be shorter than the current trapper rifles on the market. Just an idea.
The Bottom Line Up Front is that these lever action pistols should not be discounted on performance. They might seem like novelties or range toys but they will still deliver a useful payload in typical hunting distances and will function for large game defense as needed. If you convert your lever action pistol into a Title 2 NFA weapon, it is not going to turn you into a bank robber, moonshiner and racketeering criminal like proponents of the NFA 1934 say. They have legitimate and viable uses in the average Joe's hands.
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