When I was a kid, I always loved lever action. I grew up and ended up with many firearms, as I’m an enthusiast. My first Winchester fed all the bullets at once into the receiver from the tube each time you dropped the lever. Each shot had to be loaded one at a time to fire it.
The second, a Marlin in .444 would not lift the next round into place. You could pull up on the lever, but it was locked. You had to unjam each shot with your finger.
The third, another Winchester, would fail to pull rounds out of the tube when the lever was dropped, about 60% of the time.
The final straw was an .44 Magnum Henry that never once successfully closed on a round, chanbering it. You had to guide each one into the chamber with your finger.
I don’t buy lever action anymore. I have never owned one that worked correctly, out of 4. 3 were new, the Henry was used, and all were garbage.
You’ve had some bad luck with lever guns, so I can understand your attitude about them. I two that I have work just fine.
The Savage 99C in .308 is a safe queen, with sentimental ties to my deceased father-in-law. He got it bequeathed when his best friend and fellow WA State Trooper, Frank Noble, was murdered on duty in 1972.
My Winchester 94 Trapper AE in .357 Magnum feeds both .357 and .38 in all nose profiles. The only thing is the Model 94 action, originally designed for rifle-length rounds, is not as smooth as the Model 92. Short stroking can happen if you don’t work the lever like you mean it. I tell my kids it’s one thing they can work like they want to break it.
I’ve seen several of these problems, a simple fix for a gunsmith. Rifles should not have left the factory like that.
Winchester cheapened their 1894 lever action rifles in 1964, giving them a bad reputation.
The first, there is a point of metal that is supposed to prevent a second cartridge from feeding. A few minutes with a gas welder will fix it.
Second was the hole the frame for the tube magazine was in was too small. Cases caught on the rim as they fed into the carrier. A few minutes with a round file fixed it.
Next problem was a Uberti Winchester 66. Someone had fired hot .38 cartridges in it causing the frame to stretch a few thousands of an inch. No fix for it.
Third was a Uberti 1873 Winchester in which the loading gate would not go in far enough to load a cartridge. Even the gunsmith gave up on it. I finally took it apart and found a few strokes on a grinder fixed it.
For the old reproductions of Winchesters, “Henry”, 1866, 1873, 1876, bullet length is very important. Too short and the cartridge will be jammed by the next cartridge in line. Too long and the cartridge will stick into the tube just enough the carrier will not lift it.
I always keep a small flat screwdriver handy to stick in the ejection port to either push the second cartridge back into the tube, or to try and press an overlong bullet back into the case enough to allow it to fit the carrier.
Another thing I noticed, in an original 1873 Winchester 38-40, they are very sloppy chambered causing the cases to blow forward and split at the bottleneck. I later figured this was done on purpose to prevent reloading the empty cases.
Another thing, on the reproduction Winchesters, maybe others, a semi-wadcutter bullet will often catch on the chamber mouth requiring you to work with it to get it in the chamber. Round nose bullets work better.