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The Case For The Lever Action Carbine, Or , Who Really Wants A Shotgun....

    I no longer run a shotgun for home defense for a few reasons: recoil slows down follow up shots, its versatility is oversold, the ammunition is bulky and can be compromised by moisture. I’ve been around guns and in the gun industry for a good portion of my working life, from retail, training and in my last capacity working for a commercial reloader. What I have seen in the past twenty years has been a trend to take a basic hunting weapon adapted for home defense and police work and turn it into a crew served weapon. What started off as a simple five shot pump repeater; light, handy and sufficient for most likely home defense scenarios has morphed into extended magazines, lights, rifle sights, sidesaddle ammo carriers, etc.
    For most home/shop owners the likelihood of expending the five shells already on board the shotgun are going to be few. I don’t have anything against extended magazines or detachable magazines. I sat out the last Los Angeles riots with nothing more than a Mossberg 590 with an eight shot magazine, it was a beast when fully loaded and the sidesaddle topped off. With the factory Speedfeed stock, I was one round shy of twenty. This may seem like a lot of lead coming out, problem is tube feed shotguns are easy to empty and slow to load and if you are doing the proper shoot one, load one drill; you are constantly reloading. No, the answer in hindsight was either more friends with guns or at the very least an SKS rifle with a bunch of stripper clips or even better an AR-15.
    More problematic is the tendency to turn the shotgun into something it is not, a short range replacement for a proper rifle. This explains the trend to put rifle sights, ghost rings or even a red dot sight on a smooth bore gun. It is part of any defensive shotgun class anymore to incorporate select slug drills where the shooter has to make the transition from shooting short range buckshot to a single projectile, a slug, either to defeat cover or to extend the shotguns range to possibly 100 yards, realistically 75 yards.
    Recoil with the shotgun is a very real issue and even with training is something that causes even hardened shooters to flinch. Now you are seeing a small trend to put forth the 20 gauge instead of the 12 gauge and while this somewhat addresses the issues of recoil and speed of repeat shots; you now lose payload and range. 20 gauge buckshot and slug selections are also not as diverse or affordable.
    It’s also popular to tout the shotgun as the only gun to grab in a SHTF scenario, whatever that is. If things have really gone so bad that it’s every man for himself and you are living in daily fear of being hurt, robbed, killed, raped, murdered; there is very little that one man armed with a low capacity, manually operated weapon that has bulky ammo and big recoil is going to be able to do except hold off the inevitable. The shotgun’s versatility is held forth as the one gun that can do it all or at least most everything from hunting to defending the homestead.
    Some four years back, I was given a Marlin lever action in .357 Magnum. I already owned a revolver in the same caliber and the thought of having not having to add to the calibers I already had was appealing. I had just gotten married and sold off some excess inventory and was generally in the process of simplifying my life as well as the logistics when it came firearms. Doing a little research revealed that .357 Magnum, already a versatile cartridge in a handgun was given a velocity boost from the longer barrel of the carbine sufficient that anything within 50 yards of the muzzle was usually hit if I did my part. With some loads clocking 1500–1700 fps, penetration was on par with any shotgun slug with far less recoil. I can carry 200 rounds very easily for a day’s shooting, something that isn’t nearly as easy with eight boxes of shotgun shells.
    The rifle itself is compact, light and handy. With nine rounds onboard it has nearly twice the ammunition capacity of most five shot home defense or hunting shotguns. The rifle carries ammunition in a tube magazine attached to the gun, same as the shotgun, but with lighter ammunition, with less recoil, and more range. Over penetration is a concern, but that would be the same with a shotgun with a load of buckshot.
    With the .357 Magnum we are dealing with a metallic cartridge that is usually pretty well sealed from moisture, a concern for long term storage. The ability to reload the cartridge and be thrifty with the powder, bullets and primers is of added benefit for someone looking to shoot on the cheap. The cartridge itself can be reloaded to varying power levels from mild to hot, capable of hunting small game, larger game like deer, cheap shooting practice and home defense.
Small, light, handy; what's not to like...

The Skinner rear sight and Marbles front sight in profile.

Shorter, lighter and holds twice as much ammo...

Sight picture of the Skinner rear sights.

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