Reeder Custom Guns - talking about making a lever gun feed SWCs below

I have worked on them for well over 30 years trying to make them 100% reliable and I don't know if I ever got one perfect. They either will or they won't. I have had folks tell me their lever gun fed SWCs right from the factory. I am sure there are some but I have yet to run across one.

Way back in the mid 80s the Ruger semi auto 44 Mag was dropped by Ruger. I asked a friend who worked for Ruger why they dropped it as I thought it was a great gun, and still do. He said at that time everyone was reading Elmer Keith's articles with him promoting his 429421 bullet, a long nosed SWC. He said people were constantly sending their Ruger rifle back to Ruger complaining that it wouldn't feed and 9 times out of 10 they were trying to make it feed flat nosed lead bullets, something it simply wasn't designed to do. Mine would feed any jacketed soft point or JHP, but I never tried any SWC bullets.

So on the topic of lever guns feeding flat nosed semi wadcutters if at first your rifle doesn't feed them, go back to JHPs or JSPs, save yourself some headaches and be happy with your gun.

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than 99% of us and if you look at his pictures of his lever guns down below and the targets they shot, I think all but one were shooting JHPs or JSPs. There was one stainless 357 Rossi, I think, that he ran SWCs thru, but the rest were with jacketed bullets.

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Not a single SWC listed on JT's targets. Good feedback Gary; in my case, I didn't know if it was just the Rossi in particular but chose to use a cast RNHP in both my lever guns and the revolvers too. Problem solved.

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HAND AND WHICH LEVERGUNS THEY WOULD WORK IN. I JUST SPENT YESTERDAY WITH THREE .357 MAGNUM LEVERGUNS, MARLIN, ROSSI, AND HENRY AND SEMI-WADCUTTER (#358156GC) BULLETS. ALL WOULD FEED THE SEMI-WADCUTTERS HOWEVER THE MARLIN AND ROSSI WERE A REAL BEAR TO LOAD THROUGH THE LOADING GATE.

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