SCATTERGUN ALLEY
The new Henry Side Gate Lever-Action .410 can trace its history back to the 1880s and the famed repeater from Winchester, which asked gunmaker John Moses Browning to engineer a lever-action shotgun version.
YOU MIGHT WANT TO GET THE GATE Henry’s new Side Gate Lever-Action .410 is ‘no novelty,’ says our shotgun expert. Rather, a ‘very serviceable gun for hunting, self-defense, and dealing with home and garden pests.’ STORY AND PHOTOS BY LARRY CASE
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’m not sure any firearm is more fun to shoot than a lever-action. Describing why they are is hard, but it’s still true. If you grew up watching any westerns (The Rifleman), you can’t help yourself: When you start pulling the trigger and working the lever, you are transported to a box canyon mixing it up with the bad guys.
Henry Repeating Arms has been making lever-action rifles since 1860, when their founder Benjamin Henry started the dynasty. These days, Henry (henryusa.com) makes a wide array of lever-action rifles, but they haven’t exactly been known for lever-action shotguns – until now. LEVER GUN HISTORY The whole lever-action shotgun thing started back in 1885. The story goes that Winchester encouraged the
esteemed gun inventor John Moses Browning to come up with a repeater shotgun with a lever action. Shotgun history lore tells us that Browning didn’t want to go the lever-action route, but instead wanted to design a pump gun. Winchester, we are told, held fast to the lever-action design, as that was what they were famous for in their classic lever rifles. Browning obeyed and the Winchester 1887 lever-action shotgun was born. Prior to the Winchester 1887, americanshootingjournal.com 87
