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1873 Rifle lever safety......Why?


Waco Jim

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Not sure if everyone's experience with the 73 lever safety is the same as mine but I'm assuming similar. I didn't like how I had to squeeze the lever up in order to fire the gun so I installed one of the lighter safety springs. That way it still had and needed the safety to fire but just the lever being closed with its own spring tension was enough to overcome the safety spring so I didn't have to squeeze it.

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A number of years ago my then-teenaged son had a serious injury to a hand due to an Out-of-Battery detonation with a '66 a good fifteen feet from him. A piece of brass passed completely though his thumb, and despite immediate and continued medical attention he nearly lost it due to the extent of damage and a subsequent infection. Still has nerve damage. (It was actually his own rifle, being worked on by someone at the unloading table.)

 

The rifle does have the cutout for a '73 style trigger... I wish we could find the parts!

 

The case:

 

OOBDexplcase1.jpg

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.... Out-of-Battery detonation.....

Believe it was just a combustion, a firing, a discharge. Calling it a detonation does not match up with smokeless powder combustion that normally occurs in an OOB firing.

 

The rifle does have the cutout for a '73 style trigger... I wish we could find the parts!

 

Believe VTI could help you with that! From the 66 that I used to maintain, I thought the lever safety bar and spring looked the same as 73 parts.

 

Not sure if everyone's experience with the 73 lever safety is the same as mine but I'm assuming similar.

 

Ummm, yep, everyone does find the factory spring on the lever safety to be "overkill" strong. That's why several vendors sell the torsion spring to replace the flat.

 

Good luck, GJ

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I have an Uberti made Henry, 66, and a real Winchester

 

The two Uberti rifles are in .44-40 and the Winchester is a .32-20. All three guns have a lever safety.

 

The Winchester was the first of the trio I got, the action is as it came from the factory, and I have never noticed the lever safety, I just know it's there and that it works.

 

The Henry was the second gun, same description.

 

The 66, well... When I got it, the lever safety had been removed, and it had had what I can only describe as a hack action job. The hammer fell noticeably slower than the Henry, and would often not hit the primers hard enough to make them go "bang." This was not acceptable to me, so I gave the gun to Happy Trails and asked him if he could get it back to something close to "factory specs." He did so, and it has worked flawlessly ever since. Again, I don't notice the lever safety at all, I just know it works.

 

I just don't understand what the point of removing the things is. They serve a function, and don't interfere with the operation of the rifle.

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