It was a black day indeed for rifle weenies when three years ago U.S. Repeating Arms Co. announced it was closing the doors of its New Haven factory for good. That meant two icons of the American firearms industry, the Model 70 Winchester bolt action and Model 94 lever action, would become history.

We know now that the Model 70 is back in production, but from what I'm hearing there are no definite plans to reintroduce the Model 94, which is without question one of the most storied, cinematic firearms of all time. Whether the assumed demise of the 94 had anything to do with Mossberg's decision to begin development of a similar lever-action carbine is anyone's guess, but Mossberg did indeed recently introduce a brand new lever-action rifle.

It's designated as the Model 464, and I was fortunate enough to have gotten the opportunity to examine and hunt with a pre-production example of this traditional lever action in New Mexico last September. I have since received a production version of the gun, and it differs not a whit from the one I hunted with.

The 464 is chambered for one cartridge and one cartridge only: the epochal .30-30 WCF, the round which of course ushered in the smokeless powder era. And when I describe the 464 as traditional, I mean that it is characterized by a thin, slab-sided receiver with exposed hammer; an under-barrel tubular magazine that's fed from the rear through a spring-loaded gate; a two-piece stock; and an underlever with a forward extension that moves the bolt directly without benefit of intervening linkage or a rack and pinion. The genre is typified not only by the Winchester 94 but the Marlin 336 series as well.

In contrast to the traditional lever action is what I'd describe as the "modern" lever gun, of which there have not been many. The genre started with the Winchester Model 95 and Savage 99, followed about a half-century later by the Winchester Model 88 and the Sako Finnwolf--all four of which are out of production--and the current Browning BLR.

SPECIFICATIONS: Mossberg Model 464
Manufacturer	O.F. Mossberg & Sons, www.mossberg.com, 203-230-5300
Action Type:	lever-action centerfire
Caliber:	.30-30 Win.
Magazine:	6-round tubular
Barrel	20-in. button rifled with recessed crown
Overall Length	381⁄2 in.
Weight	6.7 lb.
Stock	walnut with red rubber buttpad; 137⁄8 in. length of pull
Finish	blued
Sights	folding rear, bead front; receiver drilled and tapped for scope
Safeties	grip and sliding top tang
Price	$473

At first glance the 464 looks so much like the legendary Winchester version that most folks would assume it is. On closer examination, however, it becomes obvious that it is not.

For one thing, the bolt is cylindrical like on the Marlin 336, and it reciprocates in a hole bored in the rear of the solid frame receiver forming what is essentially a bridge like on a bolt action rifle.

In fact, looking at the 464 from above, it resembles a bolt action because it's an open-top receiver with a right sidewall lower than the left for side ejection, and the nose of the bolt slides into the receiver ring, just like on bolt guns.

The receiver ring and bridge are of the same height and contour and have the same scope base screw spacing. That makes the scope mount bases for both front and rear the same, in this case Weaver 403A, which is the front base for the Winchester Model 94 Big Bore.