miroflex:
I have always been partial to lever action repeating rifles, perhaps due to their association with a romantic view of the Wild West and Wells Fargo shotgun guards swinging their Winchesters(mostly .44-40 or .44 WCF) forward when confronted with dangerous situations.
I see this history a little bit differently than you do. The world of the .44-40 was the world of the Winchester 1873. This old veteran served for many years and is probably the weapon that most qualifies as "The Gun That Won The West." However, in reality, it was the last gasp of an obsolescent mechanism which was to be eclipsed soon after its introduction, even though a larger version that fired larger and more powerful cartridges, the 1876 "Centennial" model was soon introduced, as well.
These guns certainly were achievers, but their actions hearkened back to a goofy looking repeating handgun called the "Volcanic," developed by none other than that team of Smith & Wesson back in the 1850s.
In contrast, the Winchester 1886 was a whole different sort of gun. The West was being tamed, by that time. And, Winchester was between a rock and a hard place. A competitor, Marlin, had brought out a lever action rifle that chambered the big Government .45-70 cartridge without a whimper, something which the last-gasp toggle link 1876 could not do. Around this time, a Winchester executive noticed a beautiful and mechanically perfect single shot rifle, made by a young unknown and unschooled man by the name of John Moses Browning. Winchester saw value in that gun and bought the rights to it. Then, Browning developed the gun you are looking at, the Model 1886. Unlike the 1876, it was not clunky and weak -- it was heroically strong. Unlike it's competitor Marlin, it was very smooth. Rather than just using a pragmatic mechanical approach like the Marlin, the 1886 exhibits those traits for which Browning designs have become so famous and so well-loved: The mechanical sophistication of the design, with its carefully considered angles and vectors, was and still is a joy simply to operate, even without shooting it! And, it was heroically strong! In short, it was as advanced as any repeating rifle on the planet when it came to strength, and it exceeded just about everything else in smoothness.
Nobody could look down the road and see that the bolt action was going to be the repeating rifle of the future. Browning, a devotee of certain mechanical principles (Like Henry Ford, with his devotion to the planetary gear set), loved planar designs -- designs that worked only in two, rather than three planes. (There's nothing that rotates on a Z axis in a Browning design: Everything works on the X or the Y axis.)
So that big Browning you are looking at is, to me, like a jewel or a rare piece of art. The way all of the parts work together so harmoniously, both in sound and in smoothness, locking the action like a vault, is a real thing of beauty. Sure, there are more practical guns around (you can't put a scope on it, for instance, and if you drill it and try to, don't tell me about it!), but I love guns that have a special something to them, myself. I like my guns to have a history, or a special design feature, or something that sets them apart from the run-of-the-mill mass produced products offered today.
A gun, to some people, is very much like a woman. Do you know the words to the song,
When a Man Loves a Woman, made famous by Percy Sledge? Part of that song goes like this:
When a man loves a woman
Can't keep his mind on nothing else
He'll trade the world
For the good thing he's found
If she's bad he can't see it
She can do no wrong
Turn his back on his best friend
If he put her down
When a man loves a woman
Spend his very last dime
Tryin' to hold on to what he needs
He'd give up all his comfort
Sleep out in the rain
If she said that's the way it ought to be
So, a gun can be just like what old Percy sang about his woman: If you love it, if it appeals to you, if it is speaking to you in some way, then it's something you will consider. Even if you know you will have a terrible time finding ammo for it, maybe it doesn't even matter -- you love it, and you have to have it, just like Percy's woman.
Yes, I've got guns like that. My Wife thinks I'm silly, because I'll often go to the gun safe when I'm watching TV and get out my Finn M39 and just hold it. I love the feel of that old, cold Russian steel and the warmth of the Arctic Birch stock. I like thinking about how sweetly it shoots, and how I look forward to pulling the trigger and feeling that old war horse roar and buck against my shoulder, and I like remembering the faces of people who were surprised with just how good it could shoot.
Now there's some people reading my post that are thinking that what I'm writing here is a bunch of rubbish. And to them, it really is rubbish. They see a gun as simply a tool to do a job. There's not a lot that is romantic about their view of a gun at all. If it gets the job done, that's the choice to make. If not, unload it and get something else.
So, my advice to you is to first figure out which of these two kinds of people you are: If you fall in love with a gun, and this 1886 speaks to you -- if you'll turn your back on your best friend, if he puts her down -- then you ought to consider it.
If, on the other hand, you just want a gun to do a certain job, then maybe you should pass and look at something else.