Lever action rifles were used in the First World War. Although a variety of Winchester lever actions were primarily used in secondary roles by several Entente powers, the Russians did end up using Winchester 1895 rifles as a substitute for Mosin Nagants for some infantry units. When war broke out, Russia was faced with a massive shortage of rifles, and thus it looked abroad to procure more weapons as a stopgap. While Remmington and Westinghouse had secured contracts for American production of Mosin Nagants, the Russians were desperate enough to order 100,000 Winchester 1895 rifles chambered in the Russian 7.62x54r cartridge and capable of feeding with Mosin Nagant stripper clips. Large numbers of these rifles were supplied to Baltic units from Finland, Latvia, and Estonia, but unfortunately there's not really any documentation out there on the details of their service other than period photographs and extant examples showing the rifles to be heavily used.

​

In general, though, available lever-action rifles at the start of WW1 had several shortcomings. Prior to the development of the Winchester 1895, every lever-action rifle was fed by a tube magazine, and the majority were chambered in cartridges that were a middle ground between the high-powered rifle cartridges of military rifles and the lower-powered pistol rounds. Tube magazines were a liability for a variety of reasons, although some of these didn't become obvious until the proliferation of stripper and en-bloc clips for loading more traditional box magazines. In general, tube magazines provided issues with balance and accuracy, as the weight on the barrel is changing every time a cartridge is used, impacting both the practical and mechanical accuracy of the gun. Many nations were also reluctant to adopt tube magazines, as there were (often legitimate) fears of bullets resting on primers and setting off the entire magazine in the rifle. Once stripper clips and en-blocs came into common use, there was then the problem of fast loading - a tube magazine can only be single-loaded, while clip-fed magazines can fill the magazine almost as fast as loading a single round. All these issues relating to tube magazines are the reason why they only saw a brief period of popularity and only really saw significant use in "modern" rifles in the form of the very much rushed Mle 1886 Lebel.

​

The lighter round of (most) lever-actions was also a liability, as it prevented the guns from being effective as far as armies wanted them to be. Generally, rifle sights of the time went out to 1,500 to 2,000 meters (or even beyond, as with the 2,600 yard volley sights on the Lee Enfield). While this kind of shooting obviously wasn't incredibly practical for the standard rifleman, long-distance area shooting was a common practice with heavy machineguns in WW1, and having common ammunition between rifles and machineguns was important for logistics. Lever-action rounds of popular rifles like the Winchester 1894 and 1892 were lower-powered cartridges like 30-30 and 44-40, which weren't capable of effectively reaching out several hundred yards like more powerful rifle rounds could.

​

The Winchester 1895 solved most of these concerns. It was the first lever-action rifle with a vertical box magazine, and, as the Russian models show, it was capable of using stripper clips and a bayonet if so modified. While earlier Winchester lever action rifles were too weak to withstand standard rifle cartridges of the day, the 1895 was also strong enough to chamber standard military rifle rounds, eliminating another major complaint. However, the 1895's history shows us some shortcomings of lever actions compared to bolt action rifles.

​

The New York National Guard evaluated the Winchester 1895 as a replacement for is Remington Rolling Block rifles in 1896 alongside several other competitors, including a bolt-action rifle from Savage. Although the Winchester 1895 performed very well and was highly regarded, the Savage was selected in part because it had fewer parts and a simpler action. And there was the shortfall of lever-action designs in general and particularly for the 1895. The 1895 had a more complicated lever system than previous designs that left the underside of the action very open as the lever was worked, making it liable to ingest debris while firing. The complicated action also contributed to higher costs per rifle - Winchester 1895s were sold to Russia at a unit price of $27.15 per rifle set, while Remington's initial Mosin contract had it at $22.50 per set and $26.75 per set for Westinghouse. One thing to note, however, is that Remington's unit price rose to $30 per set and Westinghouse rose to $32.75, and it's not clear from the source I'm using what that price increase resulted from.

​

Source:

Allied Rifle Contracts in America by Luke Mercaldo