Building better mousetraps or at least a old school Daisy lever

What do you do when you want an old school Daisy lever that's not curved? Make one.
 
I have a preference for straight grip musket style stocks on the the Daisy's I rest-o-mod and they are not common on the Red Ryder platform in any vintage. Nor are they readily available on any of the internet parts sites.

Since all the cast aluminum levers I've come across are a pretty uniform 1/4" thick I decided to head over to the local big box and pick up some 1/4" x 2" steel. It's plenty strong enough to fabricate a BB gun lever.

I've also had misgivings about the traditional lever shape on the Daisy's because during a speed shooting event like 'Cut the Can' you never get back to a full grip as you're blasting BB's as fast as humanly possible to reduce that aluminum soda can to two chunks. The top of the lever gets in the way. I've also wondered what increasing the lever length might do for improving the reload cycle.
So I found out.

Pretty damn jazzy. The lack of a traditional loop gets my hand back into firing position after reloading and cocking the beast. The Martini style loop gets kicked out by my firing hand thumb and then palmed as I rock the muzzle to cock the beast and then on to the next shot. Nice and fluid.

And unique.

Next post is all about triggers. Well not all about them, just the ones I make on occasion.