Mine was a Marlin 30/30 lever gun. Still have it today and use it in the heavy brush.

I was thirteen and we were driving to another spot when a spike Buck stepped out onto the road, I hit him in the heart and he headed for the deep ravine but got stuck between two trees and expired before he could launch into the great abyss he was aiming for. But my best story with that rifle was the year before, My Dad and I was working a patch of reprod that we had smelled a Buck in. The Sile brush was up to my chest and tough going. Well I slogged through this nosiy stuff for about an hour and made my way to the road, with no luck.I noticed my Dad was still in there, so I started looking around and noticed a Deer had walked through our tire tracks. So I followed the trail into another patch. I stopped a short while in an opening, stood there for a minute and started day dreaming about a spike walking into the opening, I wasn' t picky about my trophies back then I just wanted to notch my belt at the time. No sooner had I finished my day dream, a spike Buck walked into the opening! Well he was no farther than 20yards, so I put the brass bb on his shoulder and squeezed. I missed, so I commenced to unloading my lever gun at him then took off on the dead run after him. Well I never touched him and finally lost his trail so I made my way back to the truck to find my Dad fuming? He told me he was tired of pushing the deer to road hunters with Automatics. Well I tolod him that was me shooting and he said, well there' s no way I would hit anything with that huge Slile leaf hanging from my rear sight[:-] With all that Buck fever I could see both sights in my mind.