winchester rifle

Watching him put the weapons on, I started to feel a little bit naked. I didn’t have any of my usual gear, and I’d survived a bunch of nasty situations because I’d had it. I rubbed my hands against the thighs of my jeans, scowling, and tried not to think of how the only gear I had now consisted of a messenger bag and a talking skull.
Thomas noticed. “Oh. Hey, you need a piece, man?”
“They’re just so fashionable,” I said.
He slipped back aboard and came out with a freaking relic. He tossed it to me.
I caught it, frowning. It was a repeating rifle, a Winchester, complete with the large rounded hoop handle on the lever action. It was seriously heavy, with an octagonal barrel, walnut wood fixtures, and shining brass housing. Elkhorn sights. The gun had a certain comforting mass to it, and I felt like even if it ran out of ammunition, I would still be holding a seriously formidable club. Plus, whatever it was chambered in, a gun that heavy would hardly kick at all. It’d be more like handling a shotgun that pushed against your shoulder, rather than trying to jar it off.
“What am I?” I complained. “John Wayne?”
“You aren’t that cool,” Thomas said. “It’s quick, easy to instinct-shoot, and good to way out past the effective range of a handgun. Lever action, it’ll be reliable, keep working right through the apocalypse.”
Which was a point in its favor, the way my life had been lately. “Rounds?”
“Traditional, forty-five Colt,” he said. “Knock a big man down in one hit and keep him there. Catch.”
He tossed me an ammo belt heavy with metallic shells that were nearly as big around as my thumb. I slung the belt across my chest, made sure the chamber was empty, but with a shell ready to be levered into it, and balanced the heavy gun up on one shoulder, keeping one hand on the stock.
Molly sighed. “Boys.”


Cold Days Chapter 15, Page 143-144