One of the big drawbacks to tubular-magazine lever guns is that they were tied to the often 19th century round-nosed bullet designs they were introduced with as feeding the new-fangled “spitzer” pointed bullets could cause a ka-boom situation. A few years back, Hornady’s LEVERevolution (get it?) series fixed this with a soft plastic shock-absorbing Flex Tip (no jokes, please) bullet that allows velocity increases of up to 250 fps over traditional flat/round point loads while still proving safe in tubular magazines. While Hornady now offers these in like 15 calibers from .357 Magnum to .450 Marlin, they cost a primo price.
To give Hornady some competition, Federal in 2020 announced their similar concept, the Hammer Down line, but only offered the bullets in four calibers: .30-30 Win., .357 Magnum, .327 Federal, and .44 Rem. Magnum. Now, they have announced an expansion to include .45 (Long) Colt, .35 Remington, and .444 Marlin.
