It's been my experience that lever action rifles work best with round nose, flat point bullets. Lever guns are not only bullet shape sensitive but overall length sensitive as well. Neither of my .44 Magnum Marlin 1894's will cycle .44 Special length cartridges at all. My Browning 100th Anniversary 1892 will cycle either, if the rounds have RNFP slugs. My Marlin 1894 Cowboy in .45 Colt will cycle and feed anything that has a RNFP profile and is anywhere from 1.50 to 1.60 in length. I've only shot 1.60 OAL rounds through my Pedersoli '73 in .44-40. Oh, and I almost forgot. It ain't real without photos.
My main match guns. Marlin 1894 .44 Magnum, Lyman tang sight; Browning Centennial 1892 .44 Magnum.
Marlin 1894 .44 Magnum with receiver sight, kept sighted for full house .44 Mag loads; Winchester 1894 .30-30, my Uncle Bill bought it new in '53, gave it to me just before he died; the Browning Centennial 1892 .44 Magnum again.
Another shot of the Marlin 1894 .44 Magnum with receiver sight, and another of the Winchester 1894 .30-30. A joker loaded some .30-30 rounds for my Uncle but didn't fully re-sized the cases. Uncle Bill put a round into a 350 lb. California Black Bear that did not put the critter down, and the rifle jammed when he tried cycling the second round into the chamber. The bear got all over my Uncle, who survived by playing dead; the bear lost interest and wandered off to die about 100 yards away. Loggers found my Uncle, and let's just say, it wasn't pretty. I have three of the rounds the bozo loaded; they checked out as being over length and neck sized only.
Pedersoli 1873 Winchester in .44-40 with 30" barrel and tang sight, 15 round magazine capacity; Marlin 1894 Cowboy in .45 Colt with tang sight; the Winchester 1894 .30-30 with it's Lyman receiver sight from the other side.
Sorry, but I haven't run the vacuum in the shop recently.