<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Website </Td> </Tr> <P> The Rifleman is an American Western television program starring Chuck Connors as rancher Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son Mark McCain . It was set in the 1870s and 1880s in the fictional town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory . The show was filmed in black and white, in half - hour episodes . The Rifleman aired on ABC from September 30, 1958, to April 8, 1963, as a production of Four Star Television . It was one of the first prime time series on American television to show a widowed parent raising a child . </P> <P> The program was titled to reflect McCain's use of a Winchester rifle, customized to allow repeated firing by cycling its lever action . He demonstrated this technique in the opening credits of every episode, as well as a second modification that allowed him to cycle the action with one hand . </P> <P> The series centers on Lucas McCain, a Union Civil War veteran and widower . McCain had been a lieutenant in the 11th Indiana Infantry Regiment, and he had received a battlefield commission at the Battle of Five Forks just before the end of the war . Having previously been a homesteader, McCain buys a ranch outside the fictitious town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory, in the pilot episode . He and his son Mark had come from Enid, Oklahoma, following the death of his wife when his son was six years old . </P>

What kind of rifle did the rifleman carry