Winchester rifle

The Winchester rifle was any one of an early family of repeating rifles manufactured by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company that was used widely in the United States during the latter half of the 19th century.

Characteristics

The original Winchester rifle was famous for its rugged construction and lever-action breech mechanism that allowed the rifleman to fire a number of shots before having to reload: hence the term, "repeating rifle". See List of rifle cartridges for descriptions of various cartridges.

The first model, the Model 1866, was nicknamed Yellow Boy because of its brass receiver. The Model 1873 was Winchester's next design. The Model 73 was much more popular than the 66 because of the steel frame which allowed it to take the newly designed and more potent center-fire .44 WCF (.44-40) cartridge. The 1873 is often referred to as The Gun That Won The West.

The 1866 was only available in Henry's .44 rimfire cartridge at first, and the more modern centerfire cartridges were added to the production line later. The Model 73 was available .44 WCF, .38 WCF (.38-40), and .32 WCF (.32-20) calibers, most of which were also available in Colt, Remington and other revolvers. WCF simply denotes "Winchester Center Fire", to distinguish a cartridge from the earlier rimfire cartridge. Having a common center fire cartridge used in both revolvers and rifles allowed the owner to carry two firearms, both using the same ammunition. It is worth noting that the original Model 73 was never offered in the military standard .45 Colt cartridge; only modern reproductions are offered in that caliber.

Winchester continued to dominate the American rifle market with the introduction of the Model 1876, 1886, Model 1892 and Model 1894. The '76 was a heavier frame rifle than the '66 or '73 and was the first to be chambered for full powered centerfire rifle cartridges, as opposed to rimfire cartridges or handgun size centerfire rounds. It was introduced to celebrate the American Centennial and earned a reputation as a durable and powerful hunting rifle. The Canadian Mounties also used the '76 as a standard long arm for many years. The Model 1886 continued the trend towards chambering heavier rounds, and was even stronger than the '76. In many respects the '86 was a true American express rifle. Theodore Roosevelt used the rifle during his first hunting expeditions in the west and praised it. The '86 could be chambered in the most powerful black powder cartridges of the day, including the massive .45-70.

Winchester returned to its roots with the Model 1892, which like the first leverguns it made was primarily chambered for lower-pressure, smaller handgun rounds. The Model '92, however, incorporates a much stronger action than the leverguns of the 1860's and 1870's. Millions of '92's have been made, and although Winchester phased them out several decades ago, they are still being made under the Puma label by an Italian arms maker. In its modern form, the '92's action is strong enough to chamber ultra-high pressure handgun rounds such as the .454 Casull.

The 1892 was designed as a replacement for the 1873 by a young man named John Moses Browning. Browning went on to dominate the Winchester design team during the revolutionary 1890's and early 1900's, when smokeless powder forced all arms makers to go back to the drawing boards and rethink every aspect of their firearms. Thanks to Browning's genuis, Winchester was able to stay on top of the market during this explosive period. The company was the first to develop a rifle and cartridge for the new powder, the Winchester 1894. Though delays prevented the .30-30 or .30 WCF round from the shelves until 1895, it remained the first commercially available smokeless powder round for the North American consumer market. Though initially it was too expensive for most shooters to afford, the '94 ultimately became Winchester's most popular rifle of all time, selling many millions all across North America.

While earlier rifles and shotguns actually "won the West," the majority of lever action rifles seen in classic Hollywood Westerns are Winchester '92's and '94's. Including the '92 carbine John Wayne famously carried (chambered in .32-40) around with him through dozens of films set in periods from the 1830's to the 1880's.

Winchester rifles remained the most popular in the US through WWI and the interwar period. However, European advances in the development of bolt action rifles threw a long shadow. These new rifles could chamber spitzer bullets which no lever action with a tube magazine ever could. They could also cope with more pressure, and consequently they could chamber more potent rounds that would shoot flatter than a traditional lever action rifle. On top of this, bolt actions as developed by Mauser and other European concerns had front locking lugs which stabilized the cartridge head very well and allowed for phenomenal accuracy.

In response to the increasing competition from these bolt action rifles, Winchester introduced the Winchester Model 70 in 1936. This was not Winchester's first bolt action rifle, but it was by far their most successful. It was based on a modified Mauser '98 design, but with modifications and popular North American chamberings which made it more appealing to American hunters than European imports or sporterized military rifles.

Winchester saw a management change in the early 1960's which led to a very extensive and extremely controversial redesign of their firearms in 1964. This is regarded by many as the year the "real" Winchester ceased to be, and consequently "pre '64" rifles command higher prices than those made afterwards. Winchester itself went on to have a troubled future as competition from US and abroad began to decrease its sales. In the 1970's the company was split into parts and sold off. The name "Winchester" remained with the ammunition making side of the company, and this branch at least continues to be profitable. The arms making side and New Haven facilities went to U.S. Repeating Arms, which struggled to keep the company going under a variety of owners and management teams. It finally announced plans to close the New Haven facility in 2006.

Marlin Firearms, also of New Haven, labored for a century as an underdog levergun maker to Winchester's number one. However, in the 1980's and 1990's the current incarnation of Marlin finally began to outpace its old rival. It is currently the dominant seller of lever action rifles in North America. Its use of side ejection allows for flat topped firearms, thereby making the mounting of scopes far easier than in traditional Winchesters. This helped Marlin capture more market share as American shooters came to rely more and more on optics. Marlins are also larger and stronger than most of the Winchester line, allowing them to take advantage of revolutionary new magnum-level versions of such cartridges as the .45-70.

Predecessors

The idea of a repeating rifle had been the subject of many inventions since the use of firearms began, but few of these had proven to be practical, mainly because the modern cartridge, which made repeating arms practical, had not yet been developed.

Repeating revolvers were popular in the mid 19th century. One of these revolving pistols, the Colt, was very successful, and a rifle version was produced, but it was not widely popular. The more successful Spencer rifles and carbines of the American Civil War were a notable step forward, but were not completely satisfactory in various respects.

The ancestor of the Winchester rifles was the Volcanic rifle of Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson. It was originally manufactured by the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company, which was later reorganized into the New Haven Arms Company, its largest stockholder being Oliver Winchester.

The Volcanic rifle used a form of "caseless" ammunition and had only limited success. Wesson had also designed an early form of rimfire cartridge which was subsequently perfected by Benjamin Tyler Henry. Henry also supervised the redesign of the rifle to use the new ammunition, retaining only the general form of the breech mechanism and the tubular magazine. This became the Henry rifle of 1860, which was manufactured by the New Haven Arms Company and was used in considerable numbers by certain Union Army units in the Civil War.

Development

After the war Oliver Winchester continued to exercise control of the company, renaming it the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, and had the basic design of the Henry rifle completely modified and improved to become the first Winchester rifle, the Model 1866, which fired centerfire cartridges and had an improved magazine and, for the first time, a wooden forearm.

From 1883, John Browning worked in partnership with the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, and designed a series of repeating rifles and shotguns, most notably the Winchester Model 1887 and Model 1897 shotguns and the lever-action Model 1886, Model 1892, Model 1894 and Model 1895 rifles, all of which are still in production today.

Plant closure

As of May 26, 2006 the web site of the U.S. Repeating Arms Co. says, "Our other factories will continue production uninterrupted. ... Our special historic guns -- 1885s, 95s, as well as other limited series rifles -- continue to be made at our factory in Japan. These factories are unaffected by the New Haven closure and we continue forward with our production and future plans."U.S. Repeating Arms FAQ

A January 18 2006 article in the Washington Post incorrectly reported that the manufacture of Winchester lever-action rifles will be discontinued due to the closure of the U.S. Repeating Arms factory in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.A.^[1]^[2] The initial press release from the U.S. Repeating Arms Co. was misleanding for it said, "Effective March 31, 2006 the New Haven manufacturing facility will stop manufacturing the Winchester Model 70, Model 94 and Model 1300." However the company will still make these models in its factory in Japan.

Trivia

A sawed-off 1892 Winchester Rifle is Zoe's (Firefly) weapon of choice. Creator, Joss Whedon calls this his "favorite gun of all times".
Steve McQueen's character, Josh Randall, in the television series Wanted: Dead or Alive also used the 1892 rifle, nick-named the "Mare's Leg."
The Winchester Rifle is the rifle used by Shaun in the film Shaun of the Dead to defend the Winchester Pub from a zombie invasion.
The sound effect for Indiana Jones' revolver is actually a Winchester Rifle being fired.
Computer game character Father Grigori from the popular game Half-Life 2 uses a Winchester Rifle to kill off the zombies.
Sarah L. Winchester, the heiress to the empire that manufactured the rifle, was told that the Winchester family was cursed and haunted by ghosts who were killed by Winchester rifles. She moved to San Jose, California, and built the Winchester Mystery House, a large and complex mansion supposedly designed to ward off these spirits.

References

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