And, it improved the loading mechanism, making it faster and easier. The 1866 model was more resistant to jamming and kept the shooter from burning their hand on the barrel. That upgrade, became the Winchester 1866 repeater rifle. Dominant firepower, in-part, helped Union forces win the Civil War in 1865.īut, before the superior lever-action design could be widely adopted, the Henry rifle needed an upgrade. A single Henry rifle had a firing rate of 5 to 1 over a musket. But, in spite of the military’s reluctance to adopt the rifle, individual soldiers purchased their own Henry repeater rifles.įor the first time, the innovation of the repeater rifle enabled suppressing firepower without the need for dominant forces. 44 rim-fire cartridges – expensive and not widely manufactured. The Henry rifle was chambered for black powder. The military was slow to adopt the Henry rifle, in part, due to the ornate ammunition for which it was chambered. By the time Oliver Winchester designed the 1873 repeater, the Winchester Repeating Firearms Company had already changed the world of shooting, forever. The lever-action design of the Henry rifle enabled soldiers to shoot at many times the rate of percussion-fire cap-and-ball muskets. The Classic Winchester 1873 Carbine: A Classic Gun Collectors GuideĪ generation before the Winchester 1873 – just before the Civil War – the 1860 Henry rifle was the first of it’s kind to feature a lever-action reloading system. When it was released, in 1873, the West had never seen such a firearm, and it changed everything.
The Winchester 1873 repeater rifle became an instant legend, coining itself, “The Gun That Won the West.” Today, it is renown as one of the finest repeater rifles ever designed – so much so, that it remains in production, to this day.
The Winchester 1873 repeater was more accurate, reliable, and better designed than any rifle to date. The 1866 model was groundbreaking, in its own right and was the most popular rifle in the country, until 1873. Oliver Winchester produced the first lever-action rifles to transform the landscape of the American West.
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