Howdy
Throughout most of firearms history, technological leaps forward had been mostly centered around improving the means of igniting the powder in a firearm. From the primitive Handgonnes of the 14th Century, up through Match Locks, Wheel Locks, Flint Locks, and finally Percussion Locks, it was all about making a more reliable system for firing the firearm. Although there were a few attempts at breech loaders during this time, the great majority of firearms were muzzle loaders. Meaning that for a quick repeat shot, without a second barrel, or the cylinder of a Cap & Ball revolver, one had to take the time to load powder, ram a projectile down the bore, and prime the lock. A seasoned soldier during the American Revolution could get off three aimed shots in a minute, and by the time of the Civil War that rate of fire had not been improved on much.
Enter the self contained cartridge. Pretty much at the mid point of the 19th Century, the concept of self contained cartridges became practical. They consisted of a pre-measured powder charge and projectile contained within a metal case. Most also had a primer of some sort attached. I am not speaking about the type of paper cartridge that had come earlier, where a powder charge and ball were wrapped in paper. I am talking about the self contained metallic cartridge.There were a variety of ignition systems; Rimfire, Centerfire, Pin Fire, Teat Fire, and probably a few more that I am not remembering right now.
The point is, with the development of self contained metallic cartridges, repeating firearms first became practical.
Around 1852, Daniel Wesson and Horace Smith formed their first partnership to produce a repeating lever action firearm. They were improving on the ideas of Hunt and Jennings before them. What they came up with was a small firearm, in both pistol and rifle configuration that used a lever to mechanically feed a new round into the chamber every time the lever was actuated. These firearms eventually became known as the Volcanic repeaters, because of their rate of fire. Unfortunately the Rocket Ball ammunition they used was under powered, and the Volcanic company was not financially successful.
https://winchestercollector.org/models/volcanic-rifles-pistols/
During the time Smith and Wesson were still running the Volcanic Company, an investor named Oliver Winchester came along. He was a successful entrepreneur from New Haven CT who had made a sizeable amount of money in the clothing manufacturing industry. He was looking for opportunities to invest in emerging technologies and repeating firearms were just the ticket. Winchester eventually bought Smith and Wesson out and they went on to start a new company manufacturing revolvers. Winchester hired a firearms designer named Benjamin Tyler Henry to go over and improve upon the Volcanic design. The first thing Henry did was design a new cartridge, which became known as the 44 Henry Rimfire cartridge.This was a copper cased rimfire round holding about 26 grains of Black Powder and topped with a 216 grain bullet. Not a barn stomper by modern standards, but much more potent than the anemic 31 and 41 caliber Rocket Ball ammo of the Volcanic firearms. Once the new cartridge had been designed, Henry designed a new rifle to shoot it.
The following photos are of my Italian manufactured Iron Frame 1860 Henry. Very faithful to the original design, except the frame and carrier have been slightly lengthened to accommodate the longer 44-40 round. The first of these were chambered for the old 44 Henry rimfire round, but since the Henry round is no longer commercially available they are now chambered for 45 Colt and 44-40. Although most Henry rifles had a frame made of gun metal, a form of bronze, some of the very early ones had iron frames.
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The Henry's barrel and magazine were machined from one solid bar of steel. There was a slot running the length of the underside of the magazine and a tab attached to the follower projected though that slot.
The side loading gate had not been developed yet. The Henry was loaded by pulling the follower all the way forward and then rotating the sleeve at the front of the barrel about 90 degrees to expose the end of the magazine. Cartridges were loaded into the exposed hole, the barrel sleeve was rotated back into position and the follower was lowered to contact the rounds in the magazine. Because of the slot running the length of the magazine, and the need to access follower tab, the Henry rifle did not have a wooden fore end.
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Magazine capacity was 15 rounds. Just like the earlier Volcanic firearms, when the lever was cycled a fresh round was fed into the chamber and the hammer was cocked for the next shot. Unlike the Volcanic, since the Henry used a conventional rimfire round instead of the old Rocket Ball ammo, an extractor was used to pull out and eject the spent cartridges when the lever was cycled.
During the 19th Century many firearms manufacturers used the year a particular model was introduced as its Model Name. Winchester had changed the name of the Volcanic company to New Haven Arms Company, but Winchester honored Henry by naming the rifle after him. The Henry rifle was patented in 1860, but although actual production did not get started until 1862, it is generally referred to as the 1860 Henry rifle.
The Henry rifle was only in production until 1866. That year Henry and Winchester had a falling out. Winchester renamed the company after himself, and the Improved Henry, or Winchester Model 1866 was introduced.
One of the drawbacks of the Henry design was the slot running the length of the magazine. Dirt and contamination could enter the magazine through this slot. Reloading pretty much required standing the rifle straight up to drop rounds down the magazine. Not good from a military perspective. And without a wooden fore end, the magazine could get too hot to hold. (I can testify that shooting a magazine full of Black Powder 44-40 rounds the barrel/magazine does get very hot on a hot summer day).
The Model 1866 Winchester still fired the 44 Henry rimfire round. But Nelson King's patented loading gate was added to the right side of the frame. This made reloading much simpler, the shooter did not have to stand up, and because there was no longer a slot under the magazine a wooden fore end could be added to protect the shooter's hands from the heat. The Model 1866 still had a yellow gun metal receiver. The barrel and magazine of the 1866 were no longer machined from one bar of steel, the magazine was a separate tube suspended below the barrel. This reduced the over all weight of the rifle by about 1 pound.
https://winchestercollector.org/models/model-1866/
In 1873 Winchester released the latest in lever action rifle designs. The Model 1873 was chambered for a new cartridge, known as the 44 Winchester Center Fire, or 44WCF for short. Also known as the 44-40. This cartridge was a bit longer than the 44 Henry Rimfire cartridge and carried about 40 grains of Black Powder under a 200 grain bullet, for a significant increase in power. Because of the more powerful ammunition the frame of the early Model 1873 rifles were made of iron, not gun metal. Later, the frames were made of steel. Unlike the Henry and 1866 models, the Model 1873 featured easily removable side plates on the frame, which could be removed for cleaning the mechanism by just removing one screw.
Winchester started a marketing campaign about the Model 1873 calling it "The Gun That Won the West." Which may or may not have been actually true.
This 38-40 Model 1873 was made in 1887.
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Toggle Links
All the above lever guns used what is called the Toggle Link mechanism. Think of the toggle links on top of a Luger, except picture them upside down. Or as Winchester enthusiasts like to say, the Luger is the one with the upside down toggles.
I have removed one side plate from this Uberti 1873 to show how the toggle links worked. In this photo the links are extended, locking the bolt in battery.
Notice the three pivot points of the links and how they more or less line up in a line.
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There was a pivot point at the top of the lever, linked to the middle pivot of the links. In this photo, the lever has been pushed all the way forward. This has folded the links, retracting the bolt. The firing pin extension has pushed the hammer all the way back to cock it. And the lifting lever has raised the brass carrier to its upper position. You can see carrier extending over the top of the frame. When the lever is pulled back again, the hammer remains cocked, the firing pin extension moves forward, and the bolt shoves the cartridge in the carrier into the chamber. At the last moment, the carrier pops down again to the lower position ready to receive a new cartridge.
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A lot has been written about how weak the Toggle Link system was. It is true that with a Toggle Link rifle there are no locking lugs as on most modern rifles. The only thing keeping the bolt from flying back when a cartridge fired was the fact that the links were lined up straight. In fact, when in battery the links were in a slightly over cammed position. However, if the trigger was pulled before the links were completely lined up, the links would fold just like your knees would fold if somebody pushed them forward from behind. In this case, the bolt would fly back under recoil, the lever would whack the shooter's hand severely, and the firing pin extension just might leave the gun in the general direction of the shooter's eye. That is why Winchester included the lever safety early on in Model 1873 production. In the above photo the two arrows are pointing to the lever safety. It is actually one piece, held down by a spring. In the condition shown, the part of the lever safety directly behind the trigger is preventing the trigger from moving back. When the lever is closed, it will push up the rear part of the safety, causing the front part to rise up clear of the trigger. No, this is not a modern lawyer driven safety, Winchester added it to the design sometime in the 1880s.
It should also be observed that with the Model 1873 at least, the frame had been skeletonized to permit easy access when the side plates were removed. The side plates added no strength to the frame. However with modern steels, these designs are perfectly safe to shoot with SAAMI spec cartridges that do not exceed the maximum pressures dictated by SAAMI Specs. In fact, a few years ago Uberti began chambering their 1873 model for 44 Magnum.
So far, all of these rifles have chambered and fired relatively short cartridges. In the world of Cowboy Action Shooting, we describe these as Pistol Caliber cartridges. All this means is these cartridges are short enough in length to be chambered in a convention revolver. In 1876 Winchester introduced a longer version of Model 1873, called the Model 1876. This rifle had a longer frame and was capable of chambering and firing more powerful 'rifle' cartridges such as the Winchester 45-75 cartridge as well as several other cartridges. The 45-75 was a bottlenecked cartridge slightly shorter than the Government 45 -70 cartridge, but it was developed to duplicate the ballistics of the 45-70. the Model 1876 was never chambered for 45-70 because the round was a little bit too long.
In 1883 T.G. Bennett, vice president and general manager of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, made an unannounced trip to Ogden Utah. One of his salesmen had come across an intriguing 45-70 single shot rifle, and Bennett wanted to buy the rights to manufacture it. The rifle had been designed by John Moses Browning, a 28 year old young man. Browning had patented his design in 1879, and had set up a small manufacturing company to produce it. The rifle was so superior to any other single shot on the market that Bennett wanted to secure the rights to it before any of his competitors did. A price was agreed on for the rights to manufacture the rifle, and it was soon produced as the Winchester Single Shot Model 1885. During their negotiations, Browning had hinted to Bennett that he had the design for a repeating rifle that could take the powerful 45-70 pretty much worked out in his head. Bennett was very interested. This began a relationship between Browning and Winchester that was to continue for the next nineteen years. Browning continued doing what he liked best, designing firearms, and Winchester bought the rights for every one of his patents. Most were never manufactured, but Winchester bought them all anyway, to keep their competitors from acquiring the rights to any of Browning's ideas.
The repeating rifle that Browning had designed became the Winchester Model 1886.
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The Model 1886 was big enough and strong enough for the 45-70 Government cartridge.
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The '86 was a revolutionary design for the time. Gone were the Toggle Links of the old Winchester rifles. Instead the 1886 featured twin locking lugs that securely locked the bolt in battery when the lever was closed.
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With the lever open, the locking lugs were pulled down out of the bolt, allowing the bolt to move backwards to cock the hammer.
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Inside was a tilting carrier that raised a cartridge up out of the magazine so the bolt could shove it forward into the chamber when the lever was closed.
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Eventually, in addition to 45-70, the Winchester Model 1886 was chambered for 45-90, 40-82, 40-65, 38-56, and 50-110 Express.
In 1892, Winchester released another Browning design, the Model 1892. Aside from some slight modifications to the mechanism, the Model 1892 was a scaled down version of the Model 1886.
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The Model 1892 used the same basic two locking lug design as its big brother, the Model 1886.
The Model 1892 was meant to fill the same market niche as the Model 1873, even though the older rifle continued to be manufactured until 1923.
The Model 1892 was lighter and stronger than the Model 1873, and less expensive to manufacture.
The Model 1892 was chambered for 44-40, 38-40, 32-20, 25-20, and .218 Bee.
This photo shows the comparative sizes of the Model 1886 and 1892, along with the 45-70 cartridge the 1886 had been developed to shoot, and the 44-40 cartridge, the most popular chambering for the Model 1892.
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In 1894 Winchester introduced the Browning designed Model 1894.
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Originally developed for the Black Powder 32-40 and 38-55 rounds, the most popular chambering of the Model 1894 was the 30-30.
The 30-30 was the first commercially manufactured Smokeless powder sporting cartridge.
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The locking lug for the Model 1894 was moved all the way to the rear of the bolt. Instead of two locking lugs, there was a single wide lug.
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The bottom of the frame of the Model 1894 rotated down to pull the locking lug out of battery.
That's about it from me now regarding the tubular magazine Winchester lever rifles. I'm not interested in the box magazine lever guns.
I will add that some folks mention they would like to have a Winchester style lever rifle chambered for 45 Colt. Historically, the 45 Colt was never chambered in rifles. The main reason is the very small rim of the old 45 Colt rounds would not give a rifle extractor much to grab. It was not until the mid 1980s that Winchester finally chambered the a Model 1894 Trapper model for 45 Colt. Of course today, many lever guns are available chambered for 45 Colt, but it simply was not done in the 19th Century.
