The Winchester Firearms Company, based in New Haven, Connecticut, had a long and entangled history that began prior to the middle of the Nineteeth Century with Oliver Winchester’s purchase of a bankrupt firm that made firearms. Oliver Winchester, a clothing manufacturer, was the largest stockholder in the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company before its demise. The company made lever-action pistols and rifles. It dubbed one of the rifles that it manufactured, the Volcanic rifle.
The Winchester firearms company was originally founded by Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson, who would later partner again to form the famous Smith & Wesson Revolver Company. It was this pair of men that first obtained a version of the 1848 Volition Repeating Rifle, invented by Walter Hunt, and later improved upon by Lewis Jennings. This rifle, a predecessor to Winchester firearms, featured a unique case less ammunition called Rocket Ball.
The production of this rifle, and its ammunition, was quite small and met with little commercial success. Based on the improvements that Jennings made to the rifle, Smith made still more improvements. This resulted in the Volcanic rifle that was a part of the rifle company’s assets when Oliver Winchester purchased it. The firm was reorganized in 1857 as the New Haven Arms Company by Winchester, and John Davies, his partner.
Benjamin Henry, a foreman previously lured from a failing gun maker, began work on a unique rim fire cartridge that was self-contained and metallic as well. Henry also made a more powerful round that was larger than its predecessors. In order to accommodate the larger round, and while working for Winchester firearms, Henry based a new rifle on the tubular magazine and breech mechanism of the now defunct Volcanic rifle. The result was the 1860 Henry which was a huge success and it introduced a repeating rifle with lever-action to the market of firearms.
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Henry had a dispute over compensation with the New Haven Arms Company and tried to have ownership of the company transferred to him by a ruling of the legislature of Connecticut. Oliver Winchester blocked that move and reorganized the company into a Winchester firearms company called the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. In 1866, the first model of Winchester firearm was released after extensive improvements and modifications of the Henry rifle.
The Winchester firearms company rolled out the first Winchester center fire cartridge in 1873. This rifle also enjoyed tremendous success. Although Winchester firearms also introduced the larger and more powerful Centennial Model of 1876, the rifle was not able to accommodate the government cartridge. Only after acquiring, and manufacturing, the Browning repeating rifles were Winchester firearms able to handle the larger government cartridge.
While partnering with John Browning, many notable Winchester firearms were produced. These included a number of lever-action rifles and a lever-action shotgun, as well as a pump action shotgun. A disagreement between Browning and Winchester over the manufacture of a self-loading rifle lead to the dissolving of the partnership. Winchester firearms designers worked diligently to patent a rifle that would self-load, and, thus, provide competition to Browning’s self-loading rifle. This occurred in 1911.
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