Winchester Model 1892 Rifle

By December 8, 2009 Firearms

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One of the most popular rifles in the late 1800s, the Winchester Model 1892, is still popular today.

From Wikipedia:
“The Winchester Model 1892 is a lever-action repeating rifle designed by John Browning as a smaller, lighter version of his large-frame Model 1886, and which replaced the Model 1873 as the company’s lever-action for smaller dual-use rounds such as the .44-40 (.44 WCF). Calibers for the rifle vary and some are custom-chambered. The original rounds were the .32-20, .38-40, and .44-40 Winchester center fire rounds, followed in 1895 by the new .25-20. A few Model 92’s chambered for .218 Bee were produced in 1936-38. Oddly, the rifle was never chambered for the popular Colt .45, although modern reproductions are. Despite the claim that .30 WCF (.30-30) was a chambering, this is incorrect: the .30-30 cartridge was invented three years later for the legendary Model 1894, and the cartridge is much too long for the 1892’s rather short bolt travel.

21,004,675 Model 1892 rifles were made by Winchester, and although the company phased them out by 1941, they are still being made under the Puma label by the Brazilian arms maker, Rossi, and by Chiappa Firearms, an Italian factory and Browning in Japan. In its modern form, using updated materials and production techniques, the Model 1892’s action is strong enough to chamber high pressure handgun rounds, such as .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum, and the high-powered .454 Casull round.

The Winchester Models 53 (1924) and 65 (1933) were essentially re-labelled Model 1892’s.

Although the Model 1892 made its debut after the closing of the American frontier, and the true “Guns that Won the West” were the earlier Models 1866 and 1873, nonetheless the ’92 became an indelible icon of Western mythology through its use in hundreds of motion pictures and television shows, standing in for its older siblings. John Wayne famously carried Model 92’s in dozens of films and owned several personally, some with the distinctive oversized “loop” lever. Other notable screen 92’s were those of Chuck Connors in The Rifleman TV series, and Steve McQueen’s “Mare’s Leg” in Wanted: Dead or Alive.”