Winchester Repeating Arms Company

The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was a prominent American maker of repeating weapons during the late 19th Century and the early 20th Century.

Early history

Predecessors

The ancestor of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company was the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company, which manufactured the Volcanic lever action rifle of Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson. It 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.

The "Winchester" Rifle

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 rimfire cartridges like the Henry but had an improved magazine and, for the first time, a wooden forearm. Another popular model was rolled out in 1873. The 1873 model introduced the first Winchester center fire cartridge. These rifle families are both commonly known as the "Gun That Won the West".

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 , Model 1897, and Model 1912 shotguns; and the lever-action Model 1886, Model 1892, Model 1894 and Model 1895 rifles, all of which are still in production today.

20th Century Developments

The Turn of the Century

The early years of the twentieth century found the Winchester Repeating Arms Company competing with new John Browning designs, manufactured under license by other firearm companies. The race to produce the first commercial self-loading rifle brought forth the .22 rimfire Winchester Model 1903 and later centerfire Model 1905, Model 1907, and Model 1910 rifles. Winchester engineers, after ten years of work, designed the Model 1911 to circumvent Browning's self-loading shotgun patents, filed by the company's very own patent lawyers. One of Winchester's premier engineers, T.C. Johnson, was instrumental in the development of these self-loading firearms and indeed went on to assist with the design of the Winchester Model 12 and Model 54.

The World Wars

File:Winchester model 1200.jpg

Winchester model 1200 shotgun

The company later bought and manufactured several of John Browning's highly superior rifle and shotgun designs and was a major producer of M1917 Enfield military rifles during World War I. Working at the Winchester plant during that war, Browning developed the final design of the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), of which it produced some 27,000. Browning and the Winchester engineers also developed the Browning .50 BMG caliber (12.7 x 99 mm) machine gun during the war. The caliber .50 (12.7 x 99 mm) ammunition for it was designed by the Winchester ballistic engineers.

The commercial rights to these new Browning guns were owned by Colt. In 1931 the Winchester firm was purchased by the Olin Corporation and continued its production of civilian rifles and shotguns. The U.S. M1 carbine (although not a carbine in the truest sense) was designed by Winchester engineers Clifford Warner and Ralph Clarkson (contrary to a widely published myth, not by D.M. Williams) and was then manufactured in large numbers by Winchester and other firms. During World War II Winchester was the sole civilian producer of the M1 rifle and later was the first civilian manufacturer of the M14 rifle.

The Cold War and Beyond

In the mid 1950's S. K. Janson formed a new Winchester design group to advance the use of modern engineering design methods and manufacturing principles in gun design. The result was a new line of guns which replaced most of the older products. The feelings of betrayal and horror among gun fanciers produced by the cheaply made arms never really abated, and the shoddiness of the Winchester products of the 1970's spoiled the reputation of Winchester forever. Olin later sold off Winchester's firearms manufacturing business in 1981, retaining only the Winchester branded ammunition business. Olin still owns the rights to the Winchester name, manufactures Winchester ammunition, and retains the right to sell Winchester marked guns manufactured elsewhere. From 1981 until 2006, Winchester guns were made by the U.S. Repeating Arms Company. The U.S. Repeating Arms Co. was initially an employee buyout of Winchester's arms making division. When it went bankrupt it was acquired a French holding company, then sold to an arms making cartel sponsored by the Belgian province of Herstal, which also owns famous gun maker Fabrique National (FN)

The End of an Era

On January 16, 2006 U.S. Repeating Arms announced it was closing the New Haven, Conn. plant where Winchester rifles and shotguns were produced for 140 years.^[1] Along with the closing of the plant, the Model 94 (the descendant of the original Winchester rifle) along with many of Winchester's traditional rifles and shotguns such as the Winchester Model 70 would be discontinued. Excluding the model 70, the model 94, and the model 1300 - Winchester firearms will continue to be produced in manufacturing facilities located in Europe and Asia.

A Ray of Hope

Shortly after hearing of the closing of the New Haven, Conn. plant, Michael Blank of Saint Louis Arms set about saving the plant, and the firearms it produced, from disappearing forever, even going so far as to leave his job at Merrill Lynch to do so. Kevin Tierney of Workout Solutions has been his partner from the beginning of the effort and has been the man on the ground in Connecticut. There are both consultant in the attempt to find a new owner for the plant and thus ensure that future generations can own a piece of history.

Presidents

Oliver Winchester (1857-1880)
William Wirt Winchester (1880-1881). He was the son of Oliver Winchester.
William Converse (1881-1890). He was the husband of Mary A. Pardee.
Thomas Gray Bennett (1890-1910). He was the husband of Hannah Jane Winchester.
George E. Hodson (1910-1915). He was a partner in the company with Oliver.
Winchester Bennett (1915-1918). Son of Thomas Gray Bennett.
Thomas Gray Bennett (1918-1919)

References

^ Out With A Bang: The Loss of the Classic Winchester Is Loaded With Symbolism, Washington Post, January 21 2006