This column, “Shots Heard Round the World,” appeared in the July 1966 issue of Outdoor Life, or 60 years ago. That means Remington was founded 210 years ago, and Winchester was founded 160 years ago.
Remington is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year and Winchester its 100th. In the century and the century and a half the two companies have been around, they have survived more perils than Pauline ever thought of, and many times both companies have been hanging on the ropes at the count of nine. They have survived wars, inflation, depressions, bad management, changes of ownership, good times and bad; and both of these great companies are still in business and are still making shotgun and rifle history.
Remington guns bear the name of a practical seat-of-the-pants blacksmith, gunsmith, and rifle shooter who started making rifle barrels and complete rifles in upstate New York in 1816, and Winchester bears the name of a capitalist and organizer. In the many decades that have passed since the firms were founded, the firearms industry, manufacturing methods, propellants, and firearms themselves have changed completely.
Eliphalet Remington made his first barrel by forging a strip of iron in spirals around an iron rod (mandrel) about .40 in. in diameter. He then ground eight flats to make an octagonal barrel out of it and went to town to have a gunsmith ream the inside smooth and cut the rifling in it. When the barrel was complete, Remington bored a touch hole in the breech so the powder charge could be ignited, and he forged a plug which he screwed into the rear of the barrel. This was the breechblock. The rifle was, of course, a flintlock. He made the stock himself out of dry walnut and smoothed it with sandstone. At that time, sandpaper had not been invented.
This first Remington rifle was greatly admired when Eliphalet took it to a shooting match, and he and others did well with it. His neighbors wanted barrels, rifles, and guns and he found himself in the gun business. As the business grew, it was moved to Ilion, New York.
Remington first got into business for the government at the time of the Mexican war in 1845 by manufacturing the Jenks carbine. Remington was the first American firm to abandon lap-welding and to drill rifle and shotgun barrels out of solid steel.
Remington’s first revolver was the Beal model, which came out in 1856. For many years, Remington was a very important manufacturer of cap and ball revolvers in various models. Remington navy revolvers, mostly in .36 caliber, but later in .44, were widely used by the Union Army during the Civil War and hundreds, if not thousands, of them are still in existence. When cartridges and breech loading came in, Remington brought out no end of rimfire and centerfire handguns — pistols, derringers, revolvers. A very interesting and formidable handgun by Remington was the .50 caliber Army and Navy pistol built on the Rider rolling block rifle action. Remington also made a frontier revolver chambered for the .44/40 centerfire cartridge to compete with the Colt Frontier model, which came out a year earlier. Both revolvers used the same cartridge as the Winchester Model 1873 rifle.
The Remington factory turned out many thousands of weapons for the Union Army during the Civil War. Afterward, Remington altered muzzleloading Springfield rifles to breechloaders and turned out hundreds of thousands of breech-loading rifles on the Rider rolling-block action for foreign countries.
Among those that used them were Egypt, Spain, China, Mexico, Sweden, and Denmark. These rifles were made for a variety of cartridges from old black powder cartridges such as the .43 Egyptian to such early smokeless powder military cartridges as the 7 x 57 Mauser. Thousands of these ancient single shots have been sold since World War II in this country by dealers in surplus military arms. Remington’s rolling-block rifles were powerful and accurate and were widely used for hunting, particularly in the mountains and plains of the West. They were made, among other calibers, in the .50/70 used by the U.S. Army prior to the adoption of the .45/70. In .44/90/400, it was popular among buffalo hunters.
Related: After More Than a Century of Conservation Efforts, Why Can’t We Recover America’s Buffalo?
Gen. George Custer, the dashing fair-haired cavalry leader, who led several troops of the Seventh Cavalry into the massacre of the Little Big Horn in Montana, was a Remington rolling-block fancier. He owned an F Grade, the highest grade made by the Remington factory. It cost him $91.50 — important money over 90 years ago.
In a letter to Remington, Custer wrote that in three months he shot with the rifle 41 antelope, four buffaloes, four elk, four mule deer, and three whitetails. He wrote that with his Remington he shot antelope as far away as 630 yards. Pretty good shooting! Since his rifle was chambered for the .50/70 army cartridge, he probably had it with him when he was killed at the Little Big Horn.
After the Franco-Prussian war, there was a long period of peace in Europe and during that time the armies of the world were turning to the bolt-action repeating rifle. Remington continued to make rifles for deer and buffalo hunting and for target shooting on the rolling-block action, but it was no longer the best seller it once had been. Actually, Remington made rifles with rolling-block actions as late as 1933. Remington also made single-shot rifles on Hepburn actions and Remington-Lee and Remington-Keene bolt-action sporting rifles.
Remington was also an early manufacturer of shotguns and turned out single and double-barreled muzzleloading shotguns, at first flintlocks and then cap locks, from 1816 to as late as 1888. In addition, Remington made, prior to the Civil War, a muzzleloading combination gun, one barrel rifled for about .45-caliber bullets and the other barrel smoothbore for about 32 gauge.
Between 1867 and 1892, Remington also made single-barrel 16 and 20 gauge shotguns on the Rider rolling-block action. Remington’s first double-barreled breech-loading shotgun came out in 1873, its first hammerless double in 1894. Remington quit making doubles in 1910 and did not turn out any more doubles for about 20 years. But those Remington side-by-side boxlock doubles were fine guns. The most expensive sold for $750, had superb checkering, good wood, and handsome engraving. I once had one, a trap gun with both 30-in. barrels bored full.
The Union Metallic Cartridge Company, the ammunition end of the Remington Company, was founded at Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1867 by a New York financial genius named Marcellus Hartley. It was to manufacture metallic cartridges which were at that time just coming into wide use. The new company was made financially secure by an order for 10,000,000 rounds of ammunition from the government of Turkey.
Remington had been around for 50 years when Oliver Fisher Winchester founded the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1866 on the remains of the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company.
About the same time, Remington made the first centerfire cartridges with the primers invented by Col. Hiram Berdan who had commanded a famous regiment of sharpshooters during the Civil War. Why this is I cannot say, as it is a bit of firearms history that has escaped me, but the Berdan primer invented in the United States and first manufactured at Bridgeport, Connecticut, is almost universally used in Europe, whereas the Boxer primer, invented in England, is universally used in the United States. The case for the Berdan primer has two flash holes and an integral anvil and cannot be decapped with a decapping pin as can cases for the Boxer primer with their single flash hole. In the early days of the U.M.C. plant, center-fire cartridges manufactured there were used by armies all over the world and often in Remington single-shot rifles made at Ilion.
Remington had been around for 50 years when Oliver Fisher Winchester founded the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1866 on the remains of the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company. Volcanic was founded in 1855 by Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson, who later were to develop the famous revolvers, to manufacture a repeating rifle. The “cartridge” was simply a bullet with a hollow base filled with fulminate of mercury, a powerful and sensitive explosive which has been used in percussion caps and primers for 175 years or so. Those Volcanic rifles were somewhat too volcanic. The fulminate was tough on the barrels and the action of the propellant was so erratic that gas came out of the sides of the action and rifles sometimes blew up. Oliver Winchester had been a stockholder in Volcanic. He decided to see if he could not salvage his investment. He hired a mechanical genius named Tyler Henry to get the bugs out of rifle and ammunition and reorganized the company as the New Haven Arms Company in 1857.
Henry redesigned the Volcanic rifle and developed the first successful large caliber rimfire cartridge — the .44 Henry flat (from the flat point of the bullet). The case formed a gas seal and the bullet was driven by a charge of black powder. The Henry and its ammunition were successful, but the Henry rifle was not officially adopted as a military arm during the Civil War. Just a century ago, in 1866, the Winchester Repeating Arms Company was incorporated and the first rifle to bear the name Winchester came out, the Model 1866. Benito Juarez, who defeated, captured, and executed the French-backed Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, was helped by 1,000 Winchester Model 66 rifles and 500,000 rounds of Winchester ammunition.
The Winchester Model 73 was the Model 66 redesigned to take centerfire .44/40 cartridges. It became the country’s favorite deer rifle and, with the Colt and Remington frontier revolvers of the same caliber, it was widely used all over the pioneering West. The Model 1876 was the Model 73 enlarged to take larger and more powerful cartridges — .45/75, .45/60, and .40/95. My maternal grandfather came West in 1875 with a Model 73, but he switched to a Model 76. About 125,000 Model 76 rifles were manufactured, as compared with 720,000 Model 73’s. The Model 73 and the Model 76 put Winchester on its feet financially and made Winchester a name synonymous with the lever-action rifle throughout the United States. The Model 73 was manufactured until 1924.
Remington got into the typewriter business in the 1870’s and was soon marketing a practical machine. The first Remington typewriter could type only in capital letters. A later model had keys for lower case as well as capitals.
By the middle 1880’s, the typewriter business was catching on and making money. The arms business, however, was in trouble as the military business which had supported the great plant was falling off. In an attempt to save the arms business, which had built the Remington fortune, Philo Remington sold the typewriter business to Henry Benedict for $186,000. But the great Remington factory was beyond saving. The bankrupt firm was sold to Marcellus Hartley, the owner of Union Metallic Cartridge Company at Bridgeport, Connecticut. The purchase price was $200,000. So all this will explain to the casual reader why Remington typewriters are not made by the Remington Arms Company and why the ammunition division of Remington is in Connecticut and the arms in New York. From then on, the Ilion plant concentrated on the production not of military rifles but sporting rifles, shotguns, and bicycles. Hartley wanted a steady business instead of the boom-or-bust production of military weapons.
Smokeless powder became practical in the late 1880’s, and all at once every military rifle in the world became obsolete. The absence of smoke would give an army using the new powder an enormous advantage. Practical velocities jumped from around 1,500 feet per second to more than 2,000 and pressures from 20,000-25,000 pounds per square inch to 40,000-50,000. The change from black to smoke-less powder was the greatest revolution that has ever hit the arms and ammunition industry.
By the middle 1880’s, the typewriter business was catching on and making money. The arms business, however, was in trouble as the military business which had supported the great plant was falling off.
Higher velocities and pressures made stronger actions and better steels imperative. Barrels that would last forever with black-powder pressures and lead bullets wore out quickly with the higher velocities, greater pressures, and jacketed bullets. Before smokeless powder came along, bullets had been made of lead. They were patched with paper or lubricated with grease. Smoke-less-powder velocities made it necessary to put “jackets” or “envelopes” on them. These were made of cupronickel, copper, gilding metal, or mild steel.
Most military rifles and cartridges used until recently date from this smokeless-powder revolution — the 8mm. French Lebel rifle and cartridge, the 8 x 57 Mauser and the Model 98 rifle, the 6.5 Mannlichers and Mausers, and the 7 x 57 Mausers. The Americans adopted the Norwegian Krag-Jorgeson action and the .30/40 cartridge, then in 10 years dropped it for the 1903 Springfield, a modified Mauser. The first American smokeless powder was made by du Pont and the first Remington smokeless-powder shells were produced in 1894. Marcellus Hartley died of a heart attack in 1902 and his grandson, Marcellus Hartley Dodge, took over the management of his enterprises.
Oliver Winchester had died at 70 in 1880. Control of the firm that bore his name remained in his family. One of the most important figures in the development of Winchester arms in the last part of the 19th century did not bear the name Winchester or own any Winchester stock. He was John Browning, a Mormon gunsmith who lived in Ogden, Utah, in what was then the Wild West. The rights to Browning’s Model 1879 single-shot rifle were purchased by Winchester in 1883. This action was made in many different forms (high side, low side, thick wall, thin wall) in calibers from .22 short to .405 Winchester — and even 20 gauge shotgun, in sporting and target form, with round and octagon barrels. The single shot was made until 1920. The actions are still in demand for single-shot varmint rifles for rimmed cartridges such as the .225 Winchester.
The famous Winchester Model 1886 lever-action big-game rifle was another John Browning design. Actually, the Model 71 for the powerful .348 Winchester cartridge is simply a Model 1886 made of modern alloy steel. It was not discontinued until 1957.
he first Winchester repeating shotgun, Model 1887 lever action, was another Browning design purchased by Winchester. It was made in 10 and 12 gauge with 30 and 32-in. barrels and was later redesigned as the Model 1901 in 10 gauge only. It was made until 1920. Other Browning designs brought out by Winchester were the Model 1892 lever action for such short cartridges as the .32/20, .38/ 40, and .44/40; the Model 94, which was introduced in 1894 for two black-powder cartridges, the .32/40 and the .38/55, and adapted to Winchester’s first smokeless powder cartridge, the .30/30, the following year. The Model 94 is still regularly manufactured in modified carbine form. It has been the all-time best seller as a sporting rifle. By 1927, 1,000,000 had been sold, and today over 2,500,000 have been sold.
Yet another Browning brainchild was the Model 95, a very strong lever action that came out in 1896 and was adapted to black-powder cartridges such us the .38/72, the .40/72, and such smokeless-powder cartridges as the .35 and .405 Winchester, the .30/40 and .303, the 7.62 Russian, and the .30/03 and .30/06. Winchester’s first pump shotgun, the Model 1893, was made in
12 gauge only. It was redesigned as the Model 1897 and was manufactured until 1957 in 16 and 12 gauge. This beloved but ugly old gun with its visible hammer was likewise a Browning design. About 1,000,000 Model 97’s were sold.
The Winchester Model 1903 self-loader for the .22 Auto cartridge was designed by Thomas C. Johnson, a Winchester engineer, as was the Model 1905 self-loader for the .32 and .35 Winchester Auto cartridges, and the Model 1907 for the .351 caliber and the Model 1910 for the more powerful .401.
Winchester and Browning parted company over the auto-loading shotgun design that became the old Remington Model 11, the present Browning, and, for all practical purposes, the present Savage self-loader. Prior to that time, Browning had sold his designs to Winchester outright. Rightly, he thought that the sales of his automatic shotgun would be tremendous and he wanted a royalty agreement instead of a flat sum. Winchester refused. Browning took his working model to Remington and was waiting in Marcellus Hartley’s office when Hartley died of a heart attack. He then took his gun to Liege, Belgium, where he arranged for the manufacture by Fabrique Nationale, the same firm that makes the guns for the Browning Arms Company. Remington later arranged for the American rights and brought it out as the Model 11 in 1905.
Winchester wanted an automatic shotgun, but its chief designer, Thomas Johnson, had helped Browning draw up the patent application for his gun and he had done such a good job of it that designing a self-loader without infringing on Browning patents was very difficult. He designed the Model 1911, which was later revived as the Model 40, but in neither form was it successful. Johnson’s design for a pump was, however, very successful. It was the fine Model 12, which over the years was made in 20, 16, and 12 gauge, 12 gauge Magnum, and 28 gauge.
While Winchester was specializing in lever actions to the extent that Winchester and lever actions were just about synonymous, Remington was traveling in another direction. The firm had brought out its bolt-action Remington-Lee and Remington-Keene rifles before the public was ready for them, and the day of the single shot was past. The firm introduced the Model 8 autoloading big-game rifle in 1906 and the Model 14 pump in 1912. Both were chambered for a line of rimless Remington cartridges similar to their rimmed Winchester counterparts — the .25 Remington, the .30 Remington, the .32 Remington, and the .35 Remington. The first three were ballistically about like the .25/35, the .30/30, and the .32 Special. The .35, the only one that is not obsolete, was not like any Winchester cartridge.
In some ways, both Remington and Winchester were asleep at the switch in those days before World War I. The trend was toward big-game cartridges with higher velocity and more power in rifles built mostly on Mauser actions. It was in this period that American rifle enthusiasts had sporting rifles in .30/06 caliber built on 1903 Springfield actions, when Sir Charles Ross was manufacturing Ross rifles in Canada and had developed the potent .280 Ross cartridge, when Charles Newton was whooping it up for high velocity with his .22, .256, .280, .30, and .35 Newton High Powers. It was also the time when, in England, Holland & Holland brought out the .275 H. & H. Magnum, the first of the belted magnums, as well as the great .375 Magnum, and when Rigby brought out the .416.
Both Remington and Winchester were up to their necks in the brief but violent involvement of the United States in World War I. Winchester made for the Czarist Russian government 300,000 Model 95 lever-action rifles for the 7.62 mm. Russian cartridge. In addition, Winchester produced the Pattern 14 rifle for the .303 cartridge for Britain. When the United States got into the war, the Pattern 14 was altered to take the .30/06 cartridge and Winchester turned out over half a million as the “U. S. Model 1917.” Winchester also produced 525,000,000 .30/06 cartridges, almost 50,000 B.A.R.’s, 58,000,000 .45 Auto cartridges, over 3,000,000 mortar shells.
Remington made 7.62 mm. Moisin rifles for the Russian government and Pattern 14’s for the British. The company was turning out 5,000 7.62 rifles a day in 1916 when the Czarist government collapsed and the communists repudiated all contracts. The American government got Remington off the hook by buying the Russian rifles the company had on hand to arm the White Russians in Siberia. In all, Remington produced over 500,000 Model 1917 — rifles at Ilion and almost 1,200,000 at the Remington-run Eddystone plant near Philadelphia. In addition, Remington made millions of rounds of ammunition.
When the war was over in 1918, Remington and Winchester found themselves with many buildings, much machinery, and many employees they did not need.
Both firms decided there was considerable demand for bolt-action sporting rifles, particularly for the .30/06 cartridge. Using many of the tools developed for the Model 1917, Remington brought out the Model 30 bolt-action rifle for the .25, .30, .32, .35 Remington cartridges, and the .30/06. It continued to turn out the Model 8 and Model 14 big-game rifles. Besides the Model 11 self-loading shotgun, Remington made the Model 10 pump from 1907 until 1929, revised it as the Model 29, then as the Model 31 in 1931. Probably Remington’s biggest achievement between the wars was the pioneering of the noncorrosive priming compound called Kleanbore. This eliminated the use of rust-causing potassium chlorate.
The depression that began in 1929 was hard on all arms companies. By 1932, Remington’s sales had fallen from over $21,000,000 in 1929 to less than $8,000,000. The company was losing $1,000,000 a year. In 1933, the controlling interest was acquired by du Pont. In 1932, Remington brought out the fine Model 32 over-and-under shotgun and continued to make it until 1940. In 1934, Remington took over the Parker Gun Company, the concern that made the most prestigious double-barreled shotguns ever built in the United States. For a time, the firm continued to make these great guns at Meriden, Connecticut, but the factory was moved to Ilion. The war killed off the Parker.
Winchester’s bolt-action big-game rifle was a brand-new design and did not come out until 1925. It had a clean, handsome action that was a cross between Mauser and Springfield. It was chambered for the .30/06 cartridge and a brand-new one called the
.270 W.C.F. At various times, Model 54 was chambered for the .30/30, 7 mm., 7.65, 9 mm., .250/3000 Savage, .22 Hornet, .220 Swift, and .257 Roberts. In 1936, it was discontinued and replaced by the Model 70, a revised Model 54. A greatly changed Model 70 is still being manufactured.
Winchester brought out several new cartridges besides the .270 between the wars. These include the .220 Swift, the
.219 Zipper, and the .218 Bee. Winchester started manufacturing .22 Hornet and .257 Roberts ammunition very early. The firm likewise developed the 3-in. .410 shot shell and the M9del 42 pump shotgun to fire it. It introduced the new .348 cartridge and adapted the old Model 1886 rifle to fire it, calling it the Model 71. The Model 21 double-barreled shotgun was introduced in 1931. It was made in 12, 16, 20, and ( on special order) 28 gauge and .410. After World War I, Winchester went off in all directions-manufacturing roller skates, flashlights, garden tools, lawnmowers, refrigerators. It got hooked up with a big hardware jobber and started a chain of its own stores. By 1931, the depression had finished what bad management decisions had started. Winchester went into receivership and was purchased by the Western Cartridge Company of East Alton, Illinois, which had been a brilliant success under the management of Franklin W. Olin, and his two sons
Jol;m and Spencer.
During World War II, both Remington and Winchester contributed heavily. Remington manufactured more than 1,000,000 rifles, billions of rounds of ammunition. Winchester-Western likewise turned out staggering amounts of ammunition, over 800,000 carbines, and more than 500,000 M-1 rifles.
After the war, Remington decided to redesign its entire line for cheaper and speedier production. The Model 721 and 722 bolt-action big-game rifles which came out in 1948 were designed for less expensive manufacture. Gradually, the 721 has evolved into the handsome Model 700. The old pump and self-loading big-game rifles were dropped and replaced by the present Models 742 and 760. The Model 11 was redesigned, streamlined, and called the Model 11-48. In addition, Remington brought out the Model 870 pump to replace the Model 31 and a whole series of gas-operated semiautomatics which culminated in the Model 1100.
For a generation, Remington been reluctant to introduce new cartridges, but, realizing that new cartridges bestowed prestige and stimulated firearms sales, the firm has brought out the .222, the .280, the .350 Remington Magnum, the .22 Fireball, the .223 Remington, the 6.5 Remington Magnum, and the 7 mm. Remington Magnum. With the cooperation of Smith & Wesson, the ammunition division developed the .44 and .41 Magnum revolver cartridges. The .222 and the 7 mm. Magnum have been particularly successful. Remington has pioneered the use of nylon and other plastics in gun manufacture and it perfected the process called “impressed” checkering. Winchester introduced the .458 Magnum cartridge and adapted the Model 70 rifle to it. This is adequate for the world’s largest game. Winchester also brought out the .243; .284; the .358 (all on the .308 case); the .338 Magnum, a powerful medium-bore cartridge; the .300 Winchester Magnum, a hard-hitting, flat-shooting cartridge for long-range use; the .264, an ultra-high velocity small bore for plains and mountain shooting; .22 Winchester Rim Fire Magnum; 3-in. 20 gauge shot shell.
Winchester lagged behind Remington in adapting its gun designs to modem materials, machines, and expensive labor. Between 1958 and 1963, Winchester shot down many fine old Winchester models that were dearly beloved by gun aficionados but that were expensive to make. These included the Model 71, the Model 42 and Model 97 shotguns, the Model 43 bolt-action varmint rifle, the Model 52 .22-caliber sporter, the Model 63 .22 self-loader.
Read Next: Is the Winchester Model 70 Featherweight as Good as It Used to Be?
Now the Model 70 has been redesigned, the field grade Model 12 replaced by the Model 1200 pump, and the famous old .22’s with a new line of self-loaders, pumps, and lever actions. Even the classic old Model 94 has been redesigned to some extent.
They have both had their troubles, but Remington has made it now for 150 years, and Winchester is starting its second century. It looks as if they’ll both be around for a while longer.
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