Know Your Weapons History: Oliver Winchester

Oliver Winchester was born in Boston, on November 30, 1810. He started his career with a clothing company based out of New York City and New Haven, Connecticut. After successfully running this aspect of his business, Winchester began to look for new opportunities. Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson (yes, that “Smith & Wesson” who later formed the Smith & Wesson Revolver Company) acquired and improved a rifle design with the help of shop foreman, Benjamin Tyler Henry. Talk about a genius cluster! In 1855, they began to manufacture what would be known as the “Volcanic” lever-action rifle. The company would become incorporated as the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company; its largest stockholder was Oliver Winchester.

After limited success with this new rifle, Winchester seized the opportunity to take control over the failing company and renamed it the New Haven Arms Company. Although initial returns were slow, Benjamin Henry, the company’s leading engineer, improved the Volcanic repeating rifle’s design by enlarging the frame and magazine to accommodate the all-new brass cased .44 caliber cartridge. This ingenuity put the company on the map, and in 1860, the patent for the infamous Henry rifle was issued. The next  six years of production produced over 12,000 Henry, many of which were used in the Civil War. In the following months, Benjamin Henry, angered over what he believed was inadequate compensation, filed a lawsuit for ownership of the company. Oliver Winchester hastenly reorganized the company as the Winchester Repeating Arms Company to circumvent this issue. 

The Model 1866 soon rolled out as the first Winchester rifle. Based on the Henry rifle, it came with an improved magazine and a wooden forend. In the following years, larger caliber rifles such as the infamous Model 1873, “The Gun That Won The West”, brought more notoriety and foundation to the company. Although Mr. Winchester would miss the opportunity to see his company’s greatest achievements; he passed away in December of 1880. 

Winchester Repeating Arms Company’s collaboration with John Browning brought about much success with a host of shotguns, including the still produced Model 1885. The turn of the 20th century hosted a series of new arms developments, many from the top engineer at the time, T.C. Johnson. But it was the start of the First World War that set development and production requirements into full force. The company became a major producer of the .30-06 M1917 Enfield rifle for the United States military, and worked once more with Browning to develop the .50 caliber BMG.

 

During the war, the company borrowed heavily to finance the expansion. In an attempt to pay down its debt following the war’s end, they used their surplus production capacity to manufacture consumer goods such as kitchen knives, roller skates, and refrigerators. The strategy was a failure, and the Great Depression sent the company into bankruptcy. John M. Olin’s Western Cartridge Company purchased the Winchester Repeating Arms Company at auction in 1931, with plans to restore the brand to its former glory. The Second World War helped this cause tremendously as Winchester produced the U.S. M1 Carbine and the M1 Garand rifle during this time period. 

Over the following decades, the Olin Winchester-Western division struggled with rising labor costs and other companies’ cast-and-stamped production methods. By 1980, Olin decided to sell the company back to its employees, which re-incorporated as the U.S. Repeating Arms Company. Olin retained the Winchester ammunition business. U.S. Repeating Arms went bankrupt in 1989, and after a number of sellouts to forgien holdings companies, the New Haven plant closed its doors on January 16, 2006, after 140 years of producing rifles and shotguns. 

In August of 2006, Olin Corporation, owner of Winchester trademarks, entered a new license deal with Browning to make Winchester brand rifles and shotguns once again. The Model 1885, Model 1892, and Model 1886 are all produced by Miroku Corporation of Japan, then imported to the U.S. by Browning. Currently, Fabrique Nationale d’Herstal (FN) makes the remainder of Winchester’s rifle and shotgun lineup in various locations around Europe.

Winchester-branded ammunition continues to be produced by the Olin Corporation. Some of the most successful cartridges ever invented have been under the Winchester name: the .44-40 WCF, the .30-30 WCF, the .32 Winchester Special, the .50 BMG, the .270 Winchester, the .308 Winchester (the commercial version of the 7.62x51mm NATO), the .243 Winchester, the .22 WMR (aka the .22 Magnum), and the .300 Winchester Magnum. In North America, the .30-30 and .308 Winchester are some of the best selling cartridges in firearm history. 

Through its history, the Winchester name has experienced great successes and significant failures; but it’s truly an important story to know in the realm of firearms. Here’s to the man that started it all, happy birthday to Mr. Oliver Winchester.

I want to give a shout out to my friends over at Ammo.com for this awesome write-up!

Stay Alert, Armed and Dangerous!

There Isn’t A War Until Someone Fights Back

Some Outstanding Reads…Share with People you Care About.

 

Western Rifle Shooters Association

Wisdom in contradiction (h/t Bracken) to the standard post-Yalta narrative..

The Soviets won the Greatest Generation’s war.

That victory allowed them and their Commie-lite pals in the US to divide the world for nearly 50 years.

The Han heirs to the Soviet mass murderers, aided by their global allies, are now planning and executing a global clean-up operation to be completed NLT than the centenary of Mao’s triumph in 1949.

Don’t believe the hype.

You are surrounded by Reds here in FUSA 2019.

You know what you must do.

Harden your hearts.

Toughen your body.

Build your skill sets.

And keep working your intel ops.

The Big Game is coming.

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Lessons From The Warsaw Ghetto

Great Read. Be sure and read the two links on Lithuania.

Highlights from Part one. Staple this to your Brain.

1) Government identification records are the clerical basis for mass murder and other atrocities: No, not every government ID scheme leads to genocide and expatriation. But for the collectivists of both the German Reich and the USSR, each victim’s identity card was both part of the initial targeting and the final “production record”.

2) Get to the forest early if you want to live: If you think they will be coming for you, you are probably right. Plan not to be where they know you work and live. Act early if you want to maximize your chances. You and your family will die if you are at your government-approved address.

3) The Bad People will have lots of help from your neighbors:The most disturbing moment for me in the KGB museum was not in the execution or interrogation/torture cells. It was realizing, while moving through the excellent exhibits on the mass deportations of Lithuanians after “liberation” by the Soviets in 1944, that most of the deportees (many of whom were subsequently executed or starved or died of exposure and disease) had been betrayed to the NKVD/KGB by their neighbors.

4) “Fascism” is not the only mortal enemy of freedom and life; the real enemy is collectivism in any form: At each of the memorials, one could tell the provenance of any signage by its reference to “fascism”. Mostly, such markings were from the Soviet era, during which — not coincidentally — many more millions of innocent human beings were killed by the “enlightened” Communists than had been slaughtered by the Hitlerites and their collaborators. While it is too much to expect the Soviets to acknowledge these facts, it is essential that freedom-minded folks grok that collectivism, in any form, can and usually does lead to the mass grave.

5) Never report en masse when ordered to do so: Nothing good ever happens to folks who do.

6) Food and ammunition will be the vital shortages you must address in order to live: Empty weapons and bellies a successful resistance does not make.

7) The Bad People will torture and kill those who help you: Get used to the idea. Retribution killing is a standard totalitarian play. Try to avoid jeopardizing your allies to the extent possible, but know that they too will be swept into the whirlwind.

8) The Bad People will torture and kill your family members:Sippenhaft ain’t just a chapter in Vanderboegh’s long-awaited novel. The KGB museum was filled with execution orders with notations indicating that not only had the subject been killed per order of the Party, but that “special measures” had or would be taken against the victim’s family.

9)You must be prepared to fight until victory or death: Once you go to the woods, you are there for the duration. The Baltic “forest brothers”stayed out until they were killed or captured. More on them in the next part of this report.

10) If you think it can’t happen here, you are wrong. The Polish and Lithuanian Jews who were ground into dust by the Einsatzgruppenthought the same thing. So did the Lithuanians who couldn’t believe that the Communists under Stalin and subsequent regimes would hold their passionate patriotism against them.

Almost all of those folks who believed “it couldn’t happen” died. A few survived by running into the woods, or by bearing up under the brutal realities of the Gulag, year after year after year.

Each of them knows the single biggest lesson from Lithuania: naked, brute force can and does triumph over kindness, love of kin and country, and simple human decency — often for decades or more.

Lose your illusions.

While there is still time.

Stay Alert, Armed and Dangerous!

Western Rifle Shooters Association

Even those skeptical of the accuracy and intent of certain groups’ recollections can find useful lessons here for the post-FUSA world.

People within five miles of your current home are your biggest problem.

Ignore that reality, and you will regret the omission.

Eternally.

See related here and here.

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Britain’s Vietnam War

Know Your History!

Very eye-opening and informative 8 minutes.

VikingLifeBlog

Mark Felton Productions

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American Militias after the Civil War: From Black Codes to the Black Panthers and Beyond

Part 1 of this article can be read HERE.

 

Originally authored by our friends over at Ammo.com, this is the second half of their excellent historical analysis of militias in the US, running up to the Bundy Standoff and Malhuer Wildlife Refuge occupation. The critical takeaway is the coverage of militias on both sides of the ideological aisle and causes, ranging from post-Reconstruction era…

via American Militias after the Civil War: From Black Codes to the Black Panthers and Beyond — American Partisan

August 15, 1769 – 2019 Marks 250 Years Since the Birth of Napoleon — Legal Legacy

Historical Non-Fiction Book of the Month and History Corrected Book Recommendation.

If you just read one book on the Life of Napoleon, read this one.

Most people have no impression of Napoleon other than one of his being short, pompous, exiled, and apt to keep one hand inside his coat. A recent and magnificent biography by Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A Life, helps to dispel the myths and misinformation, and to edify readers about Napoleon’s brilliance, achievements, and innovations. Many of […]

via August 15, 1769 – 2019 Marks 250 Years Since the Birth of Napoleon — Legal Legacy

More Proof that the Government is Altering Our History of the Civil War

All part of the Govt. Plan to Control the Future (By Controlling the Past).

Forloveofgodandcountry's Blog

Based on the article “Revisionism” by Andrew P. Calhoun, with an introduction by Diane Rufino

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love history and how much time I spend reading and researching historical events. I don’t want to read some liberal historian’s take on history or some progressive professor’s view of history. I want to know exactly what happened, why it happened, and the conditions, the views, the cultural norms, the customs that defined the particular time period. I look to primary documents and recordings/documentation at the time of the event, by those who were involved, who were affected, or who were witnesses.

For example, I know for a fact that the Civil War (the War of Northern Aggression; aka, the War to Prevent Southern Independence; aka, the War Between the States) was NOT started over slavery and Lincoln did not initiate hostilities with the South…

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