Winchester Muskets

[ThePunisher]

OK...I can't seem to get my head around this. My wife bought me the Winchester History (book from Chapters of all places!), and I've found it very interesting. However, I'm stumped with the terminology used. According to the book, Model 1873's, 1876's, 1892's and 1894's were all available as rifle, carbine and MUSKET. I was always under the impression that a musket was a smoothbore...however, this book seems to paint the musket as the military version...full wood (kinda different on a lever), bayo lug, etc... . Would these guns have had a rifled barrel, or would they have been smoothbores?
I know it sounds stupid, but I cant stop thinking about it!

 

[tiriaq]

All they mean is the military version - longer barrel & stock, provision for a bayonet. Well into the 20th century, rifle practice was referred to as musketry.

 

[sunray]

Yep, they have a full stock that goes to the end of the barrel. Like this one.
http://www.winchestercollector.org/feature.shtml
Seems to me one of the RCMP commemoratives was in this configuration.

 

[ThePunisher]

Well, today wasn't a total waste...I learned something new. Still looks kinda odd seeing a 94 with full wood and a bayo. Thanks for the info!

 

[green]

Winchester made about 250000 M1895 "muskets" Cal 7.62x54R for Russia in WWI.

 

[catnthehatt]

Old Badger has one in a falling block, chambered in .22 short of all things!
All original, and a true Winchester musket.
Cat

 

[1899]

I had a military version 1895 in .30 US. Wish I hadn't sold it.

 

[Dantforth]

I'm surprised that your wife found such a lewd publication as this at Chapters. It was only a couple of years ago that I went in for my favourite gun magazine and couldn't find it. I asked a clerk and she said that all of those terrible things had been removed to protect their customers from violence....I spoke to the manager to press my displeasure at their censorship and "she" gave me the same line stating that the owners made the decision. I then wrote the head office and they told me not to waste my time. So much for free speech and a free Canada!

 

[ThePunisher]

Yeah, I thought that was unusual as well...but, I double checked, and she said that's where she got it. Seems if it is in a book format, it's OK..just those nasty magazines need to be kept away from everyone. Can't see the logic...they sell mystery novels and action books (Mack Bolan, etc...) which depict and encourage violence on a level magazines would never touch. Oh well...

 

[GrantR]

Yes, believe it or not, Chapters do carry some books about guns (and even war, too! ) but their policy, generally, is certainly idiotically "PC"!

The more exact terminology on such military-style rifles is "musket stocked" - referring to the full forestock, of course - with the rifle then being commonly referred to as a "musket" or "musket-style" ...

There is a very strong Canadian connection with musket-stocked Winchesters - as others have already mentioned. The standard-issue longarm of the NWMP/RNWMP which had the longest service life of any rifle (from 1878 through 1914) was a musket-stocked Winchester Model 1876 chambered in .45-75.

Here is one period photograph showing NWMP officers and men (the latter posing with their Winchester rifles) when they were in London in 1897, for the occasion of Queen Victoria's "Diamond Jubilee":

And here is an image of the "California-style" saddle which also went into use by the NWMP in 1878, showing the regulation manner of carrying the rifle:

Quite a few of this same model of rifle were also acquired by the Dept. of Militia & Defence, and many of them were issued to provisional mounted militia units raised for the 1885 North West Rebellion. One such unit was the original Rocky Mountain Rangers (no connection with the present-day infantry unit of the same name) which was a "cowboy cavalry" unit raised in and around Fort MacLeod, in the District of Alberta, NWT, two Troops of which were then posted about 150 miles east to Medicine Hat, Dist. of Assiniboia. (Our local Cowboy Action Shooting club is named after them - for more info on them, and the 1885 Rebellion genrally, visit my website: link in my signature block, below.)

I have a "look-alike" rifle in the process of being finished for me by a gunsmith, for use in Cowboy Action shooting, and also "just for fun". It is built up on an original Model 1873 action (because it must be in a "pistol caliber" for my purposes) and is chambered for .45 Colt. Here is a picture of it in the very-nearly-complete state it was in this summer, when I took possession of it for "initial trials". (It has since gone back to him for some fine-tuning and final finishing ....)