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Winchester Wetmore

Sam06Sam06 Member Posts: 21,254 ✭✭✭✭
edited December 2019 in General Discussion
I knew Winchester threatened Colt when Colt was going to make a lever action rifle but I didn't know they made a revolver. It was very inovative with a SA trigger and swing out cylinder(To the right).

Winchester Wetmore-Wood Revolver

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C&P
The apocryphal story goes like this: Colt threatened to make a lever action, so in retaliation Winchester developed their version of the revolver. It?s a great story. However, we don?t know if it?s completely accurate. I will say though that when it comes to firearms manufacturers during this time period, it?s not out of the realm of possibility given some of the personalities involved.

This firearm is a Winchester Wetmore-Wood Revolver manufactured between 1876 and 1879. It is the second series of Winchester Revolvers that they produced. The cool thing about this gun is that Stephen Wood?s design featured a cylinder that pivots out of the frame for cartridge ejection?the earliest form, which is still in use today.

Winchester considered manufacture for the civilian and military markets, but did not ultimately produce a lot of these revolvers. However, some samples were distributed to the governments in Russia and Spain. A large display of the prototypes and productions models however can be seen right here in Cody, Wyoming. Our Winchester Arms Collection has a lot of prototypes and surprises that appear that might even stump the most avid collector?maybe.


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Here is a link to an auction where one sold for $375K:

https://www.proxibid.com/Firearms-Military-Artifacts/Firearms/Winchester-Swing-Out-Cylinder-US-Navy-Test-Revolver/lotInformation/49407044
RLTW

Comments

  • TRAP55TRAP55 Member Posts: 8,270 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Would have been interesting times to be a fly on the wall at those meetings with Colt and Winchester. The Wetmore wasn't Winchesters leverage for the deal, but was the start of it. It happened later in 1883-1884. Colt was already to go with the Colt Burgess lever action 1883, and introduced the Colt Lightning Pump action rifles in 1884. Lightning sales put a real crimp in Winchester sales.
    Winchester hired William Mason away from Colt, where he had designed guns for them, as well as Remington. He produced a single prototype that Winchester showed Colt at the meeting. The Winchester Model 1883 Revolver. It was an obvious blend of Remington, S&W, and some Colt, but no patent infringements.
    Winchester stopped making handguns. Colt produced a small number of Burgess rifles ending production in 1885, and Lightning production ended in 1904.
  • mrmike08075mrmike08075 Member Posts: 10,998 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    From my field inspection notebook circa 2001

    The aforementioned above referenced pistol is one of the most advanced rarities in Winchester collecting, a Winchester-Wetmore-Wells single action revolver.

    In 1872, former Smith & Wesson employees William W. Wetmore and Charles S. Wells were hired by Winchester to develop a revolver. As the year 1872 came to a close, Wetmore and Wells had developed rudimentary single action revolver designs. Later their designs featured chambering for a new series of experimental cartridges developed by Wells and experimental ejector systems that included a swing out cylinder design by Stephen W. Wood.

    Winchester board of directors planned on making a big splash in the revolver market and planned on doing so at the Centennial Exhibition held in Philadelphia in 1876. To say that the directors were ambitious would be an understatement. The company was still enjoying the success and profits that came with the improved design of the Henry rifle, the Model 1866, and its iron frame successor the Model 1873 and were looking forward to the introduction the Model 1876 at the time of Centennial celebration.

    But the revolver market eluded the company. Colt emerged as the big winner in the revolver market, winning a series of highly competitive U.S. Army contracts and also a large share of the civilian market with its Single Action Army. Smith & Wesson also won a few U.S. contracts and had a large civilian following. In the early 1870s it was announced that the U.S. government as well as the Russian government were in the market for a new side arm. Smith & Wesson as well as Colt competed for these contracts but what many people do not realize is so did Winchester.

    Undaunted by its losses for government contracts, Winchester forged ahead with its plans to break into the revolver market. The company invested a great sum of resources and money to the Centennial Exhibition, and their Wetmore-Wells revolver samples were introduced to the public. (For more see, for example, Herbert Houze's "Winchester Repeating Arms Company" with a photo of a similar revolver on page 100. Note that other publications have referred to Centennial '76s as Winchester-Borchardt revolvers. An examination of the historical record has shown Borchardt's participation in the design of these revolvers was minimal.)

    Renowned firearms expert and author R.L Wilson has noted 9 known Winchester revolvers with most of them still held by the Winchester Museum in Cody, Wyoming. The example I inspected is without visible brand or model nomenclature / markings / proofs / witness markings and features a cartridge ejector system developed by Wetmore. The ejector system is mounted on the right side of the frame. Ejecting a casing requires the operator to push down the ejector bar, thus setting in motion a sliding ejector that rode under the rims of a chambered cartridge in line with the loading port. It has a solid frame, six shot cylinder, blade front sight and frame sighting groove. All nickel finish with checkered walnut grips. A lanyard ring is mounted on the butt. According to a signed letter of analysis by Winchester expert and author Herbert Houze, "Approximately seven pistols were made in this series prior to the termination of the project in late July 1876?.and [this revolver] is identical in nearly all respects to an unfinished model [at the Winchester Arms Museum]."

    Condition Excellent.

    The revolver retains 97% original nickel finish showing some very scattered light flaking and some loss on the hammer. The grips are excellent with overall crisp checkering. Actions needs work as cylinder is not in time and does not lock up when cycled. A once in a lifetime opportunity to acquire a historic piece of Winchester history rarely found outside a museum! Provenance: Robert M. Lee Collection.

    Mike
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