Setting the standard: Winchester's Model 1892 perfected the pistol-caliber lever action

Guns Magazine, Nov, 2005 by Mike Venturino

Reloading

Lyman still has a section in their .44-40 load data (Lyman 48th Edition Reloading Handbook) with special loads for rifles as strong as the Model 1892 generating pressures as high as 22,000 CUR Their .44-40 loads for handguns and weak rifles are kept to 12,800 CUP and 13,700 CUP respectively. Personally, I have preferred those weaker loads for my Model 1892 shooting since I learned that even black powder powered .44 bullets would kill deer pretty darn good.

And that brings this to me and Model 1892s. At this writing I have been shooting them for 20 years, having bought my first just after attending my very first "End of Trail" cowboy match. It was a .44-40, and I was ignorant enough when trading for it that I didn't even realize it was a special order rifle. It carries the standard 24" round barrel, but has a shotgun buttstock with hard rubber buttplate. By the next year my wife wanted to start participating in cowboy action shooting, so I let her try that first Model 1892, thinking its shotgun butt would be kinder to her bony shoulder. The saying, "No good deed goes unpunished," comes to mind. Right away she said, "This one's mine. You go find something else." And so it has been all these years.

Next came another round-barreled Model 1892 rifle; this one a .38-40 and it was special for two reasons. It was a Christmas gift from my friend Hank Williams Jr. and it had been restored by someone who obviously knew what he was doing. It was patterned after a custom order Model 1892 with beautiful color case hardening on receiver, buttplate, and forearm cap, and a lustrous blue on barrel and magazine tube.

Back in 1998 I participated in one of Thunder Ranch's Triad classes (rifle, handgun & shotgun training). For a rifle, I used this Model 1892 and brothers, was there some snickering from the AK and AR armed fellows the first morning when I appeared holding it! By the end of the second day there weren't any snide comments. I just went on shooting during the stoppage clearing drills because we couldn't make it jam for any reason. I also kept shooting while others were fumbling with magazines because I slipped rounds through the loading gate during the slightest pause, and mostly there was an absence of remarks because most of my shots were centered up out to 100 yards.

My third Model 1892 came at another "End of Trail" when it was still legal in California for individuals to sell guns to one another. I had been so busy during the event that only on the last day did I make it to vendors' row. There on the table of a fellow I knew well sat a Model 1892 carbine and a Colt Lightning pump action. I asked him, "Why are these still here?" He replied, "'They're .38-40s and everyone's afraid of the caliber." I wasn't and made a good deal for both.

Duke Down Under

There's also a story about my last Model 1892. It's a half magazine .44-40, and I first saw it laying on a vendor's table at a New Zealand cowboy action event called Trail's End, where I was a guest in March 2000. With the exchange rate, the price was ridiculously low by American standards. I grabbed for my wallet, but was stopped when informed that I needed a New Zealand tourist firearms license to buy. Then hope returned when I was told the head official in charge of such things would attend the event's big dinner that night. To make a long story short I got the permit, bought the rifle, and brought it home in my suitcase (with appropriate paper work).