A young'un's gun: the Winchester Model 40A single-shot .22 rifle

Guns Magazine, July, 2008 by Martin J. Miller, Jr.

The new century--the 20th, not the 21st--began with the United States having acquired new territories overseas, becoming a world-class power and with a greatly expanding and growing economy, industrial and agricultural base. The new century saw America becoming a people with an expanding wealth and more disposable income.

Heretofore, firearms had been "tools" and were relatively expensive. And while there had been "sporting" and "target" firearms these had been primarily the "toys," if you wish, of the rich. This was especially true of "boys" or youth firearms, and before that all other types of youth weapons. That all changed at the beginning of the 1900's.

Great advances in firearms designs were being introduced to the American market. Bolt-action rifles were common in Europe, but just really getting off the ground in the United States. Mauser, Krag and Enfield would soon be joined by Winchester and Remington bolt-action models. All would become household names in short order.

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To take advantage of the growing disposable income, Winchester wanted an inexpensive .22 caliber boy's rifle. They introduced the Model 1900, a John M. Browning design, to fill that need. There was some criticism of this first design and the "improved" Model 1902 followed, which was immensely popular, but again subject to criticism, "too light, stock too short," so Winchester re-designed and modified the Model 1902 and brought out the Model 1904, soon to be simply marketed as the Model 04. The Model 1902 became simply the Model 02.

The Model 04 sported a longer stock, so older children and adults could still shoot the rifle and a beefier and heavier stock with an attractive Schnabel fore end and heavier barrel with adjustable rear sight for better handling and accuracy.

Initially the Model 04 was offered in .22 Short and .22 Long only and then extra long. The Model 04 became an overnight success story and was basically copied by Savage, Remington and other manufacturers. Today's youth rifles still show a strong design influence from these early Winchesters.

The First World War came as a rude shock to the US military. Woefully under equipped, the US Army would have to depend upon foreign-made heavy weapons and a foreign design (but at least American made), the British Pattern P 14 became the US Model of 1917 issued to more than half of our troops. It also came as a rude shock to the Army that most of the new recruits were indifferent marksmen. During and after the war, the Army encouraged marksmanship training starting at a young age.

Winchester, in an inspired move to market their boy's rifle designs, started the Winchester Junior Rifle Corps. Along with the rifles, Winchester encouraged competition and training by providing prizes and other items as incentives. A whole series of targets, shooting medals and certificates were provided based on a postal scoring system. The Boy Scouts of America and the National Rifle Association began youth marksmanship training and the US Government would establish the Civilian Marksmanship Program with a youth side. The WJRC lasted only a little over 10 years, but at its nadir counted over 300,000 members and hundreds of local chapters.

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The .22 boy's rifles, small-bore competition and plinking became a major American pastime. Winchester suffered in the later 1920s from poor business decisions, a severe reduction in factory output resulting from the end of the WWI expansion and the approaching collapse of the stock market. The Great Depression would see a decline in sales for Winchester and others, but youth shooting continued and expanded with WWII and its aftermath.

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Winchester turned over the WJRC to the National Rifle Association who adopted the program virtually in its entirety and expanded it over the years. The Golden Age of Youth shooting can be dated from those early years of the new century through the end of the Vietnam War. Many youth shooting venues, especially in school systems, were terminated over the following years. Today youth competition survives on a reduced scale, however, informal plinking and small game hunting forms a major component of the firearms business. And no longer do we talk merely of "boy's rifles," but youth rifles, since gender-wise we are all equal now. In fact, girls and females in general, often make better "markspersons" than males!

Those early Winchester "Boy's Rifles" were very popular. The Model 1900, produced for just two years, had a production run of over 100,000. The Model 1902, 02 and 02A manufactured up to 1930 had a production total of slightly more than 622,000. The Model 1904 was also very popular with nearly 300,000 produced. The final version was the Model 40A which added the .22 Long Rifle chambering in 1927. In late 1929 Winchester decided to discontinue production of the 1902 and 1904 models and concentrate on newer bolt-action .22 caliber rifle designs. These later models, such as the Models 58 and 60, would become immensely popular and only ended with the decision in 1964 to "economize" on newer versions which led to the long decline of Winchester products. Approximately 27,000 Model 04A's were produced in those last two years of production.