Winchester Center Fire

When researching old texts, it is easy to get sidetracked. As is true we can run across something interesting like the information below:

Forest & Stream magazine, August 13th, 1874

Snippet;

[The facts in this communication are due to Horace P. Jones the military interpreter at Fort Sill, Indian territory who has lived with and near the Comanches for fifteen years. There is no living man who has a thorough knowledge of their language, habits, traditions, and customs. He is a man of intelligence, character, and integrity, and the facts stated can be thoroughly upon.]

  ...The buck at all times has his ears ornamented with brass rings, bits of brass chain, or large beads. Those who can afford it wear a chaplet or brass plate, made of long slender white pipe, called hair pipe, strung like beads four or five in a row, and of twenty or twenty-five rows forming quite an attractive ornament. This pipe is supposed to be made of clam shells. At all events the making of it is a secret. It commands a high price, is greatly in favor, and must afford the inventor a good income. 

The war rig is somewhat different. The horse is painted most fantastically, and the rider wears in addition to ordinary dress, a war bonnet made like a hood, ornamented in front with a pair of small buffalo horns, placed as the devil is supposed to wear his. A long flap or tail to hood falls down the back, and is ornamented with upon row of eagle feathers. Now armed with bow arrows, shield and lance, our buck is ready for Texas, or wherever his fancy prompts. The lance is but little used in war; still it has its place. The credit of killing an my does not belong to the one who shot him, but he first thrusts his lance into him takes the scalp and all glory. Theoretically, he is the brave who spears his enemy; practically, the lance is never used except on the dead or wounded who are unfortunate enough to fall into hands. The weapons named compose his natural war outfit,  but unfortunately he is now possessed of more formidable weapons. I have yet to see the first Comanche that does not carry a Colt or other six shooter, and, by the way not all "of the olden kind, brass mounted," but some the latest improved breech loaders. In addition to this, Spencer and Winchester carbines [60's and 66's] are common among them, over half of the bucks being in possession of one or the other, and the remainder own the old long Lancaster rifle, which, as you well know, at several hundred yards is very good weapon. How these Indians have become possessed of these arms I leave for our Indian Department to explain, but I can tell you that the weapons of those "killed by Indians" in Texas accounts for far too many them...

~Yours, &c., Fort Sill, Indian Territory, July, 1874. 

"Henry Rifle of 1860" and the Winchester "Model of 1866"...

...as referred to by the catalogs, is really difficult to keep up with which rifle the 1873 catalog is talking about.  After Winchester and Davies purchased Volcanic repeating Arms sometime around 1856, it gets rather complicated. The New Haven Arms Company, by 1857, manufacture the 1860 Henry, "Henry Rifle of 1860". By 1866, Henry lost attempts to regain the company and Winchester changed the name to Winchester Repeating Arms Company. In the meantime, by the end of December 1866, the "Infantry Model" [Winchester Model of 1866] had finished field testing in Switzerland. Testings from 300 to 1,000 paces shooting at 6ft x 6ft, 6ft x 7ft and 7ft x 8ft and 8ft x 10ft targets, resulting in 1.5ft x 1.5ft groups@300 paces (250 yards). Several 50-75 yard shots reported by amateurs resulted in 1/2" to 3" groups.

Time after time the American Indian Warriors proved the importance of this repeating action, especially on the "Custer Battlefield". There archaeologist discovered a couple hundred spent .44 Henry, Winchester 66' and a few Winchester 73" cartridges and cases on a small knoll 265 yards east of Last Stand Hill and a small hill, 150 - 200 yards east of Calhoun Hill, named "Henryville" by the 2004 Archaeology team. 

"The Winchester Model of 1873", The W.C.F. begins!
1873-1877 - In Winchester's 1875 catalog the first 44 WCF cartridges appeared but were not labeled as "44 W.C.F". Winchester stated, “The effect of this change [from 44 Henry to the 44-40] is to increase the initial velocity of the arm from about 1,125 f.p.s. to 1,325 feet per second."  During the Indian Wars, the Indians would proved how valuable the Lever-actions would become!

Cartridge boxes at this time showed a "44/100" designated but so did the .44 Henry boxes. The only way to know which rifle the ammo was for was to notice which rifle was designated on the cartridge boxes. The Second Green Label box, the 44-100 is removed altogether and eventually replaced with "50" on the left top and  ".44 Cal." on the right top. Some later UMC boxes still used 44-100. More on boxes later.