1866 Switzerland Trials

 Winchester's New Model

1866 Cal. 44/100

Official Swiss Commission, At Aarau, Switzerland

October 6th and 8th, 1866

The Battle of Königgrätz

During the time between 14 June and 22 July 1866, the Prussians fought the Austrians. These battles were well observed by the Swiss. It was here that the Swiss decided that they were in need of modern breech-loading weapons.

On 20 July 1866 the Swiss made a Decree that they would find and arm their sharpshooters and Army with breech-loading rifles.

During the 6th and 8th days of October, Winchester had already shipped the Model of 1866 to Switzerland for the Swiss Trials.

On the 12th of October the Swiss government proposed an order for 8,000 repeaters for their best outfits but soon changed the proposal to between 90,000 and 110,000 repeaters to arm all of their soldiers. A condition to the contract would be that Winchester would also provide all of the tooling necessary for the 66's to be manufactured in Switzerland. Winchester could not or would not agree and offered some sort of counteroffer with the Henry rifle. The deal fell quiet and eventually Winchester backed off. I am unsure of the details.

The Report To The Commission For The Introduction Of The Breech-Loading Arms was dated Oct 1866 and published in Winchester's 1873 catalog as well as the targets. The information I posted above is not included in the report. The report talks about the Winchester Rifle - A. The Trajectory, B. The Precision and C. The Rapidity of Fire. 

Now you know the rest of the story. 

Armature Targets Made At The Armory With The Winchester Model Of 1866

More targets can be seen on the Accuracy and Targets Pages later on. I think what's more important at the moment is the use of the rifles by the Indians and the distances at which they used them against the U.S. Cavalry during the month of June 1876.