BLACK POWDER
An 1866 Winchester by Uberti shown with a replica .44-40 cartridge box.
SHOOTING THE 1866 WINCHESTER
Used Uberti replica Short Rifle in .44-40 proves authentic, accurate for black powder cartridge shooter. STORY AND PHOTOS BY MIKE NESBITT
G
etting one of the Uberti copies of the 1866 Winchester was something I wanted to do for quite a while, and after looking at several used versions of this gun, I finally scored. Like the original Winchester ’66s, there are copies made today, or at least in recent years, that have almost every option that was available then. These include rifles and carbines, as well as different sights. Most of the variations are authentic, or they seem to be; authenticity is an important
factor to me. The gun I have now is one of the 1866 Short Rifles, a rifle with an octagon barrel that is only 20 inches long. Original Model 1866 Short Rifles are rather few, according to George Madis, the Winchester historian, as only 850 of these rifles were made. It is quite likely that the modern copies of those Short Rifles outnumber the originals. At least I do have a good copy of a rather rare rifle. And I’ve learned some interesting things about the old 1866 Winchesters, which were the first Winchesters. When production was started, they
continued with the serial numbers of the Henry rifles. So serial numbers for the 1866s began in the 12,000 area. For the first year of production, the ’66s and the Henrys were made almost side by side and they both were numbered in the same sequence, which means those two rifle models have overlapping serial numbers. But production of the Henrys was stopped toward the end of 1866, while the production of the ’66s really climbed. By the end of 1872, nearly 100,000 of the 1866 rifles had been made. Then in 1873, when the famous Winchester ’73 was first introduced, americanshootingjournal.com 107
