BLACK POWDER: SHOOTING THE 1866 WINCHESTER

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

Getting 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 di erent 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,

Author Mike Nesbitt takes a shot while kneeling in the timber, and it was a hit.

production of the ’66 kept climbing because the ’73s got o to a slow start. While the ’73 is referred to as “the rifle that won the West,” if a cowboy or bu alo skinner wanted a repeating rifle before 1876, it would most likely have been a ’66 rather than a ’73. Sales of the 1866 rifles continued until 1898, although very slowly in those later years, and total production of the ’66 came to just over 170,000.

WHILE I DID mention how I appreciate authenticity, we can’t overlook the fact that new versions of the ’66 are made in .44-40, plus a few other calibers. Personally, I’d love it if the new copies of this famous rifle were made in .44 Henry rimfire caliber, providing that new ammo could also be made available. But we can’t expect that to happen. And I did consider finding one of these new rifles in .44 Special caliber, mainly because I would load and shoot it with black powder loads in .44 Colt cases, which would be fairly close to the old .44 Henry loading. That loading used 28 grains of black powder under the 200-grain pointed or flat bullet. However, getting the Short Rifle in .44-40 was a good opportunity for me and it does please me.

The load I favor for my .44-40 rifles uses 34½ grains of GOEX Olde Eynsford 2F powder. (Perhaps this is a good time to mention that GOEX was acquired this January by Estes Energetics, which says that neither production nor delivery of their black powder will be interrupted.) That much powder requires compression when loading and I’ll admit that I compress the powder charge simply when seating the bullets. Doing so does not deform the bullets in this case, but handloaders must be careful while seating bullets over noncompressed charges of black powder because deformed bullets are often the result. The 34½-grain loading under

The Model 1866 Short Rifle comes with a 20-inch barrel.

This is the second five-shot group Nesbitt fired over open sights from the bench at a 25-yard paper target.

a 205-grain bullet, cast from Accurate Molds’ No. 43-205C mold, gives just over 1,300 feet per second in my 1873 rifle with a 30-inch barrel. Shots through the 1866 Short Rifle’s 20-inch barrel have not been chronographed as yet, but they can be expected to shoot perhaps 50 feet per second slower.

This new-to-me rifle was first shot on the black powder trailwalk at our range. In anticipation of getting this rifle, I had purchased one of Marble Arms’ new tang sights. But before mounting that peep sight, I wanted to try the rifle with the open sights that it was supplied with. To my honest surprise as well as delight, I could shoot the gun rather well with the open sight. That was a surprise because most open sights can’t be seen clearly with my eye; so for now, the open sight will remain on the barrel. My shots on the trail resulted in good hits on the hanging and “clanging” gongs.

The shooting was so enjoyable that I had to stop myself before I shot up all of my loaded ammo. There was other shooting to be done, including getting to a bench and actually sighting the rifle in. So, with all of the self-control I could muster, I stopped my shooting for the day.

Cleaning the gun after that first shooting session was a bit of a chore. It was certainly dirty and the barrel took four cleaning patches anointed with Three Rivers Black Powder Solvent from The Gun Works (thegunworks.com) before coming clean. After more shooting and more cleanings, I expect the barrel to come clean with just two patches. That’s after the bore is broken in, when the barrel has gotten used to black powder loads and bullets with black powder lubes. Following the cleaning, the bore was wiped with a high-quality gun oil; I used Old West Snake Oil (oldwestsnakeoil.com) for that job. Keeping ’em clean is just one of the “secrets” of good black powder shooting.

MY FIRST SHOOTING session with this Short Rifle was a good one but it didn’t include any paper targets. So I needed to shoot a couple of paper targets just to see for sure where this gun was sending its bullets and to see if it would group well. For the target, I selected one of our club’s small bull’seye targets that we commonly use at just 25 yards. The “black” on this little target is only 2¼ inches across, so shooting at 25 yards would tell me all I wanted to know.

Like I said, my initial idea for this gun was to put a tang sight on it and I actually got the sight before I got the gun. But after trying the rifle with the open sight, I have delayed installing the peep sight until I find that it is actually needed. For some reason, I can see this open sight better than I had expected and if it will let me hit things, I’ll keep using it. The paper targets were the real test.

Two targets were posted at 25 yards on our black powder range. Shooting was done from a benchrest. Five shots were taken at the first target and those grouped well but were slightly high and to the left. The gun’s rear sight was already all the way down and I was holding at 6 o’clock on the target. An easy way to get this gun to hit right-on for elevation would be to pick a target with a larger bull’s-eye. But the windage was a di erent matter. For that, the rear sight was moved just slightly to the right, using a Wyoming Sight Drifter.

Five more shots were then fired at the second target and that one held a group that I liked. This group was actually wider by a little bit than the first one, but was centered much better. I considered this .44-40 rifle to be sighted-in; to confirm that, some o and shots were taken at gongs out to 100 yards, with a hit for every shot.

Cleaning after that second shooting session was easier; it took only three patches.

That’s all the shooting that has been done so far with this rifle, but I must warn you: I do expect you’ll be hearing more about it. Let me just say that the rifle shoots like it should and I’ll be looking for more places to use it. As a “camp gun” at our Bu alo Camp might easily be one of those places. I’m already looking forward to it. 