Winchester's New Model
1866 Cal. 44/100
Official Swiss Commission, At Aarau, Switzerland
October 6th and 8th, 1866
The Battle of Kö[bleep]ätz
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.
At this Trial, Swiss sharpshooters shot the 1866 at 300, 400, 600, 800 and 1,000 paces. 300 Paces being 250 yards.
John Kort replicated this target back in 2011 when he reduced his black powder 44-40 loads to replicate 44 Henry ballistics. His hits, along with the 1866 Trials hits and my recent full load 44-40 hits can be seen in the below target. I learned a little on how to use Gimp so I was able to over-lay the hits.
This also sheds some light on the use of the 1860, 1866 and 1873 at The Battle Of The Little Bighorn
Since I have no idea how to get the photos to post, you will have to see them at the link provided....sorry.
https://sites.google.com/view/44win...nchester-history/1866-switzerland-trials
