Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Mausers and Military Rifles Lever action military contracts?

Just wondering if you guys know about any lever action repeating rifles that were given military contracts. I have one of the Savage MHG's and that got me to wondering about any others. There must have been some WInchesters in the early years.

Just curious.

Winchester Model 95's in 7.62x54R that went to the Russians...Henry's to the Union Army...

Winchester 94s to the desperate French in WW1
Winchester 1866s to Turkey

1860 Spencer by the Union Army
1866 and 1873 Winchesters to Turkey
1876 Winchester to the King of Hawaii and RCMP
1895 Winchester to the Russian Army and U.S. Army trials (100 used in the Philippines, the remainder sent to Cuba)
1894 Winchester by the Signal Corps during WWI to ensure spruce harvest in the Northwest
1899 Savage by Montreal Home Guard (Want to say some U.S. National Guard units too but might have that confused with state police purchases)

That's all I can think of at the moment.

Winchester 94s used by the Canadian Pacific Coast Rangers in WW2

Military consideration of lever action rifles curtailed when it was discovered that operation of same was awkward when firing from the prone position.

Very good rundown on all the military used 1895 Wins in the new Win 1895 book!

Lots of good pic from Mex Revolution too!

Many of the Russian contact guns ended up in Spain during there civil war.

Many of the lever action Winchesters used in military action never had a true "military contract" because they were sent to "non-governmental entities" and often off of any official books.

Villa's "Division del Norte" had so many (in Villa's opinion, TOO many) Win 1894 carbines so that the "treinta-trienta" was almost their standard issue long gun and cartridge. As their war moved into set-piece battles with barbed wire and machine guns, the shortcomings of the lever action carbine, a very usable arm for cavalry, became apparent and they wanted Mausers more and more.

Spain armed its Civil Guard (a military police force like the Italian Carbinieri) with Spanish copies of the Win '92 in .44-40 (.44 Largo in Spanish) and used them for many years. They occasionally show up here and USED to be dirt cheap. No longer.

Additional info on the "Spanish '92's" (Tigre):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigre_(rifle)
These guns were often used in western movies and TV series of the 1950's.

When New South Wales assembled a contingent to send to the Sudan in 1885, the Field Ambulance detachment was armed with Winchester's 1873 model.

It was the first time Australians were sent to fight overseas, and occurred before Federation (and thus at a time when each of the Australian States had its own military forces).

I would expect so.

I wonder how it was that Arthur Savage's design won the trials he entered, was it New York? considering this ^^^? As I understand it, Winchester raised a legal fuss and had the trial results overturned, robbing Savage of the sales.

The tactical lessons that should have been learned from the Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War (both featured machine guns, trench warfare, and bolt action rifles) didn't penetrate many nations until the World War broke out, and even then not all the brass got the memo. Many of the military management class still just loved those cheap and effective (especially CHEAP) bayonets, as long as they didn't have to use one or have it used on THEM.... And sabres! (They apparently never heard of bobwire, either).

Roy,do you think Savage's rrotary magazine was crap-proof enough to make it as a military rifle? Did it have to survive mud and dust tests? The Mannlicher-Schoenauer magazine seemed to work well enough in a military rifle, although it had limited use... Greece and Italy only, I think.

Given the choice between a Savage or Winchester 95 vs. a Lee-Enfield in the mud of Paeschendaale, I wouldn't hesitate to throw the lever guns into the latrine.

Mesa yeah part of the trials included blowing sand into the open action for one minute and then test them. How could that have possibly turned out?