Winchester

The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was a prominent American maker of repeating firearms, located in New Haven, Connecticut. The Winchester brand is today owned by the Olin Corporation and the name is used under license by two subsidiaries of the Herstal Group: Fabrique Nationale (FN) of Belgium and the Browning Arms Company of Ogden, Utah, USA.

The ancestor of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company was the Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson partnership of Norwich, Connecticut (not to be confused with the famous Smith & Wesson Revolver Company founded later by the same men). From 1883, John Browning worked in partnership with the Company and designed a series of rifles and shotguns, most notably the Winchester Model 1885 Single Shot, Winchester Model 1887 lever-action shotgun, Model 1897 pump-action shotgun; and the lever-action Model 1886, Model 1892, Model 1894 and Model 1895 rifles. Several of these are still in production today through companies such as Browning, Rossi, Navy Arms and others which have revived several of the discontinued models or produced reproductions