|
Winchester Repeating Arms Company
The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was a prominent American manufacturer of repeating firearms and ammunition. The firm was established in 1866 by Oliver Winchester and was located in New Haven, Connecticut. The firm went into receivership in 1931 and was bought by the Western Cartridge Company, a forerunner of the Olin Corporation. The Winchester brand name is still owned by the Olin Corporation, which makes ammunition under that name. The Winchester name is also used under license for firearms produced by two subsidiaries of the Herstal Group – FN Herstal of Belgium and the Browning Arms Company of Ogden, Utah. History Early history Predecessors 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). Smith and Wesson acquired Lewis Jennings' improved version of inventor Walter Hunt's 18 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Privately Held Company
A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is offered, owned, traded, exchanged privately, or over-the-counter. In the case of a closed corporation, there are a relatively small number of shareholders or company members. Related terms are closely-held corporation, unquoted company, and unlisted company. Though less visible than their publicly traded counterparts, private companies have major importance in the world's economy. In 2008, the 441 largest private companies in the United States accounted for ($1.8 trillion) in revenues and employed 6.2 million people, according to ''Forbes''. In 2005, using a substantially smaller pool size (22.7%) for comparison, the 339 companies on ''Forbes'' survey of closely held U.S. businesses sold a trillion dollars' worth of goods and service ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horace Smith (inventor)
Horace Smith (October 28, 1808 – January 15, 1893) was an American gunsmith, inventor, and businessman. He and his business partner Daniel B. Wesson formed two companies named "Smith & Wesson", the first of which was eventually reorganized into the Winchester Repeating Arms Company and the latter of which became the modern Smith & Wesson. Early career Born in Cheshire, Massachusetts, Smith was employed by the U. S. Armory service from 1824 to 1842, when he moved to Newtown, Connecticut. He was employed by various gun makers up to the 1840s, when he moved to Norwich, Connecticut. He is then listed as a partner of Cranston & Smith. It is known that while in Norwich, he engaged in the manufacture of whaling guns and he is credited with the invention of the explosive bullet used to kill whales. Volcanic Repeating Arms Smith and Daniel B. Wesson formed a partnership in 1852 for the purpose of developing the magazine arms later to be manufactured under the Smith & Wesson name. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
US-CT(1891) P136 NEW HAVEN, WINCHESTER REPEATING ARMS COMPANY
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capital is Hartford and its most populous city is Bridgeport. Historically the state is part of New England as well as the tri-state area with New York and New Jersey. The state is named for the Connecticut River which approximately bisects the state. The word "Connecticut" is derived from various anglicized spellings of "Quinnetuket”, a Mohegan-Pequot word for "long tidal river". Connecticut's first European settlers were Dutchmen who established a small, short-lived settlement called House of Hope in Hartford at the confluence of the Park and Connecticut Rivers. Half of Connecticut was initially claimed by the Dutch colony New Netherland, which included much of the land between the Connecticut and Delaware Rivers, although the firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spencer Rifle
The Spencer repeating rifles and carbines were 19th-century American lever-action firearms invented by Christopher Spencer. The Spencer was the world's first military metallic-cartridge repeating rifle, and over 200,000 examples were manufactured in the United States by the Spencer Repeating Rifle Co. and Burnside Rifle Co. between 1860 and 1869. The Spencer repeating rifle was adopted by the Union Army, especially by the cavalry, during the American Civil War but did not replace the standard issue muzzle-loading rifled muskets in use at the time. Among the early users was George Armstrong Custer. The Spencer carbine was a shorter and lighter version designed for the cavalry. Design The Spencer is a lever-action repeating rifle designed by Christopher Spencer in 1860. It uses a falling breechblock mounted in a carrier. Firing forces are contained by the receiver at the rear of the breechblock. Actuating the loading lever causes the breechblock to fall. Once the breechblo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states that had seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which was widely believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. Decades of political controversy over slavery were brought to a head by the victory in the 1860 U.S. presidential election of Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion into the west. An initial seven southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and, in 1861, forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized U.S. forts and other federal assets within their borders. Led by Confederate President Jefferson Da ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
44 Henry
The .44 Henry, also known as the .44 Rimfire, the .44 Long Rimfire, or the 11x23mmR (11x23mm Rimmed) in Europe, is a rimfire rifle and handgun cartridge featuring a -long brass or copper case. The round has a total overall length of , with a -diameter cast solid-lead heeled bullet. The original propellant load is of black powder. The round has a muzzle velocity of approximately , giving a muzzle energy of 568 foot-pounds (770 joules). Background The cartridge is named after the intended firearm of use, the Henry rifle, which is in turn named after Benjamin Tyler Henry, the 19th-century American gunsmith who invented both the cartridge and the rifle of that name. Henry designed both in his spare time while he was the foreman of the New Haven Arms Company, and was granted a US patent for his creations on October 16, 1860. While it was not the first repeating rifle, it was one of the first successful designs (alongside the Spencer rifle), and it provided the basis for the ic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rimfire Ammunition
Rimfire ammunition is a type of firearm metallic cartridge whose primer is located within a hollow circumferential rim protruding from the base of its casing. When fired, the gun's firing pin will strike and crush the rim against the edge of the barrel breech, sparking the primer compound within the rim, and in turn ignite the propellant within the case. Invented in 1845, by Louis-Nicolas Flobert, the first rimfire metallic cartridge was the .22 BB Cap (a.k.a. 6mm Flobert) cartridge, which consisted of a percussion cap with a bullet attached to the top. While many other different cartridge priming methods have been tried since the 19th century, only rimfire and the later centerfire cartridges survive to the present day with regular usages. The .22 Long Rifle rimfire cartridge, introduced in 1887, is by far the most common ammunition in the world today in terms of units sold. Characteristics Rimfire ammunition is so named because the firing pin strikes and crushes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volcanic Rifle
The Volcanic Repeating Arms Company was an American company formed in 1855 by partners Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson to develop Walter Hunt's Rocket Ball ammunition and lever action mechanism. Volcanic made an improved version of the Rocket Ball ammunition, and a carbine and pistol version of the lever action gun to fire it. While the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company was short-lived, its descendants, Winchester Repeating Arms Company and Smith & Wesson became major firearms manufactures. History The original 1848 Volcanic Repeating Rifle design by Hunt was revolutionary, introducing an early iteration of the lever action repeating mechanism and the tubular magazine still common today. However, Hunt's design was far from perfect, and only a couple of prototypes were developed; the only one known is currently in the Firearms Museum in Cody, Wyoming. Lewis Jennings patented an improved version of Hunt's design in 1849, and versions of the Jenning's patent design were buil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volcanic Repeating Arms
The Volcanic Repeating Arms Company was an American company formed in 1855 by partners Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson to develop Walter Hunt's Rocket Ball ammunition and lever action mechanism. Volcanic made an improved version of the Rocket Ball ammunition, and a carbine and pistol version of the lever action gun to fire it. While the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company was short-lived, its descendants, Winchester Repeating Arms Company and Smith & Wesson became major firearms manufactures. History The original 1848 Volcanic Repeating Rifle design by Hunt was revolutionary, introducing an early iteration of the lever action repeating mechanism and the tubular magazine still common today. However, Hunt's design was far from perfect, and only a couple of prototypes were developed; the only one known is currently in the Firearms Museum in Cody, Wyoming. Lewis Jennings patented an improved version of Hunt's design in 1849, and versions of the Jenning's patent design were bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benjamin Tyler Henry
Benjamin Tyler Henry (March 22, 1821 – June 8, 1898) was an American gunsmith and manufacturer. He was the inventor of the Henry rifle, the first reliable lever-action repeating rifle. Henry was born in Claremont, New Hampshire in 1821. He apprenticed to a gunsmith as a young man and worked his way up to shop foreman at the Robins & Lawrence Arms Company of Windsor, Vermont where he worked with Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson on a rifle known as the "Volitional Repeater". In 1854, Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson formed a new company with Courtlandt Palmer, and further improved the operating mechanism, developing the Smith & Wesson Lever pistol, and a new Volcanic cartridge. Production was in the shop of Horace Smith in Norwich, Connecticut. Originally using the name "Smith & Wesson Company", the name was changed to "Volcanic Repeating Arms Company" in 1855, with the addition of new investors, one of whom was Oliver Winchester. The Volcanic Repeating Arms Company obtai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rocket Ball
The Rocket Ball was one of the earliest forms of metallic cartridge for firearms, containing bullet and powder in a single, metal-cased unit. Construction The Rocket Ball, patented in 1848 by Walter Hunt, consisted of a lead bullet with a deep hollow in the rear, running a majority of the length of the cartridge. The hollow, like that of the Minie ball, served to seal the bullet into the bore, but Rocket Ball put the cavity to further use. By packing the deep cavity with powder, and sealing it with a cap with a small hole in the rear for ignition, the Rocket Ball replaced the earlier paper cartridge with a durable package capable of being fed from a magazine. The cap was blown out of the bore upon firing. The Rocket Ball was used in magazine fed lever action guns, allowing the first easily manufactured repeating single chamber firearms. Use While the Rocket Ball provided the means of making practical repeating firearms, it was not an ideal solution. The limited volume ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
