Winchester Model 1894
lever-action repeating rifle
The Winchester Model 1894 rifle (also known as the Winchester 94 or Model 94) is a lever-action repeating rifle that became one of the most famous and popular hunting rifles of all time. It was designed by John Browning in 1894 and originally chambered in either the .32-40 Winchester or the .38-55 Winchester, two metallic black powder cartridges. It was later the first rifle to chamber the smokeless powder round, the .30 WCF (.30 Winchester Center Fire, in time becoming known as the .30-30 Winchester) in 1895. In 1901, Winchester created the new .32 Winchester Special caliber with production of rifles starting in 1902.
The Model 1894 was produced by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company from 1894 to 1980 and then by U.S. Repeating Arms under the Winchester brand, until they ceased manufacturing rifles in 2006. Reproductions are being made by the Miroku company of Japan and imported into the United States by the Browning Arms company of Morgan, Utah.
The Model 1894 has been referred to as the "ultimate lever-action design" by firearms historians such as R. L. Wilson and Hal Herring. The Model 1894 is the rifle credited with the name "Winchester" being used to refer to all rifles of this type and was the first commercial sporting rifle to sell over 7,000,000 units.
One Model 1894 is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Arms & Armor department.
Overview
The Winchester Model 1894 was the first commercial American repeating rifle built to be used with smokeless powder.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Winchester Model 1894” is lever-action repeating rifle. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Winchester, Model and lever-action, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2667271. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1894, 1895, 1901 and 1902.
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This entry incorporates text from “Winchester Model 1894” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.