Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video episode on ForgottenWeapons.com.
Today we're out here with a military lever action, this is a Winchester Model 1895.
And this particular one is actually in 7.62x54 rimmed, the standard Russian military cartridge.
Now this was obviously 1895 vintage, this was John Browning's first
lever action designed specifically for the new high-pressure, smokeless-powder cartridges.
And it was actually tested early on by the US military in .30-40 Krag.
MacArthur took a couple of hundred of these rifles (without the stripper clip loaders) down to the Phillipines,
tried them out. There was a lot of politics involved, ultimately they didn't accept them.
They claimed that reloading was too difficult, that lever actions weren't strong enough.
... Claims which may have some validity, more likely don't have any validity.
But ultimately the US went to the ... Danish Krag rifle instead.
Well, a couple years later 1915 rolls around, World War One is ongoing,
and the Russian government is pretty well desperate for small arms of just about any type.
So 1915 they actually approached the Remington and the New England Westinghouse companies
to buy hundreds of thousands of Mosin-Nagant rifles.
And at the same time they also approached Winchester and ordered about 300,000 of these rifles
in 54 rimmed, their standard cartridge, and equipped with these charger loading bridges.
And most, if not all, of those rifles were actually delivered to Russia before the communist revolution kind of cut off imports.
And these saw quite a bit of service. The Russians used them. They then wound up in a couple other countries,
some of them were acquired by Finland, ... a lot of them were acquired by Turkey which also made good use of them.
And so we're going to take a look at this one and see how it shoots.
They have a reputation for kicking pretty darn hard.
They've got the typical lever action kind of small buttstock,
nice metal butt plate on there, and 54 rimmed is a potent cartridge.
Now one of the potential military complaints about this design is that
when you cycle the action like this, all the guts are completely exposed.
So there's a lot of opportunity for this thing to get gunky and dirty and jam up.
It certainly would not have been a good weapon on the Western Front in World War One.
But,
it's still pretty cool.
So with the loading guide the idea is these take standard Mosin-Nagant clips,
slide the clip in there, and then you can cycle the rounds
right down into the magazine.
Clips are disposable.
And beyond that, it runs just like any other of Browning's lever actions.
Yeah, little sticky with some of this Russian ammo.
Pretty cool, ... it is a powerful cartridge, this is a relatively light rifle and a small butt plate.
So it's definitely important to hold this nice and tight in your shoulder, and kind of lean into it.
As long as you're used to that and expecting some recoil, it's really not that bad to shoot.
I think it's pretty cool.
Put in a couple more rounds.
So obviously this can be hand loaded. And this is the bit that MacArthur wasn't a big fan of.
There we go.
... Because of this rimmed cartridge, the trick here is to
push it in and then slide back, so that you get the rim in.
Hold that up to the camera so you guys can see it.
Kind of like that.
You have to make sure you get a nice full cycle on the lever, otherwise you do risk not quite fully cocking the hammer.
So there you go guys. These are really cool.
They're fairly rare today, not a lot of them got re-imported back from Russia.
And when you find one, especially in real nice condition like this, they can be kind of pricey.
But they're a really cool piece of military history.
A lot of people don't realise just how many American made rifles went into Russian hands around World War One.
... And then of course stuck around and saw use for decades after that in all sorts of interesting places.
Hope you enjoyed the video, tune in again to ForgottenWeapons.com for more lever actions.
[ sub by sk cn2 ]