Winchester: An American Legend:; The Official History of Winchester Firearms and Ammunition from 1849 to the Present

New York: Random House, 1991. First Edition [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/good. Photography by G. Allan Brown. xi, [1], 404 pages. Oversized (11.25" wide x 8.75" high.) Illustrated endpapers. Profusely illustrated with over 300 photographs in full color and more than 165 in black and white, Appendix (serial numbers and production tables). Bibliography. Index. Some wear to DJ edges. Name of previous owner and date on title page. By 14, the author and his older brother Jack had amassed a collection of approximately 75 firearms, ranging from an inexpensive .22-cal. Remington bolt-action rifle to various Civil War and Wild West revolvers, derringers, rifles, carbines and muskets. His first book, Samuel Colt Presents, a 314-page publication of the Wadsworth Atheneum was released in 1961, when Wilson was only 22. His most recent publication, History and Art of the American Gun, was published earlier in 2016 and during this span of 55 years, the prolific Wilson averaged approximately one book per year. Wilson also penned 325 articles for a variety of magazines (including more than 20 for American Rifleman). This book was published in celebration of the 125th anniversary of the Winchester marque, and presents for the first time in any major firearms book pictorial and textual material on Winchester's wide range of ammunition. The Winchester Repeating Arms Company is a prominent American maker of repeating firearms. located in New Haven, Connecticut. 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 & Wesson acquired Lewis Jennings' improved version of inventor Walter Hunt's 1848 "Volition Repeating Rifle" and its caseless "Rocket Ball" ammunition, which had been produced in small numbers by Robbins & Lawrence of Windsor, Vermont. Jennings' rifle was a commercial failure, and Robbins & Lawrence ceased production in 1852. Smith designed a much-improved rifle based on Jennings'. In 1855 the Smith & Wesson partnership, in order to manufacture what they called the "Volcanic" lever-action rifle and pistol, sought investors and incorporated as the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company. Its largest stockholder was clothing manufacturer Oliver Winchester. Winchester had the basic design of the Henry rifle completely modified and improved to become the first Winchester rifle, the Model 1866, which fired the same .44 caliber rimfire cartridges as the Henry but had an improved magazine (with the addition of a loading gate on the right side of the receiver, invented by Winchester employee Nelson King) and, for the first time, a wooden forearm. The Henry and the 1866 Winchester shared a unique double firing pin which struck the head of the rimfire cartridge in two places when the weapon was fired, increasing the chances that the fulminate in the hollow rim would ignite the 28 or so grains of black powder inside the case.