Colt Burgess

About the Colt Burgess

The Colt Burgess is a lever-action rifle produced by Colt from 1883 to 1885, the only lever-action long gun the company ever manufactured. Designed by prolific firearms inventor Andrew Burgess, it was chambered in .44-40 Winchester and fed from a 15-round tubular magazine on the rifle (12 rounds on the carbine). Offered with full-octagon, half-octagon, or round barrels, it was Colt's direct challenge to Winchester's dominance of the repeating-rifle market.

Colt only ever built one lever-action rifle, and this was it. Legend holds that the Burgess was withdrawn from the market as part of a gentleman's agreement: Winchester had begun developing its own line of revolvers to threaten Colt's handgun monopoly, and the two companies quietly agreed to stay out of each other's territory, killing the Colt Burgess after barely two years.

Colt Burgess specifications

Roughly 6,403 were built before production ceased. The rifle had a 25.5-inch (650 mm) octagon barrel; the carbine used a 20-inch (510 mm) barrel and weighed about 3.3 kg.