Winchester-Hotchkiss 1883

About the Winchester-Hotchkiss 1883

The Winchester-Hotchkiss 1883 is a bolt-action repeating rifle chambered in .45-70 Government, the third and final model of the Hotchkiss design produced by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Based on patents by Benjamin B. Hotchkiss, it fed from a five-round tubular magazine housed in the buttstock and used a single rear locking lug with a magazine cutoff that let it function as a single-loader while keeping the magazine in reserve. The 1883 model introduced a reshaped receiver, a two-piece stock, and receiver-mounted safety and cutoff levers to cure the stock breakage that plagued the earlier 1879 pattern. The Hotchkiss was the first bolt-action repeater adopted by a major military, serving in limited numbers with the U.S. Navy and Army.

The Hotchkiss was the first bolt-action repeating rifle adopted by any major military power. Benjamin Hotchkiss, an American inventor better known for his artillery and machine guns, sold his rifle patents to Winchester in 1877, but U.S. Army conservatism kept the Trapdoor Springfield in service well into the smokeless-powder era.

Winchester-Hotchkiss 1883 specifications

Approximately 59,446 examples of the 1883 (Third Model) were built, the majority being military muskets. Despite favorable trial performance, the U.S. Army ultimately retained the single-shot Trapdoor Springfield instead of adopting the Hotchkiss as its standard rifle.