Winchester Model 88

About the Winchester Model 88

The Winchester Model 88 is an American magazine-fed lever-action hunting rifle produced by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company from 1955 to 1973. Unlike traditional tube-fed lever guns, it used a detachable box magazine and a rotating bolt with three locking lugs driven by the lever, allowing it to safely handle high-pressure pointed-tip rifle cartridges such as the .308 Winchester. Its enclosed hammer, side ejection, and one-piece walnut stock with a pistol grip made it well suited to mounting a telescopic sight, combining the fast handling of a lever action with near-bolt-action accuracy.

The Model 88 was Winchester's first all-new lever-action design in over eighty years and was developed to fire modern high-velocity, spitzer-bullet cartridges that traditional tubular-magazine lever guns could not safely chamber.

Winchester Model 88 specifications

Chambered in .308 Winchester, .243 Winchester, .284 Winchester and .358 Winchester over its production run. Standard rifles had a 22-inch (559 mm) barrel; a 19-inch (483 mm) barreled carbine variant was introduced in 1968.