Astute shirtmaker made rifle that won the West
In the classic western True Grit, actor John Wayne, playing the gruff, ageing US Marshal Rooster Cogburn, had a Winchester as his weapon of choice. In its most famous scene the “one-eyed old fat man” takes on four men, yelling at them “Fill your hand you son of a bitch” before putting his horse’s reins in his mouth, and riding at them shooting. In one hand he has a pistol, in the other he has a Winchester rifle, which he spins around to cock. While it was his acting that won him an Academy Award for the role, the Winchester and his adeptness with it probably helped make his grit seem more authentic.
He was not the only highprofile actor to use a Winchester. In the popular TV series The Rifleman, Chuck Connors, playing Lucas Mccain, the rifleman of the title, also used a Winchester “Saddle Ring Carbine”, with its distinctive large loop allowing it to be cocked by spinning it around. No one cared that the series was supposed to be set in the 1880s and the Saddle Ring Carbine was not actually manufactured until 1892.
But the Winchester was also used by genuine wild-west cowboys, Native Americans, frontier lawmen and the outlaws they hunted. There are 1880s photos of a young future president Teddy Roosevelt, decked out in a fringed leather buckskin hunting outfit, carrying his favourite Winchester.
For many the name Winchester was a stamp of quality in weaponry.
Yet the man who gave his name to the company that manufactured them was no gunsmith.
Born 210 years ago today, that man, Oliver Winchester, was a canny businessman who took over the
Volcanic Repeating Arms Company founded by Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson (who took the money from selling the company to found Smith &