Okay guys..I need a definitive answer

[Doc Hoy]

I have been considering an 1866 to 1873 Winchester clone.

You all know I am an unabashed tightwad.

I have been looking at the Chaparral 1866 that has been going for about 750 - 800 delivered.

How close is this rifle to the original 1866 Winchester. I know the Chaparral has a steel receiver but I think I actually like that.

I also know that the reliability of this rifle has a bad reputation.

My only question is, part from the steel receiver, how far off is it from historically accurate?

Can you be specific?

[Bootsie]

If you want either a replica of a Win 66 or 73, if dimensional correctness is the key issue and you don't mind getting one that is out of production do yourself a favor and stay away from CA guns.
Rather find yourself a well maintained ASM/Euroarms Win 73 in .44-40 cal. in rifle or carbine configuration.
You will not be disappointed.
Bootsie

[Hawg]

Is a dude on another forum bought a steel frame 66 off gunbroker not long ago but it had some kind of minor issue and he sent it back. He said parts for it were unobtainable.

[Doc Hoy]

Yep. Thanks for sharing all of the potential problems buying a CA rifle.

But my question is about historical accuracy.

I guess where I am going with this is that i am trying to figure out where those rifles fit in the market when they were being manufactured. I don't read anywhere of original 66s made with a steel frame. Some of the listings for CA 66s refer to them as King Upgrade or King Version, so somebody was trying to more or less evoke historical accuracy. All I can tell from the photos in the listings is that the rifle "looks" like a 66 with a steel frame and the loading gate on the side. No internal photos, so I can't tell what the action looks like (which I guess is why I am worrying you to to death.)

I would just like to know how different the CA 1866 is from the original rifle both in appearance and in internal configuration.

I would buy one of these rifles at the right price (not 719.00), steel frame and all, and figure if it broke I'd be in a pile. I don't shoot any of my rifles all that much so reliability would not likely be an issue unless the rifle was broke when I got it. I just don't want to get a rifle and find out after the sale that there are too many dissimilarities with its namesake.

[Bootsie]

FWIW: the ASP/Euroarms 73 is technically/dimension wise of the replicas in the market closest to the real thing.
One other thought since period correctness seems to be so important to you: none of the 66 replicas available or that were made incl. the CA are available in the period correct caliber which is .44 Henry.
I would let a 66 replica go away if she were in .44 Colt/.44 Spec. and call that kind of .44 Henry CF. But .38 Spec., .44-40 or .45 Colt in a 66 are certainly not PC.
.44-40 cal. in a 73 is period correct.
Bootsie

[Doc Hoy]

I am with you but I don't want to start reloading .44-40. It would be my seventh caliber and since reloading them is a little problematic I am fairly certain that I will stick with a replica probably in .45 LC. or maybe .44 Magnum. I load only black powder or subs.

Tnx,

Barry

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

The original Winchester Model 1866 was never made with a steel receiver. They were all brass framed. Actually the frames were made of a type of bronze called Gun Metal, but they have been called brass for so long that brass has become the accepted term.

The King's Patent loading gate was the chief difference between the '66 and the earlier Henry rifle. The loading gate allowed the rifle to be loaded from the side, rather than from the front the way the Henry was. The side loading gate meant that the the brass follower with the tab sticking down out of the bottom of the magazine was no longer necessary, so the '66 was the first lever gun with a wooden forearm.

I can't speak specifically for how the frame of the Chaparral rifles were made, whether or not they are steel, but any replica of the 1866 will have a toggle link action similar to the originals. The parts will not be interchangeable, but they will be similar.

Chaparral made a big splash in the Cowboy Action Shooting world a few years ago, but they were pretty much a flash in the pan. I don't know anybody who bought one. If you want a '66, buy an Uberti. Currently made, plenty of smiths know how to work on them, and parts are available.

If you are talking absolute historical accuracy, ALL modern 1866 replicas have the frame stretched slightly longer in the area that houses the carrier, because the calibers they are chambered for today are longer than the original 44 Henry Rimfire cartridge was. In order to handle longer cartridges like 45 Colt and 44-40 the carrier and the frame had to be lengthened a little bit.

Lastly, loading 44-40 is no big deal. I have been loading it for years. It is a bit fussier than loading 45 Colt, but once you have it figured out it is no big deal. You will not find a '66 chambered for 44Mag, at least not from Uberti. The only calibers it is currently chambered for are 45 Colt, 44-40, and 38 Special. The brass frame will not take the pounding of 44 Magnum, nor 357 Magnum. If you are loading for Black Powder you really should consider 44-40, the thin brass expands better to seal the bore than the thicker brass of 45 Colt does. It makes for no blowby into the action. Much easier to clean up after Black Powder than a rifle chambered for 45 Colt.

[James K]

The toggle action of those replicas, like the originals, is not very strong. It was adequate for the old black powder rounds but a modern replica should be kept to the original BP pressures, meaning no .45 Colt "Ruger" loads. Even if the frame is steel rather than brass (gun metal), the links and pins were never designed for high pressures.

Jim

[Doc Hoy]

DJ,

Thanks for the post. It is essentially what I was looking for.

JK,

I load only BP and I am avoiding full loads of Triple Seven in my .45 LC. rounds.

[Hawg]

Doc, once you get the hang of reloading 44-40 its pretty easy. You will probably crush a few cases while you're getting the hang of it tho. DJ is right, the 44-40 is so much easier to clean up than anything else. Just leave a fired case in the chamber while cleaning the bore. BTW the Uberti 73 is chambered for .357 and .44 mag. http://www.uberti.com/1873-rifle-and-carbine

[44 Dave]

Not kidding about the .44-40 cartridge sealing the barrel. Last week I dropped an spent brass in my old '73 while cleaning it and when I pulled the jag back out the barrel the patch got sucked right off the jag and back into the barrel.

[Doc Hoy]

I guess if I could find a .44-40 for a decent price I'd not shy away from it.

That goes for 1873 Winchester too, not just a 66.

As regards seven different calibers I guess I can handle it.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Not kidding about the .44-40 cartridge sealing the barrel. Last week I dropped an spent brass in my old '73 while cleaning it and when I pulled the jag back out the barrel the patch got sucked right off the jag and back into the barrel.

Howdy Again

When cleaning Black Powder fouling out of a 44-40 rifle I never use a jag. I place an empty 44-40 case in the chamber and close the lever. Then I place a patch into the slotted end of my cleaning rod, I do not use a jag. I dip the patch into my favorite water based BP cleaning solution and twirl the patch down the barrel with the rifle held muzzle up. After three or four patches the barrel is basically clean, with the fouling all washed down into the case in the chamber. Then I turn the rifle upside down and eject the spent case onto the ground. A spray of dirty cleaning solution will spray out with the empty, be careful not to spray it onto yourself. Obviously this is not done over a white carpet. Then a patch soaked with Ballistol down the barrel, and a dry patch to mop up most of the Ballistol, just leaving a light coat in the bore. With 44-40 there will be very little fouling that makes its way past the chamber and into the action. I scrub out the cartridge elevator on a toggle link gun (Henry, 1866,1873) with some Ballistol on a rag or patch. I work a little bit of Ballistol into the action with q-tips. The gun is clean in about five minutes.

The reason I do not use a jag is because the patch and jag can get jammed inside the empty case in the chamber. Great gnashing of teeth will result. A patch in the slotted end of the cleaning rod will not get jammed, and it will stay with the cleaning rod, not get left behind.

[Jbar4Ranch]

Originally Posted by Driftwood Johnson

The side loading gate meant that the the brass follower with the tab sticking down out of the bottom of the magazine was no longer necessary, so the '66 was the first lever gun with a wooden forearm.

Pretty sure the Spencer had a wooden forearm.

[Old Stony]

I've been loading most of the old rifle cartridges for years from 25/20 through 44/40 and all the hoopla about them being hard to load is way overblown. The thin brass seals the chamber well at the lower pressures and does what it is supposed to do. I can't remember the last time I had to throw away a case as a result of it getting crumpled up.....and even if you did occasionally lose one, it's no big deal.

[Jim Watson]

All I have for reference are Flayderman, Madis, and Houze.
I see no mention of an iron framed 1866 Winchester although there were a few iron 1860 Henrys.
The extremely obscure Winchesters of 1867 and 1868 were iron framed but had sideplates foreshadowing the 1873.

King's Improvement is the loading gate. Any modern advertising invoking King is just trying to convince you that you are getting something SPECIAL.

[Hawg]

I've been loading most of the old rifle cartridges for years from 25/20 through 44/40 and all the hoopla about them being hard to load is way overblown.

No they're not hard to load but it is a learning experience.

[Doc Hoy]

Thanks for the info.

And if I understand correctly, the side loading gate was characteristic of all 1866 Winchesters. What I mean is that the changes that King made to the Henry are what made it the 1866 Winchester in a way of speaking.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Pretty sure the Spencer had a wooden forearm.

Sorry, I was talking specifically about the Henry - Winchester line of lever guns.

The Henry rifle did not spring full blown from the mind of B. T. Henry. It was an evolutionary advancement on the work of Daniel Wesson and Horace Smith who developed the Volcanic repeater, which was in turn a further development of the work of Hunt and Jennings.

Yes, there were a few Henry rifles made with iron frames. The estimates are somewhere between 200 and 400. Nobody knows exactly how many. In 1860 Oliver Winchester was having trouble getting investors to line up to sink money into the venture. With the outbreak of the Civil War in April of 1861 it suddenly became obvious that producing high quality repeating rifles would be a good investment. Winchester ordered top of the line equipment to produce the rifles, but some of the equipment took 15 months before it was ready. In the meantime, there is evidence that Winchester tried to speed up things by contracting out iron frames and butt plates to the Arcade Malleable Iron Company of Worcester Mass. There is even speculation that Colt may have produced some iron parts for the Henry rifle while Winchester was attempting to bring the new factory in New Haven up to speed. This information comes from The Historic Henry Rifle by Wiley Sword.

Here is a link to an Iron Framed Henry that was up for auction a few years ago. It includes good photos of the gun.

http://www.rockislandauction.com/vie...id/51/lid/1492

Later in production, once all the equipment in the factory was operating, all of the subsequent Henry rifles had the bronze, gunmetal frames I spoke of earlier. Although the Henry patents go back to 1860, production did not really get going until 1862. Production of the Henry rifle ceased in 1866 after only about 14,000 had been made.

To understand the advancement the side loading gate represented, one has to understand how awkward it was to load the Henry. Here are a few photos of my Uberti replica 1860 Henry.

This is the muzzle in the closed position.




This is how the gun was loaded. The brass follower has been completely pulled up the length of the magazine. The magazine spring is completely compressed in the shroud surrounding the barrel. The brass piece is the follower, specifically it is the tab of the follower that rides in the slot at the bottom of the magazine. Once the follower had been drawn the length of the magazine, the false muzzle was rotated to expose the end of the magazine. The end of the magazine is visible, notice the slot. The magazine of the Henry rifle was not a separate tube as with all the subsequent Winchesters, it was an integral part of the barrel, with the tube formed over a mandrel.





In this photo, cartridges have been loaded into the magazine and the false muzzle has been rotated to the closed position. Several cartridges are visible through the slot. Ignore the wooden spacer stick, that is a modern crutch. You can see a bit of the magazine spring in front of the follower tab, it is completely compressed at this point.





This photo shows follower tab protruding through the slot at the bottom of the magazine. The tab slid back the length of one cartridge every time the action was manipulated. It was necessary to have this arrangement in order to compress the spring and get the follower out of the way for loading from the front.




There were several disadvantages to the design.
The open slot allowed dirt and mud into the magazine, which could bind up the gun.
If the shooter accidentally blocked the follower tab with his hand while firing the rifle, it stopped feeding fresh rounds into the action.
Because of the slot arrangement, a wooden forend was not practical. The bare steel got very hot in the summer when fired with Black Powder ammunition.

Towards the end of Henry production, a few experimental models were made using the side loading gate. These were prototypes only, and never made it to production. A few years ago Uberti offered a few replicas of these for sale, they were marketed as 'transitional' Henry rifles.

In 1866 Oliver Winchester and B. T. Henry had a falling out over money. While Winchester was on vacation in Europe, Henry tried an end run around him and tried to take over the company, petitioning the Connecticut legislature to change the name to the Henry Repeating Arms Company. Oliver Winchester got wind of it in Europe and cut his vacation short, putting an end to Henry's attempt. Winchester then changed the name of the company to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company.

In 1866 the first true Winchester was introduced. It was sometimes called the Improved Henry. It incorporated the Kings Patent loading gate. The magazine was made from a separate tube, hanging below the barrel. This simplified the manufacturing process. Because the protruding tab of the follower was no longer needed, a wooden forend was fitted, solving the problem of dirt in the magazine and isolating the shooter's hand from the hot barrel. This model did not become known as the Model 1866 until 1873 when the Model 1873 was introduced. Previous to that it was simply known as the Winchester, or the Improved Henry. The Model 1866 was always made with a bronze gunmetal frame, there were never any made with an iron or steel frame. The Model 1866 fired the same anemic 44 caliber Henry Rimfire ammo that the Henry rifle had fired. Towards the end of production, a few 1866s were made up chambered for a centerfire version of the 44 Henry cartridge. It still had the same 28 or so grains of FFg in the case as the rimfire cartridge did. These centerfire 1866s were mostly sent to South America.

The first true centerfire Winchester did not appear until 1873, with the Model 1873, chambered for the brand new 44 WCF (44-40) centerfire cartridge. The 44-40 was a more powerful cartridge, holding 40 grains of powder, and because of this the first 1873 rifles had iron frames, later steel. The Model 1866 was produced concurrently with the Model 1873 up until 1898. It was the last rifle Winchester ever produced with a bronze, gunmetal frame.

[Fingers McGee]

Originally Posted by Doc Hoy

Okay guys..I need a definitive answer

Okay. I think you should go with a Uberti repro of the 1866 Winchester Carbine in 44-40.

No, Wait..... I mean ...........you should go with an 1873 Winchester short rifle in 44-40.

No......... Wait......... I definitely think you should go with an 1873 Winchester sporting rifle with pistol grip stock in .38-40; yeah that's the ticket...........

Nooooooooooooo, Waaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiitttt. You should not delay and purchase yourself an iron frame 1860 Henry in 44 Mag...........or,

Oh crap, just get whatever floats your boat. Any replica pistol caliber Winchester will give you years of enjoyment. Besides, once you get one; you'll want more.

[Driftwood Johnson]

You should not delay and purchase yourself an iron frame 1860 Henry in 44 Mag

I don't think so. Not in 44 Mag. You won't find the 1860 Henry chambered for that cartridge.

[Fingers McGee]

I don't think so. Not in 44 Mag. You won't find the 1860 Henry chambered for that cartridge.

Well crap, It'll have to be in 44-40 then.

Whatever you do, stay away from 45 Colt. It isn't authentic for anything (yeah, yeah, you don't have to tell me, 44-40 isn't authentic for a '66 or Henry either).

Or.................... an 1873 Carbine in 44 mag; yeah, that's the ticket, a 44 mag '73. Mmmmmmmmm sweeeeet.

[James K]

There is a neat little detail shown in the pics of the Henry rifle. The front latch (magazine cap) has a spring and plunger that pulls the latch backward locking it in place so the sleeve* won't turn accidentally. (You can see the notch in the front band in Picture #2.)

But when the follower is pushed all the way forward, it pushes the back end of the plunger, pushing the latch forward (as shown) and allowing the sleeve to be turned for loading. That not only made sure the follower was all the way forward for loading, but kept the user from trying to turn the sleeve when the the follower was to the rear and damaging the magazine spring. Oddly, it took me a while to realize how that business worked until I tried to turn the sleeve on a Henry when I shouldn't have. I am glad I didn't do something wrong and mess up the gun - it wasn't too valuable then, but would be darned expensive today.

Jim

*With all respect, I don't like calling that part a false muzzle, since that term is used for a quite different device, used with a muzzle loader.

Jim

[Doc Hoy]

Thanks again for another piece of info on present day rifles in comparison to originals....

To Fingers:

You are right....I think everyone who reads anything from me, knows that I am not happy unless I have at least two of everything out there. (Except for the LeMat and the Paterson because I hate the looks of them. I won't buy either of those pistols until everyone else is giving them away.) So your advice to get one of each is probly what will eventually happen, even if you were joking. (BTW...It was funny but unfortunately it was funny cause it is probly an accurate reflection of the outrageous way I do business.)

I am not trying to decide to buy or not buy a rifle from Chaparral Arms based on reliability. I know the reliability of the rifle is not up to par at least from the experience of those on the forum. I am trying to decide to buy or not buy a Chaparral arms rifle based on the obvious compromises they made not only to reliability but to historical accuracy. I am already leaning against because of the steel frame issue. If I were to learn that there are obvious differences in the appearance of the Chaparral Arms 1866 APART from the frame I would only get one at a low price and only after I had purchased a historically accurate 1866 and a historically accurate 1873.

In fact, when I learned of the Chaparral Arms 1866, it was because I was searching "1873 Winchester". The rifle came up on GB because in the vendor's title they call it an "1866 Winchester 1873". I still don't understand where the 1873 tagged on the end came from unless it is a cheap trick by the vendor to lure in unsuspecting and uninformed (like me) bidders. I hate those kind of tricks as much as I hate 35.00 to ship a revolver in the U.S. That alone would send me looking elsewhere no matter what.

Y'all have already convinced me that I ought to be reloading .44-40. So this opens up the possibilities.

[Fingers McGee]

We're both a lot alike Doc. Will stand by anticipating your test reports; when you decide what to get.