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M AGA Z I N E IN THE LOUPE

The Gun That Won World

War I
Inside a Connecticut factory that produced and
tested the rifle used by British, Russian, and
American troops.

BY EVE CONANT

2 MIN READ

This story appears in the August 2016

issue of National Geographic magazine.

A hundred years ago this month, workers

at the Winchester Repeating Arms
Company in New Haven, Connecticut,
were hard at work. After creating the “Gun
that Won the West”—the Winchester
Model 1873 rifle—they had a new task:
manufacturing guns that could help win
World War I.

At this indoor range, men—perhaps

motivated by pinup pictures and the
urgency of a calendar—adjusted the sights
and tested the accuracy of each gun.
Demand was heavy: In 1915 they made
nearly 250,000 rifles for the British Army
and some 300,000 muskets for Russian
troops.

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After April 1917, when the U.S. joined the

fight, the Model 1917 Enfield would
become the most widely used rifle by
American troops in the war. By then,
instead of testing their rifles indoors, these
men may have been firing them on the
battlefield.