I would like to know since I have one as you described.

I've been trying to sort out the Winder tales for some years.  Here is my version:   

Winchester made .22 rimfire muskets about as soon as the Single Shot Musket was listed in their catalog, but did not sell many.  The early ones (both in Short and later in Long Rifle) were fitted with 2 bands and left-over sights from the Hotchkiss rifles (all that, more or less).   

Winchester was busy, but paid attention to potential markets.  In 1900, "military miniature rifle shooting" (what evolved into 4-position smallbore indoor and outdoor shooting) was brought to the US.  Certainly, the Winchester R&D guys looked at the emerging market with the High Wall musket in mind.   

Stevens also watched the emerging market.  Within a year or two, Stevens was producing the Stevens-Pope .22 LR barrels for the Krag service rifle.  Winder & several other National Guard officers bought them (probably with state funds) and converted several dozens of Krags to .22 LR.

Using Krags as .22 training rifles produced very positive results, but in 1904, Winder & the others got into trouble for converting Krag service rifles without authorization.  That is when Winder got a Winchester Single Shot Musket for himself. Did he buy it?  Did Winchester give it to him?  Did Winchester put the Krag sight on a 2-band musket or did Winder do it himself?  In any event, a 2-band High Wall in .22 Long Rifle with a Krag rear sight is now a First Model Winder.

After using his rifle, Winder wrote to Winchester suggesting some modifications.  Winchester management liked Winder's ideas and hired him as a consultant.  The Second Model has one band, a perch-belly military forearm and a Krag rear sight mounted directly ahead of the High Wall action.  They were made in both .22 Short (mainly for indoor use) and in .22 LR.  My 2nd Model barrel (on a 3rd Model) is slightly larger in diameter at the breech end and with a marginally different taper than the later 3rd Models.  A 3rd Model forearm does not fit.  Winchester made the 2nd Model Winder for 10+ years, but did not sell too many, maybe 8,000?

The 3rd Model, with High Wall actions milled to Low Wall profile, and with a Lyman 53 rear sight, was produced  in .22 Short for military contracts from December 1917 through November 1918.  Those in Long Rifle (with or without flaming bombs) were probably assembled post-war from parts on hand.  They were sold thru the DCM and by Winchester.  Maybe 17,000 total?

CW wrote on Apr 19^th, 2018 at 9:41am:


That's Bert, the chief moderator of the Winchester Collectors forum, in Wa. state.  The Win SS is his specialty, but he never so far as I know produced a work on it alone.  He's a gold mine, however, of info about them.  What he did publish is the Red Book of Win. values.

CW wrote on Apr 20^th, 2018 at 1:15pm:


Seems pretty clear to me now merely from the preceding comments.  Some WRA document that defines the specifications?  It doesn't exist, because as I previously pointed out, WRA did NOT use "Winder" as applied to anything--it's collector's terminology.

CW wrote on Apr 20^th, 2018 at 3:51pm:


An ignorant misuse of the term; although probably (because of the senselessness of that cartridge in a musket) quite a rare chambering.    

Redsetter wrote on Apr 20^th, 2018 at 2:08pm:

Having now read the 2010 winter issue of the Winchester Arms Collector, it is pretty clear there was a Gov contract with a contract number and specifications for what they were buying from Winchester. There is a lot of good data in that issue.

Also, to put this into perspective, knowing something about the timeline and relationship Charlies Winder had with Winchester is very helpful.

Old-Win wrote on Apr 28^th, 2018 at 6:24pm:


No--only the 3rd model, the so-called Model 87, was built with a cut down high wall receiver. (Should have been done at the outset of the Winder saga, because chambering a HW  for .22 RF is idiotic.)  WRA did this, rather than use LW rcvrs.,  because, it is believed, there was a surplus of unfinished HW rcvrs. in the parts bins, and the 87 was seen as a way to use them up, despite the extra machine work required.

Campbell described all this in Vol. 1 of his two SS books.  However, a better account of the whole Winder story is found in M. D. Waite's March, 1978, Rifleman article, "Col. Winder and His Musket."  (Waite was the best of the Rifleman's technical writers from the '60s to the '80s. No Campbellian speculations, just the facts.)  

Rebel wrote on Apr 29^th, 2018 at 12:15am:


Where, specifically, did I previously claim to be more of an expert than Campbell?   

But on the subject of Winchester scopes, ABSOLUTELY.

Redsetter wrote on Apr 29^th, 2018 at 12:23am:

Is this thread about the Winder Musket, or about Winchester scopes?      

Waterman,

You reminded me of a chat I had with an old Army Drill Sergeant back at Ft. Belvoir. There were some old multi-story brick buildings there that were used as barracks. We were prowling around through the attics of those buildings one evening, and he mentioned that those attics had once been used as indoor rimfire rifle ranges. Records may be available from a Post historian.

How do the Stevens 414 and English miniature rifles fit into this timeline?
Aaron

waterman wrote on Apr 29^th, 2018 at 12:39pm:


Grant said first listed in catalog #52, which would be about 1910. But my 52 doesn't contain it, so Grant's 52 must have been a revised ed., as Stevens frequently issued.  It's in #53, mine dated 1912.

BP wrote on Apr 29^th, 2018 at 3:10pm:


Get out your notebook, & Vol. 2.

Page 194--re: "fire-saled" A5s, allegedly due to quality-control issues.  No-most of these were military-purchased scopes used for purposes other than sniper issue, such as artillery bore scopes, which were auctioned off after WWI.   

Page 195--here begins his reiteration of the Prof. Hastings myth of "compensating errors."  Talk to a competent optical engineer (which I did): sheer marketing nonsense.  Anybody with an optical bench can measure the characteristics of a lens system--there are no "secrets" to be hidden.

Page 196-7--here is presented his crackpot theory of a "trick lens system" contrived not by the Prof but copied from the Cummins Duplex scope.  (Which you can learn more about in GD 2005, if you're interested.)  His bizarre misinterpretation of the ray-tracing shown in the Cummins patent drawing reveals that he must have been too busy theorizing to consult an elementary optics manual that would have explained what he was looking at in this drawing.  '"I'm sure to get myself in trouble on this one too."  Serious scholars of anything usually take pains to avoid getting themselves "in trouble" with uninformed speculation. 

Page 197--"purchased Stevens Scope Co."  Need I say more?

Page 221--another reference to the nonsense of "optical trickery" again.

Incidentally, much of what appeared in this A5 discussion bears a rather remarkable resemblance to two papers which appeared in the May & July, 1998, issues of the SSJ; that's several months prior to the publication of Vol. 2.

Thank you,
Aaron

The Winchester A5 telescope sight belongs in a separate thread.  But all the business about offsetting inaccuracies should not be blamed on Mr. Campbell.  He was only repeating that which had been in print in some of the firearms classics for 70-plus years.  

Phil Sharpe mentions it in "The Rifle in America" (p.228 in a column headed "Winchester Telescope Sights").  That book has a copyright date of 1938 and was written earlier.  

Townsend Whelen discusses the Winchester A5 telescopic sight in much detail in his 1918 book "The American Rifle".  He gives detailed instructions on disassembling the A5 and putting it back together again.  And does not mention any offsetting inaccuracies.

Our definition of "bore scopes" has shifted enormously in the last 100 years.  Now we are referring to some gizmo that makes it possible to examine our rifle bores in minute detail.  

In 1917, a bore scope was inserted into the bore of an artillery piece and was used to align the sights of the cannon with a distant aiming point, much as a rifle is "bore-sighted" today.  They may well have been used in conjunction with a "sub-caliber firing device".  The ones I learned about in the Navy in December 1961 were the barreled actions of a .30-40 Krag rifle inserted into the breech of an artillery piece.  We still had latter-day Krag ammunition in storage.

I should have added that 1904 is when Charlies Winder and Winchester began an official association to produce a standard training musket.

Some of the earliest first variation Winder Muskets have forward mounted Hotchkiss barrel sights. The pictures show them to be mounted about 3-4 inches in front of the receiver ring.
"Also must be either Short or Long Rifle, not WRF or Extra Long."
Good call on that. Just one Winder was found marked 22 Long. All others being 22 Short  or  22 Long Rifle.
 

Thanks for pointing that out. The point you make is exactly why I am posting this thread in the first place.
Because "Winder" is a reference and not a model, there is a lot of subjective interpretation here.  
I understand your thinking and am happy to go along with it.

However.....

A few sources include these Hotchkiss sight rifles in the early transition and suggest this is what Winchester was providing to Winder and all as standard.This info is sourced from Campbell.  

You are right, Winder did not want the Hotchkiss, too crude for the task.

Shortly in to it, still early on, according to M.D.Waite, a Winchester factory sightless Winder rifle could be special ordered without the Hotchkiss, but drilled and taped for the Krag sight, and the buyer would have to provide the Krag rear sight. 

There is more on this area of early developmental Winders written by Bert Hartman and I will try to post some of the later.  Gota go.
Thanks for posting. I am looking for this kind of trouble shooting. Keep it coming.

OldRvr wrote on Jul 31^st, 2018 at 11:16pm:


I'm guessing that yours must be a 3rd Model, with the action milled to Low Wall profile.  Aslo, what is the general range of your serial number?  Not exact, but the first three digits (example 126,XXX).  And a photo showing the right side of the rifle, if you would.  Thanks.

Speaking of misrepresentation, etc in Campbell's books. 

Some things are pure fantasy or maybe the way he thought things ought to be.
An example is the metallurgy of the late receivers. The data is correct however the representation of origin is not. 

I didn't work for any of the organizations he claimed in vol 1 or vol 2. I simply had a good relationship with the metallurgist at Pacific Machinery and Tool Steel back when they still had the emission spectrograph operational. I provided a piece of the top tang and he 'shot' it and provided me with the analysis nicely printed on line printer paper.

My job had nothing to do with metallurgy. I spent most of my career supervising the feed and fertilizer analysis for the WA. state Dept of Ag. The analysis was meant to keep the dealers honest. Sometimes it worked sometimes not depending on politics. 
As a side comment only a few dealers mean to cheat: an off analysis is more often the result of incompetence, inattention, stupidity, low wages, the list goes on and on.