Winchester’s Proto-Assault Rifle

The Winchester Model 1907 has come up twice in recent posts. Eli McCullogh is wielding one in The Son, and it appears that soldadera Clara de la Rocha was armed with one during the Mexican Revolution.

I was not at all familiar with the rifle previously, so I did a little Google-Fu and found a wonderful site, Old School Guns. There’s an excellent entry on the Winchester 1907 that you can read in its entirety here.

The Winchester 1907  was a blowback operated semi-automatic firing 10 to 20 rounds of .351 Winchester loaded from a box magazine. The cartridge was ballistically something like a slightly juiced-up .357 Magnum — a 180 grain 35 caliber bullet at 1,800 fps.

As Old School Guns notes:

The Model 1907 has some proto assault rifle features, namely an intermediate power cartridge, detachable magazine, and semi automatic (sometimes converted to full automatic) operation. In addition the rifle is easily separated into upper and lower receiver groups, like a modern AR-15 rifle.

The Model 1907 was well ahead of its time but the value of its utility and advanced features were appreciated by only a few. During World War I, it was certainly a more sensible path to hand held semi automatic firepower than the ill fated Pedersen Device which was developed for the Model 1903 Springfield rifle. One can only wonder if the wide scale use of the Model 1907 in World War I would have saved some Doughboys’ lives.

The rifle did see some service in the First World War, among the French and even the Russians. And both lawmen and outlaws of the Great Depression crime wave used ’em. Quite a badass piece, actually.

Like ZZ Top said, Women go crazy for a sharp-dressed (and well-armed) — man.