Winchester Model 1895: Theodore Roosevelt’s Big Medicine

Theodore Roosevelt sailed for Mombasa in March 1909 with a battery of four rifles and a shotgun. Two of them were Winchester Model 1895s in .405 Winchester: a cartridge developed just five years earlier, hurling a 300-grain bullet at roughly 2,200 feet per second. Roosevelt called the .405 his “medicine gun for lions.” His personal .405 1895 had a name: Big Medicine.

Across eleven months of safari, Roosevelt and his son Kermit took 512 big-game animals for the Smithsonian: lion, leopard, eland, kudu, hippopotamus, white rhinoceros. The .405 1895 did the lion work, and Roosevelt’s African Game Trails (Scribner’s, 1910) made the rifle famous.

I have one in .405, the chambering TR called his medicine gun for lions. Owning one means owning a piece of a very specific moment in American hunting history. And it means handloading, because factory .405 ammunition has always been intermittent. It also means incredibly strong recoil. My other one is a Winchester Texas Rangers 200th Anniversary Commemorative (Custom Grade) in .30-06. While not as powerful as the .405 Winchester, .30-06 in a lever gun still packs a wallop.

Browning’s Fourth Winchester Lever-Action

By the early 1890s John Moses Browning had sold Winchester three lever-action designs that defined the company’s catalog. The Model 1886 (1884 patent) introduced twin vertical locking lugs and was the first lever-action capable of safely handling .45-70 Government and the larger black-powder big-bore cartridges. The Model 1892 (1892 patent) scaled that action down for pistol-caliber cartridges: .44-40, .38-40, .32-20, .25-20. The Model 1894 (1894 patent) introduced a rear-locking single-lug action, initially for black-powder cartridges and then redesigned for smokeless .30-30 WCF, becoming Winchester’s perennial deer rifle.

The Model 1895 was Browning’s fourth lever-action sold to Winchester, and the one he designed specifically to break free of the tubular-magazine constraint. The patent was U.S. No. 549,345, issued November 5, 1895. (Some sources cite the August 6, 1895 application date; both appear in the literature, and the distinction is application-versus-issue.)

The architectural pivot: box magazine, not tubular

Every prior Winchester lever-action (Henry, 1866, 1873, 1876, 1886, 1892, 1894) used a tubular magazine beneath the barrel. Cartridges sat nose-to-tail, the point of one bullet pressing against the primer of the cartridge ahead. For round-nosed and flat-nosed lead bullets at black-powder pressures and velocities, that was safe enough.

For the new generation of smokeless military and hunting cartridges using pointed (spitzer) bullets, it was not. A spitzer bullet point pressed against the primer of the round in front of it, packed nose-to-primer under recoil at smokeless velocities, presented a documented chain-fire risk: one bullet could detonate the next round and chain the magazine.

Browning’s solution was the non-detachable box magazine beneath the receiver: typically five rounds in a single column in the rifle configurations, with pointed bullets sitting parallel, separated, with no bullet-to-primer contact possible. This made the 1895 the first lever-action rifle that could safely handle modern smokeless spitzer-bullet military cartridges, including the .30-40 Krag, .30-03, .30-06, and 7.62×54mmR service rounds.

The 1895 bridges the black-powder hunting era and the smokeless military era. Most later magazine-fed military rifles went to bolt-actions for cost and pressure reasons; Browning got there first on a lever gun.

The action

The 1895 uses a rear-locking single vertical lug: lighter and faster-cycling than the 1886’s twin vertical lugs, but adequate for the 50,000-PSI smokeless rifle cartridges of the era. The hammer is external with a half-cock safety. Ejection is to the side, not over the top of the receiver, which made the 1895 scope-friendly in a way the 1894 was not. Relevant for collectors who want to mount glass on a modern reproduction. The stock is two-piece: separate buttstock and a short forend that wraps only the front portion of the barrel. The long, exposed barrel between the receiver and the front of the forend gives the 1895 its distinctive silhouette.

Configurations and Chamberings

Winchester cataloged the 1895 in several configurations:

Magazine capacity varied by cartridge. The larger cartridges (.405 Winchester, .35 WCF) typically held four rounds; the smaller-diameter cartridges (.30-40 Krag, .30-06, .303 British) typically held five.

The smokeless lineup

The 1895’s cartridge list, the lineup that separates it from every Winchester lever-action before it:

Civilian rifles load one cartridge at a time through the top of the open action with the bolt retracted. The Russian-contract muskets have a stripper-clip guide milled into the top of the receiver, which lets a five-round 7.62×54mmR clip (the same clip used by the Mosin-Nagant) charge the magazine from above in one motion. There is no side loading gate; the 1895 is loaded from above, not the side.

Production span

Standard production ran 1896–1931. Some sources cite 1895–1931, counting prototype activity from the patent year. Total production was approximately 425,000 to 426,000 units. Civilian sporting production accounted for roughly 130,000 to 135,000 of that total. The other 294,000 was a single military contract. That contract is the story of how the 1895 got built in the numbers it did.

Theodore Roosevelt’s Winchester Model 1895: “Big Medicine”

Theodore Roosevelt was a Winchester man across his entire hunting life: his Dakota Territory ranch years (1883–1886), his Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition (1909–1910), and his Roosevelt-Rondon Brazilian River of Doubt expedition (1913–1914). He owned and used multiple Winchester models in multiple chamberings, and he matched the rifle to the quarry. The 1873 was his Dakota-years light-game rifle. The Model 1876 in .45-75 WCF was his bison and grizzly rifle. The 1895 was his African and big-game rifle, and the rifle of his post-presidency.

Roosevelt’s signature 1895 was chambered in .405 Winchester, a cartridge developed in 1904 by Winchester partly in response to his known appetite for a Winchester capable of taking the largest African game. He called the .405 “the medicine gun for lions,” a phrase preserved in African Game Trails. His personal name for his .405 1895 was Big Medicine.

The African expedition battery

Roosevelt’s African safari, jointly sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and his own funding, ran from March 1909 (when he sailed from New York for Mombasa) to March 1910, when he returned via Khartoum and a European tour. The expedition collected over 11,000 specimens for the Smithsonian, including the 512 big-game animals.

His battery was diversified:

• Two Winchester Model 1895 rifles in .405 Winchester. His primary heavy-game rifles. He used them on lion, leopard, eland, kudu, wildebeest, hippopotamus, white rhinoceros, and a wide range of plains game.
• A Springfield Model 1903 in .30-03 (later modified to .30-06). His primary medium-game and long-shot rifle.
• A Holland & Holland Royal .500/.450 double rifle. Gifted by a group of his British supporters; used on the largest dangerous game.
• A Fox 12-gauge shotgun. For birds and small game.

Roosevelt wrote about all four in African Game Trails. The .405 1895s come out of the text as his everyday work guns: fast follow-up shots, a generous magazine, and the stopping power to anchor a lion. Roosevelt was specific and repeated about cartridge-to-quarry matching throughout.

The quote, in context

Roosevelt’s articulation of the .405’s role, in African Game Trails:

“The Winchester .405 is, at least for me personally, the ‘medicine gun’ for lions.”

“Medicine gun” was a phrase Roosevelt and other contemporary writers used for the rifle a hunter trusted absolutely for the most dangerous animal he was likely to face. Roosevelt was deliberate with the qualifier: “at least for me personally.” He was naming his lion cartridge, not declaring it the universal choice. The British professional hunters he met in East Africa carried .450/.500 doubles; Roosevelt got his results with the lever gun.

Where his rifles live today

Roosevelt’s surviving personal rifles are distributed across several institutions. Sagamore Hill National Historic Site in Oyster Bay, New York holds many of his personal arms in the house he lived in from 1885 until his death in 1919. The Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site in Manhattan holds additional personal effects. The Smithsonian Institution holds specimens from the African expedition and some associated arms. The Cody Firearms Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming holds Roosevelt-associated arms in a broader Western collection.

The specific museum location of “Big Medicine” (Roosevelt’s named .405 1895) is most commonly cited as Sagamore Hill, though some sources point to the Smithsonian and some to the Cody Firearms Museum. We have not been able to confirm a definitive single attribution from primary curatorial sources; readers planning a visit should call the institution directly to confirm what is currently on display.

Beyond the .405

Roosevelt also owned and used Model 1895s in .30-03 and .30-06 for North American game and for his Brazilian River of Doubt expedition. He was not a single-cartridge man. The .405 was his lion gun; the .30-03/.30-06 1895s were general-purpose rifles for deer, elk, and bear at moderate range. The Brazilian River of Doubt expedition (1913–1914) added a tropical chapter to the 1895’s service record, documented in his Through the Brazilian Wilderness (1914).

The Russian Imperial Contract

The Great War created a catastrophic rifle shortage for the Russian Empire. By 1915 the Russian arsenals at Tula, Sestroretsk, and Izhevsk could not keep pace with mobilization; Mosin-Nagant production was running at maximum capacity and still falling behind. Russian procurement turned to American manufacturers.

Two American firms received the largest Russian rifle contracts. Remington Arms contracted to produce Mosin-Nagant Model 1891 rifles to Russian specification. That contract contributed materially to Remington’s near-bankruptcy when the Bolshevik Revolution cancelled the remaining deliveries in 1917–1918. Winchester Repeating Arms contracted to produce Model 1895 muskets in 7.62×54mmR to Russian military specification.

The Winchester contract called for roughly 300,000 rifles. Production figures most commonly cited in the canonical Madis reference and the Winchester Collectors Association catalog: 293,816 Model 1895 muskets delivered to Russia between 1915 and 1917. This is the largest single-contract production run for any Winchester lever-action ever made. It roughly doubled the 1895’s total production in the space of two years. The contract supported Winchester financially through the war.

How to recognize one

Russian-contract 1895 muskets are visually distinct from civilian production:

• Stripper-clip guide machined into the top of the receiver, allowing five-round 7.62×54mmR stripper clips (the Mosin-Nagant clip) to charge the box magazine from above.
• Full-length military stock. The forend extends nearly to the muzzle, unlike the short sporting forend.
• Bayonet lug beneath the barrel near the muzzle.
• Russian Cyrillic markings on the receiver and barrel: Imperial Russian acceptance proofs, year codes, and the maker’s name in pre-revolutionary Cyrillic (“ВИНЧЕСТЕРЪ” — “Winchester” with the old terminal hard sign).
• Sling swivels on the underside of the buttstock and forend.
• 28-inch barrel, longer than the civilian sporting rifle.

Where they went

The Russian-contract 1895s had complicated post-delivery lives. The Russian Imperial Army issued them from 1915 to 1917. The Provisional Government inherited the stockpile in March 1917 and the Bolsheviks took it in November. The Red and White armies both used 1895s through the Russian Civil War (1918–1922). Finland acquired numbers via inheritance and capture after independence in 1917 and the Finnish Civil War of 1918, and Finnish 1895s saw service through the Winter War (1939–1940) and Continuation War (1941–1944). Significant numbers reached Republican Spain during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), reportedly via Soviet arms shipments. Substantial returning quantities flooded the American surplus market in the 1920s and 1930s, where they often sold cheaper than civilian-production 1895s.

Collecting implications

Russian-contract 1895s are relatively common in the U.S. collector market today. The myth that they are rare is incorrect, given the ~294,000 production and the post-Civil War surplus return. Value depends heavily on condition, original Cyrillic markings, matching serial numbers, and any specific provenance. Sporterized examples (a common 1930s fate, where a cheap surplus musket was cut down for a hunting rifle) sit in the entry tier. Standard Russian-contract muskets in fair-to-good condition with original Cyrillic markings sit in the mid tier. Fine condition with matching numbers and provenance moves into the upper tier, and documented Finnish-marked or Spanish Civil War provenance examples carry premiums on top.

Famous Owners Beyond Roosevelt

African Game Trails was a bestseller and helped popularize African big-game hunting with American hunters. The 1895 in .405 became, for a brief period, the American hunter’s African rifle. Names that followed Roosevelt’s example include Stewart Edward White, novelist and adventurer, who wrote The Land of Footprints (1912) and other African memoirs and used Winchesters extensively. Carl Akeley, the natural-history collector and Smithsonian/American Museum of Natural History collaborator, carried Winchesters on multiple African expeditions. Numerous documented professional safari guides in British East Africa, German East Africa, and Rhodesia ran .405 1895s as practical lion and plains-game rifles in the 1910s and 1920s, before the cartridge faded against the larger British double-rifle calibers and Holland & Holland’s .375 H&H Magnum (introduced 1912), which became the universal medium-bore African rifle for the next century.

Closer to home, the Texas Rangers issued various Winchesters across the early 20th century, and 1895s in .30-40 Krag and .30-06 appear in Texas Ranger Hall of Fame collections. The 1895 was not the dominant police lever-action of its era (that distinction belongs to the Winchester 1894 in .30-30), but it shows up in lawmen’s hands in the 1900s through the 1920s where a heavier cartridge mattered. The largest single body of 1895 military issue was the Russian Imperial Army in 1915–1917; no other Winchester lever-action saw comparable foreign-military deployment.

The Modern Reproductions Market

The 1895’s reproduction market is unusually simple compared to the 1873 or the 1892. There is effectively one producer.

Winchester (Miroku-built)

The modern Winchester brand is owned by Olin Corporation (Winchester Ammunition) and licensed for firearms to Browning Arms Company, which contracts manufacture to Miroku Firearms Manufacturing in Kochi, Japan. The Model 1895 was reintroduced under Winchester/Miroku production in the early 2000s as part of the broader Winchester historical reissue program (which also revived the 1873, 1886, 1892, and 1894 under the same Miroku arrangement).

Standard catalog chamberings are .30-06 Government, .405 Winchester, and .30-40 Krag. Periodic limited runs in other modern chamberings have appeared. Configurations include the Sporting Rifle (24-inch round barrel), Custom Grade and High Grade variants with engraving and fancy walnut, and the periodic Theodore Roosevelt commemorative editions: typically in .405 Winchester with TR-themed engraving and presentation cases. Notable commemoratives include the TR 150th Birthday Commemorative (2008), the TR Safari Centennial (2009–2010), and subsequent limited TR runs. Pristine commemoratives in original packaging trade at a premium over standard production.

Miroku’s manufacturing quality is at the top of the modern lever-action segment, and the 1895 benefits more than most. The box-magazine mechanism is more demanding of fit and finish than a toggle-link or a Browning vertical-lug receiver. The 1895 is in current standing production with Grade I variants in .30-06 Government and .405 Winchester, plus an engraved High Grade option; Guns.com typically has both new and used Miroku 1895s in inventory and is a practical place to check current availability.

Browning-branded production

Browning marketed B-92 carbines in the 1980s and B-78 and B-1885 single-shot rifles, but the 1895 under the Browning brand is less common than under Winchester. Some Browning-branded 1895s exist from the 1980s and 1990s as limited collector runs. Their relationship to the current Winchester-branded Miroku production is one of shared corporate parentage: both lines licensed Miroku as the manufacturer. A used-market rifle marked “Browning Model 1895” is a Miroku-made rifle from a different production era of the same factory and should be evaluated on condition and rarity rather than any mechanical difference.

Who else doesn’t make an 1895

The Italian reproduction industry (Uberti, Pedersoli, Chiappa, Pietta) does not produce a Winchester 1895. The 1895 sits outside their catalog scope. Uberti’s lever-action production focuses on the toggle-link era (Henry 1860, 1866, 1873, 1876) and the Browning-action 1886. Chiappa’s lever-action production is the 1886 and 1892 family. Pedersoli’s lever-action focus is the Lightning-pattern slide-action. Pietta is cap-and-ball revolvers and SAA reproductions, not Winchester lever-actions. Henry Repeating Arms does not produce an 1895 reproduction either. Their lever-actions are their own designs, and their “Original Henry” reproduces the 1860. Rossi produces the Model 92, not the 1895.

The reason is engineering. The 1895’s box magazine, side ejection, and smokeless-era cartridge pressures put it outside the toggle-link / black-powder-era niche that built the Italian reproduction industry in the 1960s and 1970s. If you want a new 1895, you are buying a Miroku Winchester.

Use Cases

Big-game hunting. The 1895 is a serious hunting rifle, not a cowboy-action rifle or a wall-hanger. Its smokeless cartridges and box magazine put it firmly in the modern hunting-rifle category despite its 1895 design date. A Miroku 1895 in .30-06 Government is the most practical hunting choice: universally available ammunition, moderate recoil, adequate for North American deer, elk, moose, and African plains game. A Miroku 1895 in .405 Winchester is adequate for the same quarry and is the chambering chosen by hunters with a Roosevelt enthusiasm. Factory ammunition is limited (Hornady produces a 300-grain factory load, intermittently available), and handloading is the practical answer for serious .405 use. A Miroku 1895 in .30-40 Krag is light by modern standards but adequate for deer and elk at moderate range; factory ammunition is limited, and handloading is common.

Collecting. Original Winchester 1895s trade actively across the auction houses. The Russian-contract musket is the entry point for collectors who want an honest piece of military history. Civilian sporting rifles in .30-40 Krag, .30-06, and .405 Winchester move through Rock Island, Morphy, and the regional shows; .405 examples carry the Roosevelt-cartridge premium. Flat-side early-production rifles command outsize prices for the first roughly 5,000 units; the takedown and deluxe sporting variants move into specialty-collector territory. Authenticate any significant purchase against Madis’s serial-number tables or the Winchester Collectors Association.

Recreational shooting. For Roosevelt enthusiasts, a .405 Miroku 1895 is a destination rifle: a practical way to own and shoot in the cartridge that went to Africa with TR. The .405 is not a casual range cartridge: factory ammunition runs expensive per box of twenty, recoil is substantial (around 30 ft-lb of free recoil from a nine-pound rifle), and the 300-grain bullet limits practical range to whatever your sights and discipline will hold. For lower-cost recreational shooting on the 1895 platform, a Miroku 1895 in .30-06 is the obvious choice: universally available ammunition, moderate cost, and the box-magazine action.

What the 1895 is not. The 1895 is not a Cowboy Action Shooting rifle. SASS culture revolves around late-19th-century black-powder-and-early-smokeless pistol-caliber lever-actions: 1873s, 1892s, and 1894s in the lighter chamberings. The 1895’s smokeless service-rifle cartridges and box-magazine architecture put it outside the spirit of the sport. A Miroku 1895 in .30-40 Krag is occasionally permitted in some side categories of period match-shooting (notably Wild Bunch categories using 1900–1920-era arms), but the 1895 is not the primary action of any major cowboy-action discipline.

Adjacent Rifles — Do Not Confuse

Several rifles get conflated with the Winchester 1895. Two of them share the same year designation and entirely different mechanisms.

The Savage 1895 and the Marlin 1895 are the two confusions worth being especially careful about. Both are real rifles from the same year, both are sometimes called just “the Model 1895,” and neither has any design relationship to Winchester’s 1895. Arthur Savage’s design became the Savage 99; Marlin’s 1895 is currently produced in .45-70 under Ruger. Always specify Winchester Model 1895 when you mean the Browning-designed box-magazine rifle.

Related historical arms in the Winchester / lever-action / black-powder lineage covered elsewhere on this site: the Winchester Model 1873, the toggle-link rifle that defined the .44-40 / Colt SAA cartridge-commonality revolution; the Sharps Rifle, the breech-loading single-shot that defined long-range shooting and the buffalo harvest; the Hawken Rifle, the half-stock plains rifle that preceded the cartridge era; the Pennsylvania Rifle, the long-barreled flintlock that built American rifle culture; and the Enfield Pattern 1853, the British military percussion rifle-musket that armed both sides of the U.S. Civil War.

A Few Myths to Set Aside

“TR’s African rifle was his trusty 1873.” No. Roosevelt’s African battery was the two .405 Winchester 1895s, a Springfield 1903 in .30-03 (later .30-06), a Holland & Holland double rifle, and a Fox shotgun. The 1873 was his Dakota-years light-game rifle, retired well before Africa.

“The Winchester 1895 was a U.S. Army standard arm.” No. The U.S. Army never adopted the 1895 as standard issue. The Army purchased small quantities of 1895s in .30-40 Krag during the Spanish-American War period (1898) for limited issue, but the standard service-rifle progression was Springfield Trapdoor → Krag-Jørgensen → Springfield 1903, all bolt-actions. The 1895’s largest military service was with the Russian Imperial Army, not the U.S. Army.

References and Resources

The canonical reference work for any serious Winchester research is George Madis’s The Winchester Book (1961, with revised editions through the 1980s, ISBN 0-910156-04-9 for the 1985 edition). Out of print and trading on the secondhand market; it remains the definitive authentication reference for everything Winchester produced from the Henry through the 1980s, including the 1895 serial-number tables and configuration breakdowns. R. L. Wilson’s Theodore Roosevelt: Outdoorsman (Winchester Press, 1971, with subsequent editions) is the dedicated reference on Roosevelt’s hunting arms, including detailed coverage of his 1895s in .405 and .30-06. R. L. Wilson’s Winchester: An American Legend (Random House, 1991, ISBN 0-394-57870-2) is more accessible for general readers. Herbert G. Houze’s Winchester Repeating Arms Company: Its History & Development from 1865 to 1981 (Krause, 1994, ISBN 0-87341-262-7) is the corporate-history reference. Browse used copies of Madis’s The Winchester Book.

Roosevelt’s own writing is the primary source on the African expedition and the .405 1895s. African Game Trails (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910), two volumes, is the citation of record; multiple later editions remain in print and Project Gutenberg hosts a free public-domain text. Through the Brazilian Wilderness (Scribner’s, 1914) covers the Roosevelt-Rondon River of Doubt expedition. The Wilderness Hunter (Putnam’s, 1893) and Hunting Trips of a Ranchman (Putnam’s, 1885) cover the Dakota years and the broader TR-Winchester narrative.

Online: the Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University (theodorerooseveltcenter.org) hosts a digital archive of TR papers, letters, and photographs. Sagamore Hill National Historic Site (nps.gov/sahi) is Roosevelt’s home and physical collection. The Cody Firearms Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West (centerofthewest.org) holds physical Winchester collections and serial-number records. The Winchester Collectors Association (winchestercollector.org) hosts the free serial-number lookup tool and an active authentication forum.

The Morphy Auctions (morphyauctions.com) catalog archive is one of the standout marketplaces for rare and historically significant American firearms, and a reliable source for documented original Winchester 1895s: civilian sporters, Russian-contract muskets, and the Roosevelt-cartridge .405 examples that move through specialty auctions. Their catalog archive is worth following whether you are buying, researching, or just looking at very good firearms photography.

The Texas Gun Collectors Association (tgca.org) holds two shows a year that consistently feature original Winchesters and their period contemporaries. Worth attending whether you are buying, researching, or just looking.

If you know of any forums or sites that should be referenced on this listing, please let us know here.

Further Reading