The Winchester 1890 pump action rifle was one of the first viable repeating rifles chambered in .22 rimfire and it singlehandedly created the gallery gun genre. But it started life almost as an afterthought. In early 1887, John Browning presented Winchester with plans for a pump action shotgun. This design would later become the Winchester 1893 and 1897 shotguns, but only a few years earlier, the company was not interested. Winchester was a lever action rifle company and wanted a lever action shotgun. Browning gave them the Model 1887 lever action shotgun. That model was a technical dead-end and a pump shotgun would have to wait another six years. But in the meantime, the Winchester 1890 was introduced, which did realize Browning’s pump action idea.
Winchester sought a new market with .22 rimfire cartridges that were growing more popular for small game hunting and recreational plinking. Browning’s design was marketed in late 1890 as the Winchester Model 1890. The Winchester 1890 put the repeating .22 rifle on the map and spun off generations of pump action .22s that continue to have its fans.
The Run of the Winchester Model 1890
Pump action rifles had been tried before, like with the Colt Lightning which was produced as early as 1884. However, the Winchester 1890 was the first slide action firearm to see mass sales. It was introduced that year in .22 Short and .22 Long cartridges. The relatively new .22 LR cartridge was skipped over in favor of an even newer cartridge introduced with the Model 1890, the .22 WRF.
The .22 WRF used a longer case than these other rounds and had an inside lubricated bullet. It fired a 45-grain bullet at about 1,400 feet per second. Think of this round as a proto-.22 Magnum in both power and cartridge design. But the .22 Short and .22 Long were the most popular at its debut. In 1906, a simplified version of the Model 1890 featuring a plastic butt-plate and a round barrel was launched as the Model 1906.
Both the Winchester Model 1890 and Model 1906 would be chambered in the .22 LR cartridge starting in 1919 and each model continued on in the Winchester catalog until cost cutting during the Great Depression saw production of both models ended in 1932. Winchester debuted the 62A shortly afterwards, which is an even simpler rifle. In later years, Rossi of Brazil began producing copies of these Winchesters, helping to revive the idea. The Remington Fieldmaster was another domestic design that carried the torch of the pump .22 until Henry Repeating Arms introduced their Pump Action Octagon, which is still made today.
In its 42-year production run, approximately 850,000 Model 1890s were produced in three distinct variations. In its first few years, the Model 1890 featured a solid frame design. But shortly afterwards, the design centered around a casehardened receiver that had a captive screw for breaking the rifle into two distinct pieces for transport and maintenance. The takedown feature was carried over into a third model that could be more conveniently cycled when loaded with an external bolt release. The second model was the most prolific and it is the version I own. My particular Model 1890 is chambered in .22 WRF and its serial number indicates a production year of 1909.
Winchester 1890 for Sale
Where to Find Your Winchester 1890 For Sale
Quirks and Features: A Premiere Pump Action Rifle
The Winchester Model 1890 pump action rifle is equal measures futuristic and in-the-past. It’s 24 inch octagonal barrel and crescent steel butt plate paired to a plain walnut stock harken back to the Plains rifles carried by the latter mountain men and buffalo hunters. But the pump action is a decided step into the future, although it has since been simplified with the passage of time.
The pump action consists of the often-copied corncob walnut fore-end which rides over the tubular magazine housed under the barrel. The fore-end runs a single action bar, which jacks open the bolt and cocks the hammer. On most modern pump shotguns, the hammer and bolt are hidden in the receiver. With the 1890, the bolt sits on top of the receiver. When the pump is pushed rearward, the bolt pushes up to unlock from the receiver and back, rather than straight back as with other designs.
With the hammer cocked, the slide cannot be pulled to the rear as the 1890 has a firing pin safety that prevents the rifle from being fired accidentally out of battery. But if you have a live round in the chamber, the bolt release is the firing pin. Push forward on the firing pin as you work the pump to free the bolt to come to the rear.
The Model 1890 has a tubular magazine with a steel magazine spring, both of which are more substantial than newer .22 rifles which use a thinner-gauge steel for the magazine and a brass spring tube. The .22 Short model holds as many as 15 rounds of ammunition in the magazine and dozen rounds of the longer .22 WRF round.
One interesting feature of the Model 1890 is that the elevator which lifts the rounds from the magazine to the chamber is enclosed, cradling each round. That means it can be difficult to see a round being fed simply by looking down. It also means that the Model 1890 can only feed ammunition it is chambered for. The .22 Long version, for example, can’t be fed .22 Short ammunition as reliably as later guns which use a flat lifter and can feed .22 Short, .22 Long, or .22 LR. Interestingly, some 1890 users have modified .22 Long models to shoot .22 LR with a simple chamber reaming as the case of the .22 Long is the same as the .22 LR.
On the Range with the Winchester 1890
Although I am an equal opportunity rimfire shooter, the Winchester 1890 is one of my bucket list rifles. It goes back to an old Gun Digest compilation of classic rifles. The Model 1890 was the single rimfire featured and a story of a Depression-era family staying in deer meat with the help of an 1890 in .22 WRF left an impression.
Fast forward to 2023 and I have one. It was not a perfect example. It has pitting on the butt-plate and someone has taken an ill-fitting screwdriver and punches to the sights. When broken apart, it looked like it had not been cleaned since it was built.
In spite of its condition, I was delighted that this one has a great bore and is mechanically perfect. But the first thing I noticed with the 1890 is not the action, but its balance in the hand.
.22 rimfire rifles have the benefit of being lighter than their centerfire counterparts. But I never dealt with a rifle so dainty yet steady. The straight wristed stock and trim corncob fore-end appear to be hanging off a barrel. That rifle is mostly that 24 inch barrel. It is heavy and longer than most .22 rifles out there today. In the hand, it is muzzle heavy but balances perfectly at the forward part of the receiver. It weights only 6 lbs. naked, making it just as adept for packing in a kit or toting in the woods as any modern rimfire.
Loading the magazine is as easy as any tube loader, although there is more resistance to withdrawing the steel inner tube and replacing it. Modern brass tubes have less friction, but if you are familiar with a Henry lever action or a Marlin Model 60, you will know how to load the 1890. Draw the knurled end of the tube counter-clockwise from its notch and draw out the magazine tube. Drop your rounds into the loading port and replace the tube.
From there you can rack a round in the chamber and thumb the hammer down into the half-cock notch to carry. To shoot, all you have to do is thumb back that hammer pick up the front post in the rear notch and let fly.
The shooting condition of these old 1890 pump action rifles can be tough to nail down, especially the models in .22 Short. In that chambering, the 1890s were popular as gallery guns. Enterprising gallery owners, eager to cheat customers from winning a prize, sometimes beat the sights over, or mismatched barreled actions with receivers. The 1890s in the more powerful rounds, however, were too much for those types of games and tend to be all-matching. My rifle in .22 WRF is no exception.
Long before I cleaned out the action of this one, the action is buttery smooth to cycle and the recoil of the .22 WRF is inconsequential, although you can hear its sharper crack compared to a .22 LR. I did have a few failures of the bolt going into battery, which required a giggle of the pump to remediate. But after a deep cleaning, that issue went away.
In terms of accuracy, an 1890 with a decent bore is still a worthy contender for the tasks in which it was designed: plinking and small game hunting. The iron sights are course and leave something to be desired. While I have seen a few Model 1906 rifles sporting a rifle scope, Winchesters of this vintage eject their brass straight up, so a scope would have to be a custom job with an offset to avoid the brass. But even with the stock iron sights, I can get my 1890 to shoot just as well as a modern 10/22 with its finer irons.
At 50 yards, I could reliably keep a five-shot group at one inch. At 100 yards, my 8 inch steel silhouettes stood no chance, provided I remembered where to hold. The 1890 has a set screw on the rear sight to tension to adjust for windage. When cranked all the way, my rifle still shot 5 inches higher than my point of aim at 50 yards and 3 inches high at 100. A common aftermarket find on these rifles is the inclusion of a Marbles style peep sight mounted on the tang of the receiver. It is an upgrade I am considering, should I choose to leave the square range to hunt small pig or coyote where the .22 WRF shines as this round is a bit overpowered for rabbit and squirrel.
The Winchester 1890 pump action rifle certainly isn’t for everyone. The irons are not the best and age has only increased fatigue and wear of existing models out there. But there are still so many that finding parts is not an impossibility. This big, small rifle, despite its earlier aesthetic, is uniquely capable as it was when it was produced–a quirk common to all things John Browning.
For more on the smaller caliber side of things:
22 LR vs 25 ACP: All You Need to Know | Breach Bang Clear
0 Comments