By Caleb McClain
Growing up, we were the kind of family that owned one gun for each job—a rifle for deer, a shotgun for birds, a .22 for plinking, and a pistol for protection. It isn’t unusual for me to show up at the range today with more guns in the back of my truck on a single morning than we owned as a household through most of my childhood. All obsessions start somewhere, and mine for collecting calibers began with a Winchester Model 71.
I first saw it on the gun rack. It was an old lever action with maybe 50% of its original bluing left and a scuffed-up stock from years of abuse, but mechanically sound. A note card was taped to the stock that read:
Winchester 71
.348 Win
$400
Comes with ammo
The Winchester Model 71
I researched it, learned that it was a screaming deal, scraped together whatever paychecks I hadn’t already spent on beer and Copenhagen, and bought it.
You can’t talk to hunters long without hearing about the Model 70, and with good reason. For nearly a century it’s taken everything from squirrels to elephant. The Model 71, though, never quite caught on; it became a cult classic. Say “Winchester Model 71” to most hunters and shooters and you’ll get, “You mean the 70?” Still, the 71’s performance is impressive.
The Model 71 was an upgraded version of the Model 1886, released in 1935 and chambered only in .348 Winchester, a cartridge created by necking down the massive .50-110 case to accept a .348 projectile. The combination proved deadly at moderate ranges; the most popular load was a 200-grain bullet at a little over 2,500 fps. This is noticeably slower than a comparable 200-grain in the .35 Whelen, but close to the action’s maximum capacity.
The idea was to give buyers a “do-it-all” round for game from whitetails to grizzlies. With more powder behind a lighter bullet than similar rounds like the .45-70, the .348 delivered significantly less drop. For example, a 200-grain bullet in .348 Winchester has about the same drop at 300 yards as a 300-grain in .45-70 does at 400 yards.
Sightings in the Wild
I suspect the 71’s uniqueness helped doom it. It was only ever offered in one caliber, and that caliber wasn’t used in other factory rifles. The .348-inch bullet was an oddball when .358-inch offerings were already established. The Model 71 was an improved, and therefore costly, version of an already expensive 1886 design, which kept the retail price high. And the extra powder that made it flat shooting also produced more recoil than many hunters wanted.
Those factors slowed adoption. Only about 70,000 were made over 23 years, far fewer than the Model 70. Production stopped in 1958, with only a few extremely limited remakes afterward.
Today the Model 71 mostly lives in the shadows. It is prized by lever-gun collectors and relied on by rural Alaskans who want serious bear protection but forgotten by the average hunter in the woods. It isn’t dead though. In 2019 Hornady released a single load for it, the first commercially available ammunition in decades.
And mine? I traded that Model 71 away when I was 20 for another “do-it-all” rifle: a Browning BAR in .300 Winchester Magnum. Ironically, this too became another gun I wish I hadn’t sold.
I wish I still had the 71. I’ve even been eyeing one on GunBroker recently. Maybe it’s time to go place a bid.
