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Here for your perusal is Winchester-Lee Model 1895 6mm Navy rifle serial number 18003 with bayonet and scabbard. I should have shipment data from the Cody Firearms Museum in 3-4 weeks.
Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.
Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft.
Theodore Roosevelt
Sweet. These are one of the neatest rifles from the way back machine. There was one at a gun show here this year. Congrats I didn't know the museum was selling off their stuff. What a place that is. Unbelievable in what they have there.
The commerce which maybe carried on with the people inhabiting the line you will pursue renders a knowledge of these people important ~Thomas Jefferson~ (to- Lewis and Clark)
This rifle was part of the second US Navy contract (serial numbers 15001-20000) inspected by Lt John N. Jordan (J.N.J as stamped on top of breech) which were delivered from 1 August through 6 December 1898.
Impressive, indeed. While I've heard of the cartridge and also seen pictures of this already, the rifle itself was still unknown to me. I once read that the high-velocity (at least according to the cartridge performances of those days) cartridge was way too hot for the steels and materials then available for rifle production which resulted in excessive wear of barrel and action. So the service career of this in its days very sophisticated cartridge was rather short-lived.
Per the Winchester Repeating Fire Arms letter the serial number was applied to the on July 22, 1898; Caliber: N; received in warehouse on August 12, 1898 and shipped from warehouse on August 20, 1898; Order number 2689. It just missed the Spanish-American War but may have served during the Relief of the Foreign Legations in Peking during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 or during the Philippine Insurrection 1899-1902. I'll have to see if I can track down the USN or USMC ship/unit which eventually received this rifle.