There’s plenty of fussing nowadays about semi-automatic firearms and high-capacity magazines. As it happens, the very first piece I ever wrote for RedState was on the history of semi-automatic firearms, which dates back to the late 19th century.
As it happens, the technology of “high capacity” magazines goes back even further, and one of the first modern, fixed cartridge rifles with what we might consider a “high capacity” magazine dates back to just after the American Civil War. It was not, however, a semi-automatic piece, but a lever gun, with a rather interesting and unique design. This gun was the Evans Repeating Rifle, and it was an oddball, even by the standards of the time.
A Very Early “High-Capacity” Repeater
Warren R. Evans was a dentist who lived in Thomaston, Maine. In 1873, he cooked up a design for a lever-action repeater with the help of his brother George Evans, and together they started the “Evans Rifle Manufacturing Company” that was in business from 1873 to 1879, during which time they built around 15,000 rifles. They presented their rifle for consideration by the United States Army, but the oddball lever gun didn’t blow up any skirts at the War Department, so the brothers settled for marketing it as a sporting rifle.
Bear in mind that this was the era when the 1866 Winchester had been on the market for seven years, and the mighty 1873 Winchester – the Gun that Won the West – was just making its way into the market. While the 1873 Winchester fired rounds that aren’t all that hot today, including, for example, the .38 WCF (.38-40) and the .44 WCF (.44-40), the rounds were more powerful than the proprietary .44 Evans rounds.
See Also: Sunday Gun Day Vol. II Ep. XXXIV - John Mahlon Marlin and His Guns
Here's where the high-capacity part comes in: The Evans rifle, like the Spencer carbine that preceded it, fed from a magazine contained in the buttstock – and that buttstock was likewise odd, being a two-part affair, top and bottom, surrounding the big magazine.
Unlike the Spencer’s single-stack magazine, though, the Evans rifle used a sort of enlarged helical-tubular magazine that had an Archimedean screw arrangement, giving it a capacity of up to 28 rounds, unprecedented at that time. The gun loaded through a trapdoor in the stock, and the magazine, though novel, apparently worked well enough, feeding the proprietary .44 Evans cartridges for which the gun was chambered.
But there was a problem.
The Guns
The Evans rifle proved to be touchy about dust and grit, and not very robust, which is probably why the War Department was cool on the gun despite its eyebrow-raising magazine capacity. The sales of the gun were initially cool, and given the nature of the competition, that’s not surprising. But by the time the final version of the gun came out, there were a few improvements that made the final variation more popular. Not up to the levels of the Winchester and Marlin offerings, but it was out there.
The guns came in a few variations:
The First Model was built from the gun’s premiere in 1873 to 1876. The first iteration of this oddball had no lower buttstock, only the upper; the magazine was exposed along the bottom of the stock. There was no dust cover on the receiver’s ejection port. Three versions of the First Model were made:
- The Sporting Rifle with a walnut stock and 26”, 28”, and 30” octagon barrels.
- The Musket, with a 30” round barrel with two barrel bands.
- The Carbine, with a 22” round barrel and a single barrel band.
All in all, about 500 first model guns were made.
Then came what became known as the Transition Model, made from 1876 to 1877, which added a lower buttstock, a new buttplate, and improved balance thanks to the additional wood. Four versions of the Transition Model were made:
- The Sporting Rifle, as above, with a walnut stock and 26”, 28”, and 30” octagon barrels available.
- The Musket, again with a 30” round barrel and either two or three barrel bands.
- The Carbine, with a 22” round barrel and sling swivels.
- The Montreal Carbine, sold in Canada only by a sporting goods dealer in Montreal.
It’s unclear how many Transition Models were built, but the best estimates are a little over 2,000.
Finally, the most common version, the New Model, made from 1877 to 1879, improved the receiver, added a dust cover, and added a longer cartridge (the .44 Evans Long). The New Model came again in four versions.
- The Sporting Rifle, in the same configurations as the Transition Model.
- The Musket, again in the same configuration as the Transition Model.
- The Carbine, the same as the Transition Model, but some are found, bafflingly, with a bayonet lug.
- The “Evans Sporting Rifle” marked exactly thus, mostly 30” round barrel muskets with a smaller fore end; it is believed that these were assembled from parts.
In total, about 15,000 Evans rifles of all models were built and sold, making them an unusual but not impossible-to-find item in online and in-person gun auctions. If you want one, you can find one. A quick look at Gunbroker, my online auction site of choice, showed several New Model guns and one Transition Model, none in what one might call pristine condition, all selling for less than $2,000.
The Evans had the distinction, which it maintains to this day, of being the only firearm to be mass-produced in Maine.What Happened Next?
In 1879, the company went out of business. There’s no replica maker producing copies of this odd rifle, and given the complications of loading it, that’s not terribly surprising. But the people who bought and shot the rifle apparently notified the factory that they were pleased with the gun. One guntwist of note who favored the Evans was one Kit Carson Jr., a performer with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show. This character, with no relation to the original Kit Carson, wrote this testimonial:
At twenty paces, I have, with this rifle, shot the eyebrows from my wife, and every night regularly, in the presence of an audience, I shot an apple from her hand, a pipe from her mouth, a penny from her fingers, or snuff a candle from her hand. I think the Evans is the safest and most complete repeating system ever devised.
I won’t speculate as to what their bedtime conversations may have been like.
See Also: Sunday Gun Day Vol. II Ep. X - the Spencer Repeating Rifle
The Evans was an interesting and innovative rifle, if a bit of an oddball. But as a centerfire lever gun firing a medium-performance cartridge, it had the poor fortune to be sharing the market with the roaringly successful Winchester lever guns as well as the slightly less-well-known (then) offerings of John Mahlon Marlin. If it had been introduced a decade earlier, competing with the Henry and Spencer rifles, it may have made a more lasting impact. But it didn’t, the company went out of business, and if you can find an Evans rifle today, you’ll have to manufacture your own supply of the .44 Evans rounds it used if you want to experience America’s first “high capacity” repeater for yourself.
