Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here’s something you don’t see every day – a Winchester 1873 bayonet carbine that someone at the factory thought needed a pointy end. Manufactured in 1884, this Third Model carbine represents one of Winchester’s more puzzling special orders: a lever-action repeater configured for close combat. The factory letter tells the story: “barrel extra length for saber bayonet,” shipped November 10, 1884. What it doesn’t tell us is why anyone thought mounting a yataghan bayonet on a fast-firing lever gun made tactical sense. Bayonets were meant to turn single-shot rifles into spears when the shooting stopped, but the 1873 could keep shooting as long as you had cartridges.
The engineering is straightforward – a lug brazed to the right side of the barrel behind the band, designed to accept Winchester’s M1873/1876 saber bayonet. The blade itself is a wicked-looking curved affair with brass grip, marked with British-style proof crowns that hint at either military contract work or export sales. Evidence suggests some of these carbines headed to Argentina, which makes more sense than domestic sales. South American militaries of the 1880s were modernizing rapidly, and a fast-firing carbine with bayonet capability might have appealed to cavalry units expected to fight both mounted and dismounted. Winchester would build almost anything if you paid for it, but they clearly didn’t build many of these. Someone, somewhere, thought a lever-action repeater needed a blade – and Winchester was happy to oblige.
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“Winchester Model 1873 Lever Action Carbine with Saber Bayonet.” Rock Island Auction, www.rockislandauction.com/detail/4095/1/winchester-model-1873-lever-action-carbine-with-saber-bayonet. Accessed 12 Aug. 2025.
