Pistol Cartridge Carbines

Almost simultaneous with the appearance of metallic cartridges there came a firearms genre popular to this day — the pistol cartridge carbine. There is an irony about their advent. Military forces had developed carbines, shorter, lighter rifles for horse troops, long before metallic cartridges were invented. The first (successful) repeating metallic cartridge carbine was chambered for the puny .44 Henry Rimfire. The irony is the round was not a pistol cartridge. It was developed for repeating rifles and carried over into the new Winchester Model 1866 because its design was only strong enough for a cartridge so weak it was later adapted to revolvers.

Ride ’Em

An aside about carbines is necessary here. Until the 1920s when modern vehicles became common, all land travel except by railroads was either on or behind horses. Hence, lightweight firearms were more than handy. They were often attached to saddles by leather thongs to a ring set in the left sides of carbines’ receivers. Thusly carbines from the era were known as saddle ring carbines — SRCs.

Winchester Repeating Arms dominated pistol cartridge carbines for about 20 years. In 1873 a new model was introduced of slightly stronger design. Its introductory cartridge was .44 WCF which we all know today as .44-40. The best improvement concerning .44 WCF/.44-40 was it was brass cased, centerfire and reloadable whereas .44 Henry was rimfire, copper cased and not reloadable. Winchester Model 1873s were so popular production lasted 50 years and almost three quarters of a million were made. A significant number were SRCs.

Pairing Up

Many of today’s shooters think Colt’s adaptation in 1877 of .44-40 to their big single-action revolver made possible the first pistol/carbine combo. Not so — the first factory-made revolver compatible to Winchester’s Model 1866 carbines came in 1870, the Smith & Wesson Model #3 .44 Henry Rimfire sixgun. Furthermore, in 1875 Colt followed with a special run of 1,800 of their new single action sixguns (SAA to us) for .44 Henry. Why Colt waited so long to jump on the .44-40 bandwagon is a conundrum to me. After the .44-40, Colt waited till 1884 to chamber .38-40 and .32-20 rifles. In a time of difficult logistics, the idea of rifles/carbines and revolvers chambering the same cartridge had considerable merit.

Other noteworthy happenings in the 1880s were Colt introducing their pump-action Lightning, while Marlin also joined in lever-action competition. The Lightning came in three frame sizes, the middle one taking the same three pistol cartridge rounds offered in WRA’s Model 1873. Back then, when a company used another company’s development, they didn’t like to give the parent company free advertising. So Colt stamped Lightnings simply as .44 CAL. When Marlin started making pistol cartridge lever guns with the Model 1889, the caliber marking became .38-40 instead of .38 WCF. Of course Marlin and Colt offered their respective new models as carbines.

Whereas carbines were already “shorter, lighter rifles,” Winchester, Colt and Marlin carried the idea further. Winchester offered SRCs with barrels as short as 12″ and the other two manufacturers made “Baby Carbines.” Their versions had very lightweight barrels and sometimes half-length magazines. I’ve owned samples of both and they weighed between 4.5 and 5 lbs.

Resurgence

About the same time, reproduction imports steadily flowing from Italy almost identically recreated those of the late 1800s. If memory serves me well I think the first were Model 1866, manufactured with a design change to accommodate .44-40. A brief time later Model 1873s began coming from Italy.

Marlin resurrected the Model 1894 and Winchester adapted the Model 1894 to pistol cartridges. In the case of American versions, chamberings were magnums; .357 and .44 with Marlin making a brief smattering of .41 Magnums. In my opinion the Italian reproductions were intended for us historically minded shooters while the new Winchester and Marlins were aimed largely at dense woods deer hunters.

Around 1990 the cowboy action sport became a rage and the market for pistol cartridge lever guns exploded. Space won’t allow coverage of all available now but rest assured if a saddle ring carbine was made in olden days replicas of it have been offered in modern times.

In recent years Browning has gotten into the act with Japanese Miroku saddle ring carbines in .357 Magnum .44-40 and .45 Colt in both Model 1866 and Model 1873, plus they are licensed to put the Winchester name on Miroku lever guns. Several companies have also reproduced Colt Lightnings. In fact I had the very first saddle ring .44-40 carbine made by the now defunct U.S. Firearms Company.

A newer name on the Italian scene is Chiappa and when I told Yvonne about their take-down replicas of Model 1892s, she wanted one. And, when Yvonne wants a gun by-golly she gets it! Hers is a .44 Magnum offered by the Skinner Sight Company as part of their “Bush Pilot” kit.

The Self-Loaders

Although pistol cartridge semi-auto carbines are not new, the overall trend towards self-loaders nowadays is causing more to appear. In my mind the first pistol cartridge semi-auto carbine was the famous World War II era M1 .30 Carbine. Like the .44 Henry, the .30 Carbine began as a rifle cartridge but was small enough and weak enough to enable its use in a limited number of handguns.

However, most semi-auto carbines are chambered for such rounds as 9mm Parabellum, .40 S&W and .45 ACP. Marlin actually offered a .45 ACP and 9mm “Camp Carbine” in the mid-1980s. It didn’t last long but was actually a decent little semi-auto. Some of the AR manufacturers also chambered for semi-auto pistol cartridges. The only one I fired was a Colt 9mm. A few years back a friend loaned me three Beretta Storm carbines in all three of the above calibers. He did so mostly because I jabbed him about how ugly they are. He paraphrased Forrest Gump by saying, “Ugly is as ugly does.” I admit they shot well and were handy.

Baring His Soul

And finally, I must admit this — for some time I’ve considered searching out one of the AR 9mm rifles for a home defense carbine, then Ruger announced their PC9. I tried one on consignment, liked it and bought it to add to my assortment of pistol cartridge carbines. A benefit to some is it can be altered to accept GLOCK magazines. This was a non-factor to me since I own none.

Developed for 18th century horsemen, pistol cartridge carbines obviously have their place in the 21st century.

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