The "Lever Lobby" succeeded, however, by putting forward a very convincing marketing case. The "Lever Lobby" at Winchester (comprised of older, experienced men with extensive field knowledge) wanted a new big game lever gun. This group was represented by what became the Model 70. One "camp" of Winchester brass saw levers as obsolescent, & bolt action as the wave of the future. Winchester was hot to bring out a big game bolt rifle in the mid-1930's that would improve on the Model 54. The Model 1897 shotgun became the 97, and so on. The famous Model 1894 became the Model 94. Indeed, Winchester cut the "18" out of many models for that very reason. Winchester moved away from designating firearms by years of introduction (Model 1894) because advertising & marketing gurus had advised the brass that, by the 1920's, any firearm from the nineteenth century (Model 1892, etc.) would be considered too antiquated to purchase by many potential buyers. Some were given numbers not in the sequence - e.g. Some numbers were given to firearms that never moved beyond the design stage. 1925, was the bolt action big game rifle that was the ancestor of the Model 70. The 53 and the 55 were variations on existing Model 1894, Model 1895, Model 1897, Model 190l) to a sequential designation. Where did the “71” come from in the Winchester Model 71?īy the early part of the 20th century Winchester had moved away from the model introduction year designation of new firearms (i.e. Riekers Sporting Agency & Gun Works | Steve's