Winchester has always been known for their lever-action rifles and the old warhorse, the John Moses Browning designed M1886 has always been a popular rifle among American hunters and originally designed for the more powerful, longer cased black powder calibers. During the inter-war years, Winchester started to feel the heat in competition from the emergence of the high quality, telescoped, bolt action rifles coming on the market, and although the M1894 was still as popular as ever, overall sales were a problem. Winchester came up with the idea of a large caliber rifle in a new design to replace the expensive M1886. In 1935 Winchester they launced the Model 71, and the only cartridge made for the Model 71, namely the 348 Winchester. It was a powerful cartridge, more than what small game hunters needed and with the move to smaller caliber, more aerodynamic bullets, tubular magazines with huge blunt-tipped bullets for safety reasons lost a lot of their appeal from the bygone era. The Model 71 was discontinued in 1958.
