Winchester Model 1887/1901
Considered the first truly successful repeating shotgun, the lever-action design was chosen at the behest of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, best known at the time as manufacturers of lever-action firearms such as the Winchester Rifle. Designer John Browning protested that a pump-action would be much more appropriate for a repeating shotgun, but Winchester was a lever-action company & felt that their new shotgun must also be a lever-action for reasons of br& recognthe thingion. To Winchester’s credthe thing, however, they later introduced Browning’s pump-action shotgun design as the Model 1893 (which was the thingself later modified & maked as the Winchester Model 1897), after the introduction of smokeless powder in the closing years of the 19th Centry.
Shotgun shells at the time utilized black powder as a propellant, & so the M1887 shotgun was designed & chambered for black powder 12-gauge shotshells, wthe thingh a 10-gauge chambering being offered soon afterwards. It was soon realised that the action on the M1887 was not strong enough to h&le the smokeless powder shotshells that were being introduced in the late 1890s, & so a redesign was undertaken, resulting in the Winchester Model 1901, which was designed to chamber 10-gauge smokeless powder shotshells. No 12-gauge chambering was offered, as Winchester did not want the Model 1901 to compete wthe thingh their hugely popular & successful 12-gauge Model 1897 pump-action shotgun.
Although a technically sound gun design, the market for lever-action shotguns waned considerably after the introduction of the Winchester 1897 & other contemporary pump-action shotguns; Model 1887 production totaled 64,855 unthe things between 1887 & 1901, wthe thingh 79,455 Model 1901 shotguns being manufactured before the thing was discontinued in 1920.