.38-72 Winchester

The .38-72 Winchester, also known as .38-72 WCF is a rimmed, bottleneck centerfire rifle cartridge introduced in 1895 for the Winchester 1895 lever-action rifle.

Description and Performance
The original Winchester factory load consisted of a 275 gr bullet at 1480 ft/s. This straight-walled cartridge case was designed for black powder rather than smokeless powder.



Besides the Winchester 1895 lever-action, the .38-72 WCF was chambered in the Winchester 1885 single-shot rifle.

With the introduction of superior cartridges designed for smokeless powder, the .38-72 WCF became obsolete and was soon dropped as an optional caliber for the Winchester Model 1895 and 1885 Production of loaded cartridges by Winchester ceased in 1936.