The Winchester 1866 is a lever action .44 Rifle. Introduced in 1866 as a breech-loading improvement over the older Henry Rifle, replicas of the 1866 are produced to this day.
Overview
The Winchester is the only civilian weapon capable of competing with an assault rifle at close range, due to it's high rate of fire and decent magazine capacity. Due to these attributes, the Winchester is the perfect weapon for newer players, and is also easier to acquire than Military rifles like the AK47M.
The Winchester fires .44 Henry rounds, doing about 4500 Damage within the first 50 meters. Damage drops off very quickly - at a mere 100 meters it loses roughly 2,000 damage. This high initial damage makes the Winchester a good choice for close-range fights, such as those encountered inside Chernogorsk or other cities, though it's limited effective range of around 200 meters makes it less than ideal for fighting in open country.
The Winchester's limited effective range can be attributed to it's .44 Henry rounds, which date from the 1860s and are effectively pistol rounds.
In the hands of an experienced player, the Winchester is on an even playing field with the AK-74 at close range, as the higher damage of the Winchester makes up for it's lower rate of fire. It is however, far inferior to the AK47M, and past 100m, it is inferior to the Lee-Enfield, another civilian weapon.
Trivia
- Originally, the Winchester 1866 was classified as a Shotgun and could fire either slug or pellet ammunition. This was probably due to the devs confusing the weapon with with lever-action Winchester M1887 shotgun. It was eventually changed, first by removing the pellet ammunition, and then by replacing the slugs with proper .44 Henry rounds.