Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have a Whitney-Burgess-Morse lever action rifle manufactured between 1878 and 1882, one of fewer than 3,000 produced. This is chambered in .45-70 Government and shows brass tacks installed in the right side of the wrist with additional holes where more once existed.
Andrew Burgess designed this lever-action, and Whitney Arms Company manufactured it in an attempt to compete with Winchester’s market dominance. Burgess was a prolific firearms inventor who created lever-action, slide-action, and other repeating mechanisms for multiple manufacturers. The Whitney-Burgess used a dropping block action operated by a lever, mechanically different from Winchester’s toggle-link design. Whitney produced these in several calibers, including .45-70 Government, .44-40 WCF, and others. The .45-70 chambering made sense for western markets where the cartridge was established through Springfield Trapdoor rifles and buffalo hunting. The 28-inch octagon barrel was standard for longer-range rifles.
Production stayed below 3,000 units across all variations. The Whitney-Burgess never achieved commercial success against Winchester’s established Model 1873 and Model 1876, which had extensive dealer networks and market presence. Whitney couldn’t overcome that advantage despite offering a mechanically sound alternative. Production ended around 1882 after only four years.
The brass tacks are significant. Native Americans, frontiersmen, and settlers commonly decorated rifle stocks with brass tacks in patterns or rows. The existing tacks and empty holes show this rifle was decorated during frontier use, then some tacks were lost over decades. This decoration indicates actual frontier service rather than armory storage.
Most of our POTDs utilize images from our friends at Rock Island Auction Company, the premier firearms auction in the United States. Take some time to browse their current auctions – who knows, maybe you’ll find a piece of history to take home!
“Scarce ‘Frontier Issued’ Whitney-Burgess-Morse Lever Action Rifle in .45-70 Government.” Rock Island Auction, www.rockislandauction.com/detail/1049/3045/whitneyburgessmorse-lever-action-rifle. Accessed 6 Jan. 2026.
Writer | TheFirearmBlog
Writer | AllOutdoor.com Instagram | sfsgunsmith Old soul, certified gunsmith, published author, avid firearm history learner, and appreciator of old and unique guns.
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