This rifle was made under the patents of Henry A. Pitcher of Neillsville, Wis. He formed the Pitcher Automatic Repeating Arms Co. in 1889 to promote his rifle. When the trials to select a magazine rifle to replace the single shot Springfield trapdoor rifles in the U.S. services were announced in 1890, he saw an opportunity and decided to enter his rifle. He had problems from the beginning. No one knew what cartridge would be used in the trials. Even the trial board was unable to get cartridges for testing because the powder was made in Europe and none was available in America. The barrels were also in short supply. All that had been made in the first six months of the trials were used to build the trapdoor version of the small caliber smokeless powder gun. When he finally got the barrel ($15, more than the cost of a Winchester at that time) he assembled his rifle and submitted it to the board. It did not do well. The trial report pretty much says it all: "Test omitted, it being deemed dangerous to fire the gun from the shoulder." Tests from a fixed rest did not fare much better with "blows from a hammer" mentioned several times before, on the twenty-seventh shot, "it became impossible to continue firing." The rifle is very heavy, being made almost entirely from iron. The barrel is in the center of a group of three vertical cylinders. The magazine is on top, fastened to the barrel with two pinned rings like Winchester magazines. The normal sporting sights are also mounted on these rings. The bottom tube is the gas cylinder which contains the piston used to work the action. There is an adjustment knob at the front of the tube which can be used to disconnect the gas operation if manual operation is desired. There is an operating handle on the right side of the action. Both sides of the action are open so the action can be seen operating. When the operating handle is pulled to the rear, a pivoting arm on the bottom of the breechblock is pulled downwards, out of engagement with the rear of the receiver and into the wrist portion of the action. The recoil spring is behind this area, extending into the area covered by the stock. As the breechblock reaches its rearward position, a cam on the right side pivots the cartridge carrier so the new cartridge is aimed at the chamber. The same operation also extracts the fired case, which falls into the open action and, hopefully, out of the left side. There is a sliding dust cover on top of the action which covers the loading port. It has a sliding fit and it is surprising that it is still with the rifle. Odd as it may seem, this was not the most ungainly or most impractical of the almost one hundred actions submitted to the Board on Magazine Rifles. It was not even the most outlandish of the thirty that actually reached test status. About two thirds were rejected before reaching that point.

Very good with gray/brown patina overall and scattered area of rust stains and light pitting. The stock shows normal handling marks. The action is good. The rib covering the joint between the barrel and gas tube on the right side is missing and the one on the left is bulged in the center. We would not recommend any attempt at firing this rifle. PROVENANCE Lee Petrov estate