Welcome to today’s program photo of the Day! Here we have the most unusual lever gun ever produced by Winchester, and one that many people have never handled. This is the Winchester Model 88, introduced in 1955, it was the first all-new lever-action Winchester designed in nearly 60 years, and it eliminated almost everything that made a lever gun a lever gun.
Gone were the exposed hammer, tube magazine, two-piece stock. In their place: a three-lug rotating bolt that locks to the front just behind the chamber like the bolt action, a one-piece stock, side ejection so you can mount a scope over the bore, and a short 60-degree lever throw. Winchester’s own advertising copy called it a “bolt action rifle with lever”, and it was honest.
The point of all this was the detachable box magazine. Tube-fed levers cannot safely fire pointed bullets; A spitzer tip under retraction could initiate its forward phase. The box mag freed the 88 to shoot modern high-pressure rounds with pointed bullets: .243, .284, .308, and .358 Winchester. Precise as a bolt gun, fast as a lever.
It sold really well, the third best-selling Winchester lever of all time, but the Model 70 bolt gun in the same caliber ate its lunch, and it was discontinued in 1973. This one is particularly unique even among 88s: assembled around 1993 from leftover 1973 parts, one of the last handful ever put together.
Most of our POTDs use images of our friends Rock Island Auction CompanyMajor firearms auction in the United States. Take some time to browse them current auction – Who knows, maybe you’ll find a piece of history to take home!
“Winchester Model 88 Lever Action Rifle.” Rock Island Auction, www.rockislandauction.com/detail/5032/1024/winchester-model-88-lever-action-rifle. Accessed 25 June 2026.
