Many of today’s shooters think Colt’s adaptation in 1877 of .44-40 to their big single-action revolver made possible the first pistol/carbine combo. Not so — the first factory-made revolver compatible to Winchester’s Model 1866 carbines came in 1870, the Smith & Wesson Model #3 .44 Henry Rimfire sixgun. Furthermore, in 1875 Colt followed with a special run of 1,800 of their new single action sixguns (SAA to us) for .44 Henry. Why Colt waited so long to jump on the .44-40 bandwagon is a conundrum to me. After the .44-40, Colt waited till 1884 to chamber .38-40 and .32-20 rifles. In a time of difficult logistics, the idea of rifles/carbines and revolvers chambering the same cartridge had considerable merit.

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Interestingly Winchester’s first three chamberings for Model 1892s were the time-tested trio of .44, .38, and .32 WCFs. Marlin used the same cartridges in their Model 1894 but labeled them .44-40, .38-40 and .32-20. As mentioned, saddle rings on carbines died out in the late 1920s but pistol cartridge carbines themselves persisted till about the World War II years. About 30 to 40 years later, they began to reappear.

About the same time, reproduction imports steadily flowing from Italy almost identically recreated those of the late 1800s. If memory serves me well I think the first were Model 1866, manufactured with a design change to accommodate .44-40. A brief time later Model 1873s began coming from Italy.

Marlin resurrected the Model 1894 and Winchester adapted the Model 1894 to pistol cartridges. In the case of American versions, chamberings were magnums; .357 and .44 with Marlin making a brief smattering of .41 Magnums. In my opinion the Italian reproductions were intended for us historically minded shooters while the new Winchester and Marlins were aimed largely at dense woods deer hunters.

Although pistol cartridge semi-auto carbines are not new, the overall trend towards self-loaders nowadays is causing more to appear. In my mind the first pistol cartridge semi-auto carbine was the famous World War II era M1 .30 Carbine. Like the .44 Henry, the .30 Carbine began as a rifle cartridge but was small enough and weak enough to enable its use in a limited number of handguns.

However, most semi-auto carbines are chambered for such rounds as 9mm Parabellum, .40 S&W and .45 ACP. Marlin actually offered a .45 ACP and 9mm “Camp Carbine” in the mid-1980s.