Winchester Repeating Arms Company

Oliver Winchester reorganised the failing Volcanic Repeating Arms Company into New Haven Arms and then, in 1866, into the company that carried his name. Its lever-action rifles defined a category and its cartridges — the .44-40, the .30-30, the .308 — defined several more. The company itself was sold to Olin in 1931 and the New Haven plant closed in 2006; the brand continues under licence, so a modern Winchester and a nineteenth-century one share a name and nothing else.