The .38-72 Winchester, also known as .38-72 WCF is a rimmed, bottleneck centerfire rifle cartridge introduced in 1895 for the Winchester 1895 lever-action rifle.

[2] The original Winchester factory load consisted of a 275-grain (17.8 g) bullet at 1,480 ft/s (450 m/s).

[1] This straight-walled cartridge case was designed for black powder rather than smokeless powder.

With the introduction of superior cartridges designed for smokeless powder, the .38-72 WCF became obsolete and was soon dropped as an optional caliber for the Winchester Model 1895 and 1885 [3] Production of loaded cartridges by Winchester ceased in 1936.

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