The Evans Rifle Manufacturing Company went bankrupt in December 1879, a victim of the post war arms glut and keen competition.

[3] A good portion of these survive, and a number are advertised in various antique arms publications.

However, the Evans has a rotary helical magazine in the buttstock, and cartridges are fed into the breech by cycling the cocking lever/trigger guard.

Each time the action is cycled, the magazine feeds the next cartridge to the breech in a helical pattern.

Old models made after the first 200 have a stud or locking nut to hold the cocking lever in place.

Barrel markings on the transition model are as follows: "Evans Repeating Rifle Mechanic Falls Me./Pat, Dec. 8, 1868 & Sept. 16, 1871".

[4] At twenty paces, have, with this rifle, shot the eyebrows from my wife, and every night regularly, in the presence of an audience I shot an apple from her hand, a pipe from her mouth, a penny from her fingers, or snuff a candle from her hand.

I think the Evans is the safest and most complete repeating system ever devised.Kit Carson Jr. was the stage name of Jim Spleen from Kansas, who appeared with William "Buffalo Bill" F. Cody.

The Evans repeating rifle was also used by Buffalo Bill [4] and his friend and stage partner Texas Jack Omohundro, who said, "It shoots like a house on fire!

The new cartridge, together with numerous improvements in the design, were combined to make the new model Evans repeating rifle.

The new model is easily distinguished by its larger, more robust receiver and sliding dust cover over the ejection port.

The front edge of the receiver is cut straight not scalloped as in the old and transition models.

These were mostly 30” round barrel military muskets which had a short forend attached with a screw.