Winchester Model 52

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Winchester Model 52 rifle
1954 Winchester Model 52C
Type	Rifle
Place of origin	United States
Production history
Designer	T.C. Johnson, Frank Burton, A. F. Laudensack
Designed	1918-19
Manufacturer	Winchester Repeating Arms Company
Produced	1920-1980
No. built	125,419
Variants	Sporting Model, International Match
Specifications
Mass	9 lb (4.1 kg) to 13 lb (5.9 kg) target; 7.25 lb (3.3 kg) sporter
Length	45 in (1,100 mm) target; 41 in (1,000 mm) sporter
Barrel length	28 in (710 mm) target; 24 in (610 mm) sporter
Cartridge	.22 Long Rifle
Action	Bolt-action
Feed system	5 round/10 round box magazine
Sights	Micrometer ladder rear sights, fixed-post front sights standard; many custom iron and optical combinations

The Winchester Model 52 was a bolt-action .22-caliber target rifle introduced by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1920. For many years it was the premier smallbore match rifle in the United States, if not the world. Known as the "King of the .22s," the Model 52 Sporter was ranked by Field & Stream as one of "the 50 best guns ever made" and described by Winchester historian Herbert Houze as "perfection in design."^[1][2] However, by the 1970s the World War I-era design was showing its age and had given way in top-level competition to newer match rifles from Walther and Anschütz; the costly-to-produce Model 52, which had long been a loss leader prestige product by that time, was finally discontinued when US Repeating Arms took over the manufacture of Winchester rifles from Olin Corporation in 1980.