In a thread started by Two-Bits, the question was, which calibers was the Mdl 92 Winchester originally chambered in.
The question was answered. Then the fact that Winchester never chambered any of their lever guns for the .45 Colt was brought up. I posted a link to an article by Paco Kelly who stated that Colt had proprietary rights to the round and would not let anyone else chamber their guns for it.

Gatofeo made the following comment about the .45 Colt in Winchesters.
“In my cartridge collection I have some black powder .45 Colt rounds. They also have very slight rims.
Such rounds work in the Colt Single Action revolver, because they are knocked out and not extracted en masse, via a star.
If the Winchester were introduced in .45 Colt way back when, it would have been a disaster, I believe.
Remember, these were the days of black powder and corrosive primers. People didn't clean their firearms as often or as thorough as we do today. Chambers would soon rust and the .45 cases would soon begin to stick.
The meager extractor on the Winchester would have easily popped over the slight rim of the .45 Colt case.
And who would be blamed?
Why, Winchester of course!
Winchester exhibited remarkable foresight in NOT chambering their rifles to .45 Colt. If they had wanted to do so, I'm sure they could have struck a deal with Colt.”

So I decided to try an experiment. I put an add in numerous forums to buy some balloon head cases. Nobody responded. I dug through all my loaded ammo and found 64 loaded balloon head .45 Colts. I decided to divide them between my Winchester 94 Trapper, and my new Rossi Puma.
Today I went to the range and started my test.

As for the balloon heads extracting from double action revolvers, it varies. My 25-5 has tight enough chambers that it will reliably extract them. But I have read that some older Colts and S&W’s, primarily turn of the century Colts wouldn’t.

I had fired my 94 Trapper with some CAS type reloads to get it dirty, and then fired the 32 balloon head cased rounds through it as fast as I could safely do so.
Not one failure to feed, or extract, or eject. And considering the generous chamber that this rifle has, I was surprised I only had one split case. None of these balloon heads were loaded with black powder, (although I thought some might have been), so the gun wasn’t as dirty as one fired with b.p. would have been.

I couldn’t try the balloon heads in my new Rossi 92 because the darn thing won’t even feed modern factory ammo. Something is out of adjustment on the feeding I guess. So the balloon head test will have to wait till it gets fixed.

I believe that Winchester, or any other rifles would have worked acceptably with balloon head .45 Colt ammo. But it will take some additional testing to confirm my theory. As soon as I acquire more balloon head cases I will load up some b.p. and continue the test.