Knowing that there are old black powder rifles out there capable of shooting the round, you can bet that Winchester shells will work in Winchester rifles. If your rifle is the newer model '92, it's cabable of handling higher pressure loads than the '73 and you could look for someone to reload for you. That beng said, before deer got so tough to kill, and people didn't know any better, I'd say thousands of them were killed by black powder 38-40 rounds at reasonable ranges. My own grandfather had one.