Howdy Again
I will agree, some of the early repeater cartridges were a little bit anemic.
The way I see it, there were a couple of reasons. Most of the 'Heavy Hitter' firearms at the middle of the century were single shots. Sharps, Rolling Block, Trap Door, come to mind. With a single shot, you can make the action big and strong. With 19th Century iron and steel, big meant strong. But a repeater built that big and massive would have to have really big parts inside and it would weigh a ton. Kind of like the Winchester 1876.
If you look at the history of the Henry, it was actually a step up in power from its predecessor the Volcanic. The Volcanic fired that anemic little Rocket Ball. I dunno how much powder it held, but it sure wasn't much. In fact, probably most of the reason for the financial failure of the Volcanic was because the ammo was so anemic. They just did not sell. When Oliver Winchester took over most of the old Volcanic company, he was busy selling off the stock of Volcanic firearms already built, but at the same time he got B. Tyler Henry working on a better replacement. First thing he did was instruct Henry to come up with a rimfire cartridge to replace the Rocket Ball. But Henry's first effort was a 38 cal rimfire, probably because that was the caliber many of the Volcanics had been. Winchester told him to go back to the drawing board and come up with a 44 cal rimfire. The 44 Henry Rimfire round was the result. Just a simple staight, copper rimfire case, but it held about 26 to 28 grains of powder, which was a lot more than the Rocket Ball did. The 44 rimfire was a good cartridge for the bronze framed Henry and Winchester 1866. Not too powerful because their actions were not real strong.
When 1873 rolled around, the Winchester Model 1873 was introduced. Part of the reason for the new model was for a more powerful cartridge. That's why the 1873 had an iron frame, to take the punishment of the more powerful 44-40 round. Later on, the 1873 had a steel frame, so it would have been even stronger.
Same thing with revolvers. Up until about 1872, S&W still controlled the Rollin White patent for bored through cylinders. If you tried to built a cartridge revolver with bored through chambers for cartridges, you would get sued. S&W was very vigilant about policing the White patent. So most of the cartridge guns being made then were conversions of C&B revolvers, and most of those did not have a top strap. Most were of the Colt style of open tops with the barrel assembly attached by a wedge. Not a very good platform for a powerful cartridge. So many of those conversions were chambered for less powerful cartridges like 44 Henry, and a few other cartridges. I'm not sure when the 44 Colt came about, but it definitely did not have the same powder capacity as the 45 Colt. As for S&W, they contented themselves mostly with cartridges like 44 Schofield and 44 Russian. Both relatively short cartridges without a huge powder capacity. S&W favored the Schofield round because their cylinders were not long enough to accept the more powerful 45 Colt round. Therein lies a whole nother story. Remington did produce some cartridge conversions under license from S&W for their solid frame revolvers, but I am not sure what caliber they were. Probably 44 Henry. Definitely not 45 Colt.
It wasn't until the White patent finally expired around 1872 that Colt came out with the solid framed SAA, capable of harnessing a cartridge as powerful as 45 Colt. And it truly was a powerhouse in its day. 38 to 40 grains of powder under a 250 grain bullet. About 1875 or so the Schofield came out, but like I say, it chambered a less powerful cartridge. Remington came out with their new solid frame cartridge revolver in 1875. I don't have it handy right now just what cartridge it was chambered for, but being a solid frame, I'm sure it could handle a powerful handgun cartridge. Probably 44-40.
It was not until 1878 that Winchester came out with a really big, heavy repeating rifle capable of handling the big powerful rifle rounds of the day. And it was not until 1886 that Winchester came out with a lever gun that could handle the 45-70.
One thing about Browning's designs like the '92 and the '86 that some folks don't realize is that in addition to being lighter and stronger than their predecessor the '73, they were also less expensive to produce. You got a stronger, lighter gun for less money. At least they cost less to build, I dunno if the savings were passed on to the buying public.