With closing of the American Civil War, Eli Whitney Jr. again turned his eyes to manufacture inexpensive arms from parts remaining on hand from his Civil War contracts. Extra barrels were turned into inexpensive muzzle-loading shotguns and a few breech-loading designs were toyed with. Following Remington's example, Whitney soon realized that a substantial profit could be made in the production of single-shot martial arms for foreign governments. The result was a series of breech-loading arms that copied many salient features of the Remington line, including a direct copy, after the expiration of Remington's patent, for "rolling block" mechanism. Not until late 1870s, did Whitney acquire the rights to several patents that led to the production of a lever-action repeating rifle. During the post-war period revolver production, which had begun with evasions of Colt's patents a decade prior to the Civil War, mushroomed with production of small spur-trigger rimfire cartridge revolvers. Despite the variety of arms produced, by 1883 Whitney was considering the sale of his company. Business reverses over the next five years necessitated the sale to Winchester in 1888. Primarily interested in securing patent rights for Whitney's lever-action series of rifles, Winchester closed the plant and moved its machinery to New Haven. After 90 years of production, Whitneyville Armory ceased to exist.