John Browning

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For other people named John Browning, see John Browning (disambiguation).
John Moses Browning

Personal Info
Birth January 21/23, 1855, Ogden, Utah
Death November 26, 1926, Liège
Aged 71
Personal Wealth unknown
Company Info
Name Browning Arms Company
Foundation 1927, Utah
Fate 1977, acquired as a subsidiary by Fabrique Nationale de Herstal (FN)
Company Value unknown
Headquarters United States Mountain Green, Utah
Notable Weapons
Pistols M1911 pistol
Automatic rifles Browning Automatic Rifle
Shotguns Browning Auto-5
Machine Guns M2 Browning

John Moses Browning (January 21[1] or January 23,[2] 1855 – November 26, 1926), born in Ogden, Utah, was an American firearms designer who developed many varieties of firearms, cartridges, and gun mechanisms, many of which are still in use around the world. He is the most important figure in the development of modern automatic and semi-automatic firearms and is credited with 128 gun patents—his first was granted October 7, 1879. He had made his first firearm at the age of thirteen in his father's gun shop.[1]

Browning influenced nearly all categories of firearms design. He invented or made significant improvements to single-shot rifles, lever action rifles, and slide action firearms. His most significant contributions were in the area of autoloading firearms. He developed the first reliable and compact autoloading pistols by inventing the telescoping bolt, integrating the bolt and barrel shroud into what is known as the slide. Browning's telescoping bolt design is now found on nearly every modern automatic handgun, as well as several modern automatic weapons.

He also developed the first gas-operated machine gun, the Colt-Browning Model 1895—a system that would surpass mechanical recoil operation to become the standard for most high-power self-loading firearm designs worldwide.

Browning's most successful designs include the M1911 pistol, the Browning .50 caliber machine gun, the Browning Automatic Rifle, and a ground-breaking semi-automatic shotgun, the Browning Auto-5. All of these designs are still in production as of 2010, a period more than 15 years longer than their inventor himself lived. Even more noteworthy is the fact that these arms are nearly identical today to those assembled by Browning in the 1920s, with only minor changes in detail and cosmetics. Nearly all parts may be freely swapped between the earliest and latest of each series of these weapons, no matter when made, which has extended their service lifespan indefinitely.

History

Browning belonged to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served a two-year mission in Georgia beginning on March 28, 1887. His father Jonathan Browning, who was among the thousands of Mormon pioneers in the mass exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois to Utah, had established a gunsmith shop in Ogden in 1852.

Jonathan had built a gunsmithy in Nauvoo, developing and refining advanced (for the time) repeating firearms and manufacturing techniques. The Browning gunsmithy in Nauvoo is now operated as a museum, and is open to the public at no charge.

John Moses worked in his father's Ogden shop, where he was taught basic engineering and manufacturing principles, and encourage to experiment with new concepts. He developed his first rifle, a single-shot falling-block design, then founded his own manufacturing operation and began to produce this firearm.

Production examples of the Browning single-shot caught the attention of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company who dispatched a representative to evaluate the competition. Winchester bought the design and moved production to their Connecticut factory. From 1883, Browning worked in partnership with Winchester and designed a series of rifles and shotguns, most notably the Winchester Model 1887 and Model 1897 shotguns, the falling block single shot Model 1885, and the lever-action Model 1886, Model 1892, Model 1894 and Model 1895 rifles, most of which are still in production today in some form; over seven million Model 1894 have been produced, more than any other centerfire sporting rifle in history.[3]

Perhaps the most infamous singular Browning-designed firearm was a FN Model 1910 handgun, serial number 19074.[4] In 1914, Gavrilo Princip used the .32 ACP pistol to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie. This event arguably sparked World War I. The pistol was rediscovered in 2004.[5]

A deluxe takedown Winchester Rifle Model 1894

On November 26, 1926, while working on a self-loading pistol design for FN in Liège, he died of heart failure in the office of his son Val A. Browning. The 9 mm self-loading pistol he was working on when he died was eventually completed in 1935, by Belgian designer Dieudonne Saive. Released as the Fabrique Nationale GP35, it was more popularly known as the Browning Hi-Power. This name reflects the 13-round magazine -- at the time, the largest pistol magazine in the world -- not the pistol's 9mm cartridge, which is relatively weak compared to the .45 ACP round of the M1911, developed decades earlier. The Superposed shotgun was his last firearm design, marketed originally with twin triggers. A single trigger modification was later completed by his son, Val.

Throughout his life, Browning designed weapons for his own company, as well as for Winchester, Colt, Remington, Savage, and Fabrique Nationale of Belgium. In 1977, FN acquired the Browning Arms Company which had been established in 1927, the year after Browning's death.

Products

Several of his designs are still in production today. Some of his most notable designs include:

Firearms

File:M1911 Pistol US.jpg
Mid-1945 produced M1911A1 U.S. Army Colt.

Cartridges

In addition, the cartridges he developed are still some of the most popular in the world. They include:

Military weapons

The Colt 1911, Browning 1917/19, and the BAR saw action with US forces in World War I, World War II and the Korean War, with the 1911 going on to serve as the U.S.'s standard military side arm until 1985; a variant is still used by special operations units of the United States Marine Corps and the design remains very popular amongst civilian shooters. The Browning Hi-Power would have a similarly lengthy period of service outside the United States, and remains the standard side arm of the Australian, British, and Canadian armed forces. The M2 Browning machine gun, which was developed in 1918,enter service with the US Armed Forces in 1921 remains in service with armed forces across the world in a variety of roles.

Selected patents

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Encyclopedia Britannica online, "John Moses Browning".
  2. ^ Pelley, Doug (2004-07). "Pictures of Headstones: John M. Browning". Retrieved 2007-01-23. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ Harold A. Murtz, ed. Gun Digest Treasury (DBI Books, 1994), p. 190.
  4. ^ Belfield, Richard. The Assassination Business: A History of State-Sponsored Murder, Carroll & Graf Publishers: New York. ISBN 0786713437. p. 237.
  5. ^ Connolly, Kate (21 June 2004). "Found: the gun that shook the world". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2 April 2009.
  • Browning, John, and Curt Gentry. John M. Browning, American Gunmaker. New York: Doubleday, 1964. OCLC 1329440

External links

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