John Moses Browning, January
23rd 1855 to November 26th 1926 was born in
Ogden, Utah and was an American firearms designer who developed
military and civilian firearms, cartridges, and gun mechanisms that
are still used around the world. When it comes to automatic and
semi-automatic firearms, he is still the king with 128 firearm
patents credited to his name. He made his firearm at the age of 13 in
his father's gun shop, and was awarded his first patent on October
7th 1879 at the age of 24. Browning was a great influence
in almost all categories of firearm design, inventing or improving
the single-shot, lever-action, and slide-action rifles and shotguns;
as well as pistol bolts and shrouds and pistol slides. He developed
the first gas-operated machine gun, the Colt-Browning Model 1895. He
also designed the M1911 pistol, the Browning Hi Power pistol, the
Browning .50 caliber machine gun, the Browning Automatic Rifle, and
the Browning Auto-5 that was an original semi-automatic shotgun. Most
of these firearms are still produced today with some minor changes
and cosmetics and his guns are the most copied in the world.
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| Browning Workshop - Ogden, Utah |
The Browning family were Mormons and
members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and John
served two-years in missionary work in Georgia in 1887. His father,
Jonathan
Browning was among the pioneers who went on a mass exodus to
escape persecution from Nauvoo, Illinois and established a gunsmith
shop in Ogden in 1852. John Moses' mother was the second wife of J.
Browning. He worked in his father's gunsmith shop beginning at the
age of seven and was taught the basics of engineering and
manufacturing principles. His education was only fifth-grade level,
but he had a natural ability in engineering and design. He made his
first custom, single-shot rifle with falling
block action when he was ten years old.
When John Browning was 24 years old, he
received his first patent for a rifle that Winchester manufactured as
its Single
Shot Model 1885. Winchester was impressed with the young
gunsmith/inventor and asked Browning if he could design a
lever-action-repeating
shotgun. He said he could and did. But after tinkering, Browning was
convinced that a pump-action
mechanism would work better, and so he patented his first pump model
shotgun in 1888. Browning's manually operated rifles and shotguns
were designed to improving speed and reliability and allow shooters
to fire multiple rounds whether shooting at game or people. Lever and
pump actions allowed the operator to fire a round, operate the lever
or pump to quickly eject the spent shell and insert a new cartridge,
and then fire again in seconds. It was the design that “won the
West”, as Winchester's ads proclaimed.
When at a shooting competition,
Browning noticed that gas that escaped the muzzle would blow reeds
violently aside. He used that observation to try using the force of
escaping gas to automatically work the repeating mechanism. This idea
was formulated in 1889. Three years later, he received a patent for
his first automatic weapon that captured the gases at the muzzle and
used them to power a mechanism that automatically reloaded the next
bullet. Refining his invention, his automatic design was used by US
soldiers who went to Europe in WWI, carrying the Browning Automatic Rifle.
They also used Browning's deadly machine guns.
They also used Browning's deadly machine guns.
Browning was a master gunsmith and
firearm designer for fifty years and they became the classic American
West's and US military's deadly tools. Since his death in 1926,
little of his inventions have been changed – making him the most
remarkable gunsmith and firearm designer in history.
It is no wonder that Browning has been
memorialized in the state of Utah by making his firearm the state's
firearm icon.
The video at YouTube produced by Tales of the Gun series is an excellent
story of John M. Browning and his firearms.
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