[Cosmoline]

I've been thinking about all the amazing firearms JMB designed. From his rolling block to the 1911 and the BAR. Obviously he was a true genius. So why is it JMB never designed a bolt action rifle? Or did he?

There were so many amazing developments in bolt actions during the 1890's, when JMB was most active, and I'm sure he knew about them. Was the problem the broad Mauser patents that had to be avoided? Or was it just that he didn't like bolt actions?

[Jim Watson]

I don't know if Mr Browning ever designed a centerfire bolt action rifle; if he did it was probably one of the many bought by Winchester and locked up to keep the competition from getting it. When he was most active, Springfield, Mauser, and Enfield seemed to have all the good ideas and Browning went straight from lever actions to automatics.

However, the bolt action Winchester .22s Models of 1900, 1902, 1904, and the 99 Thumb Trigger were all Browning designs.

[El Tejon]

Remember the time period of what was hot in America and when the bolt gun became popular here.

[Drue]

El Tejon is right. The bolt action did not become popular here until after WW I. Before the war, he was doing guns that Winchester thought would sell, and did sell, to US consumers. During the war he was doing things like the BAR, Ma Duce and the .30 BMG. After the war, the market was flooded with leftovers. On the other hand, Browning, being a genius, may have appreciated that Mauser had already designed the ultimate bolt action and moved forward to other work.

Drue

[Cosmoline]

I'm not so sure about the perfection of the Mauser action. The engineers at Mauser certainly did a good job making a solid bolt action, but I have confidence JMB could have improved on it. How? If I could tell you that I wouldn't ;-) I'd patent it.

[bad_dad_brad]

Probably had to do with economics. Mauser had a lock on bolt actions, so let's come up with something new. Besides, Browning's ideas always seemed to have something to do with automatic actions in the 20th century.

[Mike Irwin]

Probably the same reason there's no John Browning revolver...

[Handy]

The fact that we are still using basic Mauser design in new guns to this day is a strong indication that bolt design was dead by the time Browning might have become interested.

By and large, Brownings interests seemed to lie in more efficient and simple ways of chambering bullets. I would not be at all surprised if he found the bolt action a slow, crude method of operation in a "repeating" rifle. He may have never given them a second thought.

If he did anything with a bolt rifle, it would have ended up with a lever arrangement to work the bolt with a sliding pump. The man built his first auto out of a lever action, after all.

[Badger Arms]

Browning patented a tube-fed bolt action rifle in 1882. This was over 10 years after the Mauser Brothers did IIRC.

[BigG]

I would not be at all surprised if he found the bolt action a slow, crude method of operation in a "repeating" rifle.

We may never know for sure but I would think this theory is very plausible.

[El Tejon]

Big, it's about the Benjamins (or bisons back then). Lee-ver guns are what sold. That's what Winchester wanted to feed their market.

The man was one of a kind. Whatever he put his mind to I'm certain would work just fine.:)

[Handy]

Badger,

Was the patent granted for the bolt system itself, or the feeding device?

[RON in PA]

JMB didn't persue the bolt action because it had already been invented, ie, the Lee.

[Steve Smith]

Perhaps he felt it was too INEFFICIENT. I know I do.


(ducking)

Edit: Wow, Handy and I agree.

[Badger Arms]

Was the patent granted for the bolt system itself, or the feeding device?I'm not a patent attorney, mind you, but it looked like it was for the bolt and an improved tube-feeding mechanism. I have it downloaded if you want to PM me I'll email you the PDF of the patent so you can take a gander at it.

I agree that since Winchester had no interest in bolt guns at the time, JMB would be uninterested in designing one. From what I've read, Browning was worried about the marketability of his firearms first and foremost. He was a salesman as well as an inventor. The bolt action was as accurate in those days (Black Powder and the infancy of metalic cartridges) as any of the single-shots or the lever guns. Lever guns were his bread-and-butter and he graduated to shotguns, autoloaders of many forms, and then to pistols. To ask him the question of why he didn't try to develop and sell a bolt gun you might get the answer, "It never came up." Once JMB got done with the gun world and passed away, there wasn't much left that hadn't already been done.

[Hand_Rifle_Guy]

A centerfire long-recoil auto-loader developed by John Browning, it was introduced in 1906. While not a bolt-gun per se, it does lock it's bolt into the end of the barrel with two opposed locking lugs rotating 90 degrees in the best bolt-gun tradition. He just ran the bolt with cams, springs and recoil momentum instead of a knobbly bolt handle.

Probably a moot point to this conversation, but the M-8 is technically a bolt gun, (If the application of a locking system is enough to qualify it as such.) and is arguably the first successful commercial auto-loader introduced, Winchester being more interested in the blind alley of high-powered blowbacks of the 1905/1907/1910 series.

M-8s and M-81 Woodsmasters stayed in production up into the fifties. A 45-year production life for a commercial design speaks rather well of it, and I would happily hand it the title of "John Browning's Improved Bolt-Action Mechanism"