Jim Watson
Member
I usually refer to him as Mr. Browning.
My guess is that it was started to differentiate the father from the son.
Does it really matter that much to you?
Every gun designer does that to some degree, but to say that John Browning did only that is pure blasphemy. As for the "somebody else" part - in History there is no "if". Never. He did it and got the credit he deserved, end of story.you suddenly see that JMB did little more than combine existent technologies into durable and functional guns. If he hadn’t done so, somebody else would have.
Single-Shot Rifle: along with every other gun designer in the world...
Winchester 1885
Bolt-Action Rifle: Mauser was better and earlier
Winchester 1900
Lever-Action Rifles: Henry designs that were improved upon. Hard to give more credit than to say he made it function better.
Winchester 1886
Winchester 1892
Winchester 1894
Winchester 1895
Slide-Action Rifles: give him some credit here I guess. Maybe.
Winchester 1890
Recoil-Operated Semi-Automatic Rifles: same concept as the auto 5 but for some reason a totally different design. Still the same technology though.
Remington Model 8 and 81
Blowback-Operated Semi-Automatic Rifles:
Browning 22 Semi-auto
Double-Barrel Shotgun: as if double barrels hadn’t been around in muzzle loading days. Yay, let’s turn the barrels sideways. Gimme a break. I
Browning Superposed
Lever-Action Shotgun: again, essentially copied technology from one thing to another.
Winchester 1887
Slide-Action Shotguns: again, along with everybody else. Win 97 isn’t all that special as it is similar to many such as the marlin design.
Winchester 1897
Remington Model 17 (later the Ithaca 37)
Stevens 520
Recoil-Operated Semi-Automatic Shotguns: known as first successful autoloading shotgun, not the first autoloader. Improved tech, not new tech.
Browning Auto 5 / Remington Model 11
Blowback-Operated Semi-Automatic Pistols: I will give a little credit here, there were major steps forward, but everybody was making those steps at the same time. That’s why you have so many various designs in ww1. They all worked and they all did it pretty independently of the others.
FN M1900
Colt 1903/1908 Pocket Hammerless
FN 1906 Vest Pocket/Colt 1908 Vest Pocket
FN 1910
Colt Woodsman .22
Recoil-Operated Semi-Automatic Pistols: same as blowback. What was so special and different?
Colt 1902
Colt 1903 Pocket Hammer
U.S. M1911
FN G.P. 35 Hi Power*
*We got that sorted out long ago.
Gas-Operated Machine Guns: again my point is that they functioned but so did other guns and others. Browning designs were just more robust and more durable.
Colt M1895
U.S. M1918 BAR
Recoil-Operated Machine Guns: more durable. M2 is a standout here in that it is still in use, and was a step forward in tech.
U.S. M1917/M1919
U.S. M2 Heavy Machine Gun
Automatic Machine Cannon: I know nothing of that one so I can’t comment on it.
Colt Browning 37mm
you know I was just picking on you.You know, sometimes I just find things humorous.
I may get the ban hammer for this, but, I think that the man was much less than the legend. Yes he did some good things and brought us several firearms which are very well respected but none were really significant technological breakthroughs so to speak.
His biggest contribution was the 1911 and it was a great weapon...but it was built to a procurement spec sheet.
In shotguns the rem11/a5 was a huge success but it was essentially the same tech as the Winchester 1911 autoloader, only the a5/11 has a cocking handle.
Browning rifles were somewhat less desirable and much more clunky than their competition. The military contracts were impressive mainly in that they did function and were durable.
JMB did start the BHP but he died long before it was finished. The design can hardly be called his.
If you compare the contributions made by JMB to those of Oliver Winchester, Horace Smith, Daniel B Wesson, Hiram Maxim, Mauser, Savage.... you suddenly see that JMB did little more than combine existent technologies into durable and functional guns. If he hadn’t done so, somebody else would have. Same can be said for Sam Colt, and Remington. Were they all engineers who contributed to our interest, absolutely, but each of them was just a man leading a company in times where technology was advancing quickly.
Not just parents - on occasion my wife uses my middle name, loudly, and through gritted teeth.
Or Robert E Lee?
If you compare the contributions made by JMB to those of Oliver Winchester, Horace Smith, Daniel B Wesson, Hiram Maxim, Mauser, Savage....
So I’d contend Browning may not be the best weapons designer of all time but he’s clearly in an elite group and some could argue he is and have very many points to support their argument.
But that's what all inventors do - they extend the existing art in ways that make the technology consumable and/or producable in product form.Yes he took several technologies and made very significant improvements on them. He was truly an incredible engineer, but an inventor he was not.