"The Guns of John Moses Browning" by Nathan Gorenstein

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Snidely70431

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This is a very interesting read for anyone interested in the history and evolution of firearms. John Browning held 128 patents, 35 of which he shared with his brother Matthew. Most of them were for civilian arms, but some were for military arms that the US military used in two world wars, the Korean "Police Action", and whatever Vietnam was. One, the .50 caliber Browning Machine Gun, is still in use.

John Browning's first patent was for the Winchester Model 1885 Single Shot Rifle, also called the High Wall, patented in 1880, first manufactured by the Browning Brothers in Ogden, Utah. Winchester had tried and failed to develop a rifle capable of handling the 45-70 Government round, and Browning's rifle filled that void. Over the next couple of decades Winchester purchased many Browning patents, but never gave him credit for his inventions.
 
John Browning is my favorite Hero of all the gun world. Winchesters money, the failure of others and the likes of Henry, Browning and others are what carried him to success in the gun world.
 
While virtually unknown in the USA because he was never given the credit he deserved for his inventions until he invented the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), the Browning .30 Machine Gun and the Browning .50 Machine Gun, he was famous in Europe because of his association with Fabrique Nationale d'Armes de Guerre (FN), based in Liege, Belgium. Every firearm built by FN carried the logo "Browning Patent, and FN built millions.
 
I would also encourage anyone interested in John Browning to also research John Pedersen and Dieudonne Saive.

John Browning is just one dimension in the history of firearms. These designers and inventors were contemporaries though Browning got a head start on them, of course.

There are also many others. Honestly, I find the others a bit more interesting but Browning is a logical starting point.
 
I have a coffee table Winchester book that minimizes the Browning contributions, saying that Winchester employees had to rework his designs to have something convenient to manufacture and economical to sell.
Well, true, Winchester made the Single Shot with a separate lower tang + trigger group while the ones originally built by the Browning brothers had an integral lower tang.
But if they didn't have the Browning design, there would not have been anything to monkey with.
 
John Pedersen
Who was arguably equally inventive, just not commercially successful.

Pedersen was probably more inventive in cartridges, too. Just, again, not as commercially successful.

So, in many ways, very much like James Paris Lee, who gave us the box magazine as we know it; but is remembered for little else.
 
A lot of Winchester's sporting arms of the last century were Browning designs. John Pederson was responsible for a lot of Remington's guns, most notably the pump rifles. Guess which ones fetch the higher prices and garner the most respect among collectors?

Saive? We can thank him for the FAL and the Hi-power. The should have christened the gun "The Dieudonne Saive High power." Mr. Browning passed away many years before the first one was built.
 
Saive? We can thank him for the FAL and the Hi-power. The should have christened the gun "The Dieudonne Saive High power." Mr. Browning passed away many years before the first one was built.
And, what of Ernest Vervier? He had a major hand in the FAL too.

(Not to mention the MAG-58, Minimi, and CAL)
 
A lot of Winchester's sporting arms of the last century were Browning designs. John Pederson was responsible for a lot of Remington's guns, most notably the pump rifles. Guess which ones fetch the higher prices and garner the most respect among collectors?

Saive? We can thank him for the FAL and the Hi-power. The should have christened the gun "The Dieudonne Saive High power." Mr. Browning passed away many years before the first one was built.

John Browning filed a patent for what became the High Power in 1923. Saive did prove that a 15 round double-stack magazine was possible, despite Browning's skepticism about its practicality.
 
It all arose out of a RFP from France to FN for a new 9mm pistol.
The Feckless Froggies renenged on the GR, turned down the GP, and apparently just ignored the last gasp FN/JMB/DS design in 7.65.

The GP sat on the shelf until Belgium could afford it.
 
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