John Browning's Move to Europe

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SIGfiend

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Can anyone clarify for me why Browning went to Belgium? I know he had many of his guns made there, but Wikipedia didn't say much on this subject. I also notice he lived until death there in Liege.

Did he lose his patriotism and like Europe better than the U.S.? Or was his purpose staying there for that long only for business purposes?
 
Mainly because he had a number of designs that the American companies showed no interest in. It had nothing to do with patriotism. FN recognized the ingenuity of his designs when nobody over here did.
 
Nobody, Stateside, would make the BHP, as I recall.
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Nobody stateside was given the opportunity.
The BHP was an outgrowth of a French deal with FN.
The French renenged, Mr Browning died, Msr Saive worked on the gun, the Depression intervened, and they finally started moving guns in 1935 on a 1926 project.


There were not all that many FN-only Browning guns.
I can't see where the 1910 .32 is an improvement over the Colt 1903. Apparently Colt couldn't, either.
The Superposed was probably too modern for American tastes, we were still in the repeater versus side by side debate when it came out on the Continent.
I remember when they dumped a lot of FN/Browning .22 "Trombone" rifles on the US market. Every major US maker had one or more pumps in the catalog, they didn't need another.

The 1903 9mm BL, 1910/22, and BHP were military weapons produced to the requirements of the issuing armies, no idea of commercial sales until much later with the BHP.
 
I thought it was because he wanted his guns made but Winchester would just buy the patents to most of them and never put them in to production so he stopped dealing with them. Then he was in the waiting room for a meting with the Remington president at the time but the Remington president died well he was waiting so he soled the international right of the browning a5 to fn in Europe. Well that's what tales if the gun said in a few of there episodes.
 
He had a temporary home in Belgium and maintained a home in Utah. Even while living in Belgium he still did work for US interests.
 
Browning already had a relationship with FN with the Auto 5.

He originally went to Winchester who wouldn't pay his price (bad move). He then went to Remington who really liked it but the president of the company died, tossing everything into a tailspin.

Only then did he go to FN.

FN treated him right because the Auto 5 was incredibly profitable. (the best selling auto shotgun for decades).

If Winchester had bought the Auto 5 design or the Remington president had lived a little longer, it is conceivable that we would be talking about the "Remington Hi Power".
 
It wasn't a matter of Winchester not meeting his price, it was Winchester refusing a royalty deal.

Winchester always outright bought a design from Browning for a set price, with all profits deriving therefrom belonging to Winchester.
Once Browning reached a certain point of success & realized he was not making as much on an outright design sale as he could on continuing royalties (a percentage of on-going sales during a particular gun's production life) he offered his next design to Winchester on a royalty basis. Winchester said no, Browning then turned to FN who was happy to offer "The Master" just about anything he wanted.

A side aspect of the Winchester situation was that the company did buy more than one design from Browning never intending to produce it, just to hold a patent feature to prevent anybody else from coming up with it independently & using it in competition against Winchester.

Browning lived & worked in both Belgium and the US until he died in 1926 in his FN office.
Denis
 
it was Winchester refusing a royalty deal
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You are correct. I was attempting to avoid my tendency for verbosity as the thread was about the HP, not the Auto 5.

The Winchester thing was a business decision (one that surely they came to regret).

The untimely death of the president of Remington was bad luck. Remington was happy to allow Browning to continue to hold his patent and pay him on a "unit produced" basis.
 
Guill,
The ability to reduce verbosity is both a skill to be respected and a goal to be desired. Far be it from me to disparage such lofty aspirations.
(Few know, incidentally, that the tiny town whose talkative inhabitants gave the term its point of origin- Verbo City, still exists tucked away high on a mountainside on one of the Greek Islands that tourists rarely visit.)

Yes, I am correct. The only time I'm not correct is when I'm not right, which time this isn't. :D

Check back later, though, y'never know....
Denis
 
It is believed that John Browning's first contact with Fabrique Nationale (FN) occurred in 1897, and the point of interest was the inventor's new .32 pistol. While it was called the Modele 1900 because the Belgian government adopted it that year, some 3,900 were manufactured during 1899.

The A-5 shotgun did not enter into production until 1902, with serial No. 1 being shipped to the United States in Sept. 1903. By that time FN was making a second Browning-designed pistol, and others soon followed.

About the same time (1898) Browning made a deal with Colt. where they would make and market his pistols in the United States, England, Russia and South America, where FN would control sales in Europe and Canada.

Besides being an exceptional inventor, JMB was also an astute businessman. He neither manufactured guns nor sold his patents (with the exception of Winchester as previously noted). Instead he licensed others to use them, and collected a royalty on each firearm produced. In time, this made him a very rich man.
 
While I am sure that Old Fuff is right, that JMB had a relationship with FN before the Auto 5. But the Auto 5 is what made FN do whatever he wanted.
 
While I am sure that Old Fuff is right, that JMB had a relationship with FN before the Auto 5. But the Auto 5 is what made FN do whatever he wanted.
Click to expand...

I don't think so. FN's principal focus was on his pistols. They had a lock on the European market, and handgun sales to various military forces, law enforcement and civilian customers outranked shotgun sales by far. As a rule-of-thumb, bird hunting was as a practical matter restricted to the very rich and/or upper political classes, and they prefered hand-built double barrels, which they could easily afford.

As a manufacturer, FN made everything from trucks to guns, and armaments from field pieces down. They were so big they could buy steel made to their own specifications by the boxcar load. In other words, they were BIG!
 
The success of the Auto 5 made FN a boxcar full of money.

It is hard to imagine that their bank accounts bulging with Auto 5 money was not a factor when JMB had another gun he wanted to build.
 
Well I haven't researched the issue much because of lack of time, but I believe that during the 1903 to 1940 time period FN made the following Browning-designed long guns.

1. A .22 pump-action rifle (not sure about that one).

2. A .22 semi-automatic rifle

3. A over/under shotgun

During the same time period they made:

1. Two models of .25 pistols.

2. At least 3 versions of .32 or .380 pistols

3. The Hi-Power 9mm pistol

4. The VIS (Polish) 9mm pistol

FN's big-bucks winner in long guns sales was a licensed copy of the Mauser model 98 bolt-action rifle.

Shortly after production of the A-5 started, Browning ordered 10,000 for shipment to his company in the United States. Additional orders followed. This of course put money in both FN's an Browning's pockets. Eventually Browning licensed both Remington and Savage to make the A-5, and combined they outsold those made by FN because the larger market was in the USA.
 
I am not sure what we are arguing about

My point was that Browning and FN were already buddies when JMB designed the Hi Power and that is why they got to build it.

If an American company had established such a relationship with him with the Auto 5 (Remington or Winchester) one of them might have produced other of his designs.
 
Me, argue?????

Never....

That's because I'm alway right... :neener: :evil: :D

Anyway, my point was that FN's original focus on Browning was the same as Colt's - namely pistols. Anything else was iceing on the cake.

By the time the Spainish American War was over (and maybe before), Browning - like president Teddy Roosevelt - had a world view, at least so far as the firearms business was concerned.

In the United States he had mostly delt with Winchester, but now he didn't like the terms they were demanding. Thus he started looking for better deals, and in the process a big-name manufacturer in Europe. At the same time he landed Colt when both companies had a focus was on magazine-fed pistols.

Browning is well known for his inventions, but much less so for being a sharp businessman. You seldom find that combination, and he was both.
 
so you are saying that even if the Remington president had lived, and they got the Auto 5 that JMB would have gone to FN?

While we will never know, it seems that Remington was interested in getting into the handgun business. In 1918 they started making the Model 51.

Of course all of this hinges on the notion that JMB had the HP in his brain and was going to produce it anyway.

The fact of the matter is that FN commissioned JMB to make a new military sidearm.

So in the end, that is probably why he ended up producing it there. They waved a check under his nose.

Works with me too
 
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