john m. browning american gun maker.

eastbank

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i just reread the book for the third time and the man was truly amazing. with his inventions of machineguns ect. for the u.s. armed services, with some of them still serving today after over 100 years. with his guns saving uncounted numbers of u.s. service men in times of war, declarded and undeclared. to read about the test of those firearms and his ability to make them better as time passed. i don,t think we will ever see a man like that again and i,m glad he was a true american. one part of the book i realy liked was the fact that he never stopped trying to improve on his guns of war for the american soldiers.
 
His dedicated military output is only 20 percent of his total.

Designs primarily for the military market (6):
M1895
M1911
HP-35
M1918
M1917 / M1919
M1921 / M2

Designs primarily for civilian market:
Pistols (9):
FN M1899
Colt M1900
Colt M1902
Colt M1903
Colt M1903 / M1908 Hammerless
M1906 / M1908 Vest Pocket
FN Model M1910
FN M1922
Colt Woodsman

Shotguns (10):
Model 1887
Model 1893
Model 1897
Winchester Model 1912 / Model 12
Browning Auto-5
Remington Model 17
Browning Superposed
Ithaca Model 37
Stevens 520
Stevens 620

Rifles (11):
Winchester Model 1885
Winchester Model 1886
Winchester Model 1890
Winchester Model 1892
Winchester Model 1894
Winchester Model 1895
Winchester Model 1900
Remington Model 8 Semiautomatic
Browning .22 Semiautomatic
Remington Model 24
FM Trombone

Although, he does have the highest number of designs adopted by the US military than any other single inventor with five. All the other inventors are tied for second place with one apiece.
 
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i just reread the book for the third time and the man was truly amazing. with his inventions of machineguns ect. for the u.s. armed services, with some of them still serving today after over 100 years. with his guns saving uncounted numbers of u.s. service men in times of war, declarded and undeclared. to read about the test of those firearms and his ability to make them better as time passed. i don,t think we will ever see a man like that again and i,m glad he was a true american. one part of the book i realy liked was the fact that he never stopped trying to improve on his guns of war for the american soldiers.
The Browning Museum in Ogden, Utah (https://ogdencity.com/1333/Browning-Firearms) is worth a stop if you ever get over this way. I think it's still free, and it's next to the Utah State Railroad Museum - which has also taken up a couple of hours of my time before I realized how long I'd been in there. We're only about a hundred miles north of Ogden, and we get down there fairly often. :thumbup:
 
while watching the mini series, the pacific war. the u.s forces incountered wave attacks by the japanese forces and with out the browning machine guns there may have been another outcome with many more american men being killed. i,m sure there are members here who had relitives own their lives to his inventions.
 
His dedicated military output is only 20 percent of his total.

Designs primarily for the military market (6):
M1895
M1911
HP-35
M1918
M1917 / M1919
M1921 / M2

Designs primarily for civilian market:
Pistols (9):
FN M1899
Colt M1900
Colt M1902
Colt M1903
Colt M1903 / M1908 Hammerless
M1906 / M1908 Vest Pocket
FN Model M1910
FN M1922
Colt Woodsman

Shotguns (10):
Model 1887
Model 1893
Model 1897
Winchester Model 1912 / Model 12
Browning Auto-5
Remington Model 17
Browning Superposed
Ithaca Model 37
Stevens 520
Stevens 620

Rifles (11):
Winchester Model 1885
Winchester Model 1886
Winchester Model 1890
Winchester Model 1892
Winchester Model 1894
Winchester Model 1895
Winchester Model 1900
Remington Model 8 Semiautomatic
Browning .22 Semiautomatic
Remington Model 24
FM Trombone

Although, he does have the highest number of designs adopted by the US military than any other single inventor with five. All the other inventors are tied for second place with one apiece.
The Remington Model 11 is the Browning Auto 5 built in the USA under license.
 
What most impressed me about him and there are many thing I was impressed by, was his presentation to the military. On his first showing there was hiccup on I believe his M 1919! He talked the brass into allowing him to represent it to them. He held the trigger for 45 minutes without a hiccup. The brass were impressed to say the least :cool:
 
Uh, huh. John Moses Browning died in 1926. FN didn't acquire Browning Arms until 1977. I fail to see how JMB got a "fair deal" from FN "Belgium" after he'd been dead for over a half century. :confused:
John Browning died at his work table at FN, Leige, Belgium, November 26, 1926.
Browning went to FN to produce his a5 shotgun when Winchester refused because he thought it would be too expensive and take too long. Winchester and Browning were already at odds over royalties. The failure of Winchester to produce the shotgun was the straw that broke the camels back. FN produced 10,000 Browning auto 5 shotguns for John. The beginning of Browning Arms.
When FN purchased Browning neither here or there.
 
Yep, Winchester was not really a gun guy. He was a money man. He used his money to take advantage of others hard work, and failures.
Oliver Winchester, the guy that started the company died in 1880, his son, William Winchester took over on his father death but died 1881, only four months after is father. By the time Browning began work with Winchester the business in 1883, it was being run by William Converse, William's brother-in-law.

Browning never knew Winchester, father or son.
 
Like most famous inventors, he didn’t truthfully invent much. He improved several things significantly and made brilliant designs using principles already in use by others, but groundbreaking inventor he was not, at least in my mind. Neither was colt for that matter. I do appreciate him as an engineer, a designer, and an innovator, but I think inventor is a stretch. Kinda like saying Henry ford is an inventor when he really wasn’t, he just took bits and pieces from others and put them together in a better way. The true inventors rarely become famous because they sell their inventions to businessmen who then become
rich and famous off of them.

Firearms specifically I can’t truthfully name any individual I would consider an actual inventor. Rollin White comes close with the through-bored revolver cylinder. JMB comes close with a few of his designs. Nobody knows who Jean Samuel Pauly was though. He invented brass cases ammo, but even that as an invention was derived directly from paper cartridges being used in muzzleloaders, but at least it was a huge leap.
 
Like most famous inventors, he didn’t truthfully invent much. He improved several things significantly and made brilliant designs using principles already in use by others, but groundbreaking inventor he was not, at least in my mind. Neither was colt for that matter. I do appreciate him as an engineer, a designer, and an innovator, but I think inventor is a stretch. Kinda like saying Henry ford is an inventor when he really wasn’t, he just took bits and pieces from others and put them together in a better way. The true inventors rarely become famous because they sell their inventions to businessmen who then become
rich and famous off of them.

Firearms specifically I can’t truthfully name any individual I would consider an actual inventor. Rollin White comes close with the through-bored revolver cylinder. JMB comes close with a few of his designs. Nobody knows who Jean Samuel Pauly was though. He invented brass cases ammo, but even that as an invention was derived directly from paper cartridges being used in muzzleloaders, but at least it was a huge leap.
Colts first prototype revolver was made of wood. His next was made by a blacksmith. It fell apart when fired. Talking made him the money to get started in firearms. But, manufacturing was his true claim to fame. He was the Henry Ford of gun manufacturing. He perfected a process to manufacture a quality firearm at a good price.
 
Like most famous inventors, he didn’t truthfully invent much. He improved several things significantly and made brilliant designs using principles already in use by others, but groundbreaking inventor he was not, at least in my mind. Neither was colt for that matter. I do appreciate him as an engineer, a designer, and an innovator, but I think inventor is a stretch. Kinda like saying Henry ford is an inventor when he really wasn’t, he just took bits and pieces from others and put them together in a better way. The true inventors rarely become famous because they sell their inventions to businessmen who then become
rich and famous off of them.

Firearms specifically I can’t truthfully name any individual I would consider an actual inventor. Rollin White comes close with the through-bored revolver cylinder. JMB comes close with a few of his designs. Nobody knows who Jean Samuel Pauly was though. He invented brass cases ammo, but even that as an invention was derived directly from paper cartridges being used in muzzleloaders, but at least it was a huge leap.
One hundred and twenty-nine US patents kind'a tell us he did a lot of inventing.

Some of the more notable inventions that were firsts:

-The pistol slide
-The barrel locking into the slide by lug(s) in top of the barrel engaging in recess(es) in the slide.
-The use of a ramp to lower the barrel out of locking engagement.
-The idea of gas operated weapons.
-The gas-port drilled in the barrel for gas operated weapons.
 
One hundred and twenty-nine US patents kind'a tell us he did a lot of inventing.

Some of the more notable inventions that were firsts:

-The pistol slide
-The barrel locking into the slide by lug(s) in top of the barrel engaging in recess(es) in the slide.
-The use of a ramp to lower the barrel out of locking engagement.
-The idea of gas operated weapons.
-The gas-port drilled in the barrel for gas operated weapons.
First things first, a patent doesn’t mean it’s an invention. It means somebody got paperwork done first. In that era there was a ton of patent infringement to a point many technical drawings in the patent office are intentionally wrong and unusable so that people could get the patent but also protect it by publishing incorrect info. Additionally a patent has geographical limitations so what one patented in the US someone else likely had the patent elsewhere. 129 patents means he had a good secretary. He also had several engineers working for him who did a lot of the work, which to his credit was under his watch but still not his work. Same thing happens today. I know several guys personally who have patents for things in the industrial world but the company they work for owns them and their only real recognition is that they are noted in the paperwork.

In the realm of turn of the century firearms… there were a lot of people working on the same basic things at the same time. First to perfect was not necessarily first to the patent office, nor were they necessarily first in line looking for a contract. Brownings designs for the tilting barrel locking mechanism is one of his best “inventions” and has stood the test of time as a good means for accomplishing the task. Brownings long recoil operation worked for a long time, then fell out of favor when better methods came about. Again, I’m not throwing shade, I’m just saying that he is more of a designer or engineer than he is an inventor. He did have some truly innovative stuff, but had he not done it somebody else would have within a short time span. Just read up on the fights between JMB and Hiram Maxim. Another example, Brownings patent for the breech loading single shot rifle. Simply taking fixed ammunition from Flobert or others and a contemporary rifle and figuring out a way to make it work. Good design, great engineering, just not that hard of a thought process to make this gizmo fit that gizmo, so really what got invented there?

My whole point in this is that people overlook absolutely brilliant and important people who have contributed to the common good in so many ways and celebrate others, often who have done less but with better publicity. Had the situation in Europe been different in the earliest days of the 20th century then the things Browning (and others) did would have not been profitable, but with war looming and the Industrial Revolution kicking into gear at the same time as innovation in machinery and metallurgy there was a market for new weapons. Somebody was going to make it happen. Hiram Maxim made his machine gun and got parents for gas operated weapons. He invented an entire class of weapon. Browning came along right on his heels and did the same thing in a different way which seems to have worked out better over time. Let’s give him credit for being a brilliant man and distinguished engineer and designer. Let’s not however forget all of the other guys by giving JMB more credit than is due.

Yes this is one of my buttons that gets pushed to set me off somewhat regularly.
 
I won't overlook the fact that he was Mormon and at least for a period not American. The Utah territory was independent of the United States, having been formed when the Mormons explicitly left the United States in 1847. Jonathan Browning, John Moses Browning's father, was in that exodus. The Utah Territory was governed separately by the Mormons until it was joined to the union in 1896.
 
The fact he was a convict and managed to get out of prison because of his skill is enough to admire.
 
First things first, a patent doesn’t mean it’s an invention. It means somebody got paperwork done first. In that era there was a ton of patent infringement to a point many technical drawings in the patent office are intentionally wrong and unusable so that people could get the patent but also protect it by publishing incorrect info. Additionally a patent has geographical limitations so what one patented in the US someone else likely had the patent elsewhere. 129 patents means he had a good secretary. He also had several engineers working for him who did a lot of the work, which to his credit was under his watch but still not his work. Same thing happens today. I know several guys personally who have patents for things in the industrial world but the company they work for owns them and their only real recognition is that they are noted in the paperwork.

In the realm of turn of the century firearms… there were a lot of people working on the same basic things at the same time. First to perfect was not necessarily first to the patent office, nor were they necessarily first in line looking for a contract. Brownings designs for the tilting barrel locking mechanism is one of his best “inventions” and has stood the test of time as a good means for accomplishing the task. Brownings long recoil operation worked for a long time, then fell out of favor when better methods came about. Again, I’m not throwing shade, I’m just saying that he is more of a designer or engineer than he is an inventor. He did have some truly innovative stuff, but had he not done it somebody else would have within a short time span. Just read up on the fights between JMB and Hiram Maxim. Another example, Brownings patent for the breech loading single shot rifle. Simply taking fixed ammunition from Flobert or others and a contemporary rifle and figuring out a way to make it work. Good design, great engineering, just not that hard of a thought process to make this gizmo fit that gizmo, so really what got invented there?

My whole point in this is that people overlook absolutely brilliant and important people who have contributed to the common good in so many ways and celebrate others, often who have done less but with better publicity. Had the situation in Europe been different in the earliest days of the 20th century then the things Browning (and others) did would have not been profitable, but with war looming and the Industrial Revolution kicking into gear at the same time as innovation in machinery and metallurgy there was a market for new weapons. Somebody was going to make it happen. Hiram Maxim made his machine gun and got parents for gas operated weapons. He invented an entire class of weapon. Browning came along right on his heels and did the same thing in a different way which seems to have worked out better over time. Let’s give him credit for being a brilliant man and distinguished engineer and designer. Let’s not however forget all of the other guys by giving JMB more credit than is due.

Yes this is one of my buttons that gets pushed to set me off somewhat regularly.
I listed five things that Browning did invent, by your definition, things that did not exist in any form before, six if you throw in the long recoil idea.

Name another gun designer that came up with more than six wholly original ideas.

Name another inventor in any field that came up with more than six wholly original ideas.
 
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