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What if...

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NotQuiteSane

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Let's try some AH.

From the obitioaries, January 24th, 1855:
Elizibeth Clark Browning died yesterday of complications due to childbirth. The child, Jonathan Moses, survived 3 hours before dying. they are survived by...
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now...

How does this event affect firearms development over the past 135 years?

NQS
 
I may get some flames but.......someone else would have done it.


I think the advances would have been made in the logical order as they were by Colt, Smith & Wesson, Springfield, or someone. Maybe we wouldn't know the name but the results would be very similar if not identical.

hope i didn't raise any blood pressure
 
I'm not sure if anything would have changed since the gentleman who invented the various firearms we all know and love was "John Moses Browning". His father was Jonathan Browning, but he wasn't born in 1855, so that can't be who you are talking about. The obit must have been for some other Browning. :D
 
How about this:

John Hinckley makes a better choice in his caliber selection, and has a little bit better aim. Reagan doesn't make it and Bush 41 becomes president in early 1981. How does this affect subsequent domestic and international politics?

Or this:

The National Firearms Act of 1934 is passed in its original form and regulates handguns similarly to machineguns, sound suppressors and short-barreled long guns. How does this affect subsequent gun laws and gun culture in the US?
 
We'd all probably be packing Colt Peacemakers.

Okay, I guess that's something of an overstatement, but there is much that JMB contributed to the gun culture that we take for granted oh-so-much today.

If you think someone else would have done it, tell me this: Why hasn't his work been superceded by now?

The man's been dead about 80 years now, yet most of his work still stands.

Wes
 
what i'd find more interesting is the possible effects of jmb retaining his own patents. what sort of gun would the bhp be, and would the 1911 have gone the way of the 1908?

sure, later in development the patents expired and could be integrated into the design, but i'm thinking in terms of jmb not losing the time.
 
What if....

Superman crash landed in Nazi Germany and was called "Ubermon"?

Headlines read, "Ubermon destroys 2 million jews."
 
I think the 1911 is one of those things, like the air conditioner and TV dinner, that humanity would eventually create sooner or later regardless of original inventor.

:D
 
Why so few innovations in the last 40 years?

Well, the potential inventor must have an interest in firearms: ain't gonna get it in school or the Scouts any more; ain't gonna happen in a city or country where private ownership is (all but) prohibited or frowned upon.

Must have some engineering/mechanical experience; ain't gonna happen with today's disposable society. My high school dropped all shop classes a few years ago because Little Johnny couldn't read, much less read blueprints...forget about creating blueprints!

Must have somewhere convienient to shoot/test; can't just go to the sticks or the back yard without upsetting the neighbors!

AK/FAL/M-16/G-3 and Glock were the last revolution of firearms. Everything else I can think of offhand is evolutionary, due to improvements in materials. G-11 unworkable, for now...

OK, say I invent something totally different that is optimized for an all-new proprietary cartridge - who am I going to sell it to, the "JMB is God" crowd? The ".45ACP vs. 9mm vs. 40S&W" camp? Hunters and Sportsmen? LEO and military only, so ya'll can't buy one anyway? Besides that, the first time a kid or cop gets shot by my invention I get demonized and sued. So, where's the incentive?

Too many variables to solve this equation...:scrutiny:
 
Had JMB died at birth I believe that the Luger in .45 would have become the first semi auto adopted by our armed forces.
 
1911's are delivered straight from God,

so it just would have been someone else sent up on the mount to take delivery from the heavenly U.P.S. guy.
 
Perhaps better firearms would have be developed by other people, that had not ditched their idea's after seeing someone elses gun?
 
I may get some flames but.......someone else would have done it.
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I agree, but at what dates? that alone could change things

Jennings, Lorcin and Bryco would be our choices for top-of-the-line handguns
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that doesn't follow. before the 1911 (and it's predecessors) semi auto weapons, and double action revolvers already had been around for over a decade.

plus don't those three use JMB based actions?


John Hinckley makes a better choice in his caliber selection, and has a little bit better aim. Reagan doesn't make it and Bush 41 becomes president in early 1981. How does this affect subsequent domestic and international politics?
Click to expand...

that would be an interesting one, as Bush is a moderate.

on the same line of thought, Hinkley was looking for Ted Kennedy. if he had found and killed him, how would that effect gun control? we'd probably have the "Brady" (kennedy?) bill by the mid 80's, but w/o Brady to wheel around, would gun control get much further this soon?

We'd all probably be packing Colt Peacemakers.
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Perhaps. but since the double action revolver dates back to the 1880's, Savage and Lugar had semi auto's by the early 1900's, I would think that weaponry would have continued to evolve.

Had JMB died at birth I believe that the Luger in .45 would have become the first semi auto adopted by our armed forces.
Click to expand...

Maybe. But I think NMH syndrome would come into play, and we'd be issuing Savage's to the troops

NQS
 
Maybe. But I think NMH syndrome would come into play, and we'd be issuing Savage's to the troops
Click to expand...
Good point ... probably right about the Savage (which wouldn't have been a bad thing ... I'm still happier that JMB was around)
 
The Hi-Power and 1911 seem to be the only truly popular American-designed auto's, unless one counts the S&W's. What I'ma gettin' at is this. Without Browning, perhaps auto's would be unpopular in America to this day. Maybe the revolver would have achieved a higher degree of sophistication. Maybe combat revolvers would have quick-change cylinders, or perhaps we'd all have Mateba-type semi-auto revo's.

just a thought
 
Probably nothing would have changed. History always has a runner-up for those who make a big difference in our world. Newton/Leibnitz (Calculus), Einstein/Lorentz (The theory of Relativity), Ford/Duryea (The assembly line automobile), Gates/Jobs (The dominant operating system), etc., etc., etc.

Had the famous ones died prematurely, we'd all know the second names by heart.
 
I don't believe that J.M.Browning invented the blow back design. In that case logic would have it that with revolvers using superior cartridges, some engineers would have been looking into how to accomplish this. It was the lugs that accomplished it so I'm sure someone else would have eventually saw this.
Rember it was a frenchman that refined the Browning High Power. There have been some really innovative designers since J.M.B. Notably, Luger, Sauer (Sig Sauer), Heckler & Koch and the Russians that developed the Mak's and AK 47.
One thing feeds off another allowing for further progression. Look how far we have come from the Wright Bros., Henry Ford and others. DaVinci had ideas
that weren't developed until the 20th century, i.e. the helicopter and parachute.
 
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