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JMB Birthday
tambourineman
Member Posts: 150 ✭✭
John Moses Browning, sometimes referred to as the "father of modern firearms," was born on January 21, 1855 in Ogden, Utah. Many of the guns manufactured by companies whose names evoke the history of the American West-Winchester, Colt, Remington, and Savage-were actually based on John Browning designs.
The son of a talented gunsmith, John Moses Browning began experimenting with his own gun designs as a young man. When he was 24 years old, he received his first patent, for a rifle that Winchester manufactured as its Single Shot Model 1885. Impressed by the young man's inventiveness, Winchester asked Browning if he could design a lever-action-repeating shotgun. Browning could and did, but his efforts convinced him that a pump-action mechanism would work better, and he patented his first pump model shotgun in 1888.
Fundamentally, all of Browning manually-operated repeating rifle and shotgun designs were aimed at improving one thing: the speed and reliability with which gun users could fire multiple rounds-whether shooting at game birds or other people. Lever and pump actions allowed the operator to fire a round, operate the lever or pump to quickly eject the spent shell, insert a new cartridge, and then fire again in seconds.
By the late 1880s, Browning had perfected the manual repeating weapon; to make guns that fired any faster, he would somehow have to eliminate the need for slow human beings to actually work the mechanisms. But what force could replace that of the operator moving a lever or pump? Browning discovered the answer during a local shooting competition when he noticed that reeds between a man firing and his target were violently blown aside by gases escaping from the gun muzzle. He decided to try using the force of that escaping gas to automatically work the repeating mechanism.
Browning began experimenting with his idea in 1889. Three years later, he received a patent for the first crude fully automatic weapon that captured the gases at the muzzle and used them to power a mechanism that automatically reloaded the next bullet. In subsequent years, Browning refined his automatic weapon design. When U.S. soldiers went to Europe during WWI, many of them carried Browning Automatic Rifles, as well as Browning deadly machine guns.
During a career spanning more than five decades, Browning guns went from being the classic weapons of the American West to deadly tools of world war carnage. Amazingly, since Browning death in 1926, there have been no further fundamental changes in the modern firearm industry.
The son of a talented gunsmith, John Moses Browning began experimenting with his own gun designs as a young man. When he was 24 years old, he received his first patent, for a rifle that Winchester manufactured as its Single Shot Model 1885. Impressed by the young man's inventiveness, Winchester asked Browning if he could design a lever-action-repeating shotgun. Browning could and did, but his efforts convinced him that a pump-action mechanism would work better, and he patented his first pump model shotgun in 1888.
Fundamentally, all of Browning manually-operated repeating rifle and shotgun designs were aimed at improving one thing: the speed and reliability with which gun users could fire multiple rounds-whether shooting at game birds or other people. Lever and pump actions allowed the operator to fire a round, operate the lever or pump to quickly eject the spent shell, insert a new cartridge, and then fire again in seconds.
By the late 1880s, Browning had perfected the manual repeating weapon; to make guns that fired any faster, he would somehow have to eliminate the need for slow human beings to actually work the mechanisms. But what force could replace that of the operator moving a lever or pump? Browning discovered the answer during a local shooting competition when he noticed that reeds between a man firing and his target were violently blown aside by gases escaping from the gun muzzle. He decided to try using the force of that escaping gas to automatically work the repeating mechanism.
Browning began experimenting with his idea in 1889. Three years later, he received a patent for the first crude fully automatic weapon that captured the gases at the muzzle and used them to power a mechanism that automatically reloaded the next bullet. In subsequent years, Browning refined his automatic weapon design. When U.S. soldiers went to Europe during WWI, many of them carried Browning Automatic Rifles, as well as Browning deadly machine guns.
During a career spanning more than five decades, Browning guns went from being the classic weapons of the American West to deadly tools of world war carnage. Amazingly, since Browning death in 1926, there have been no further fundamental changes in the modern firearm industry.
Comments
Quite the tribute for his 1911 to be going strong & to also be the most copied handgun design in the world, well over 100 years after its birth.
JMB and I celebrate the same Birthday...[;)]
JMB and I celebrate the same Birthday...[;)]
I guess at your age we can overlook the crankiness. Don
...A great and prolific firearms designer, the likes of which we have not seen since.
Quite the tribute for his 1911 to be going strong & to also be the most copied handgun design in the world, well over 100 years after its birth.
JMB and I celebrate the same Birthday...[;)]
Happy Birthday Colt!
Happy Birthday JMB!
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