Browning's First Gas Operated Machine Gun

[denton]

This one took me a few minutes to sort out.

Thanks to other posters, we've seen a strange looking device also described as Browning's first gas operated machine gun (45-70). If I've got this right, that device did precede the one shown here. Both that and the lever action 44-40 that I posted earlier were "flapper" systems, extracting energy to run the mechanism from gas that had exited the muzzle.

This one picks off propellant gas off near the muzzle, and so is the first of the type we have today. The bore is 44 caliber, but nobody that we know of has actually checked the chambering. It is presumed to be 44-40. Note the vertical magazine well on the right side of the receiver.

Reportedly, Mikhail Kalashnikov studied this particular device when designing his AK47, and it's influence is clearly present down to present day AR15s and the like.






This is one ugly piece of work. Note the two extra dovetails in the middle of the barrel. Of course, it wasn't meant to be anything but a test prototype, and it filled that role admirably.

As I was taking this photo, there was a lady there looking at it with interest. She seemed to be puzzled by the term "gas operated", and I think she was trying to figure out how you put gasoline in it.

NOTE: I'm probably headed back over to the museum tomorrow, and will get a few more pictures. If there are any requests for specific items, let me know.

 

[film495]

Where is this? Utah?

 

[WestKentucky]

So they essentially chopped off the lever, attached an operating rod and spring to a gas port and let it slam fire? Seems dangerously close to a premature opening of the chamber, but everything takes time and with the port so far forward it likely was enough of a delay for pressure to dissipate before the action opened. Also this would have been late black powder/early smokeless timeframe so pressures weren’t all that wild to begin with.

 

[denton]

Where is this? Utah?

Yes, this is from the Browning Museum in Ogden, Utah, John Browning's home town.

 

[caribou]

To conceive such, and be the first.
Pure genius.

 

[CapnMac]

Seems dangerously close to a premature opening of the chamber, but everything takes time and with the port so far forward it likely was enough of a delay for pressure to dissipate before the action opened.

Given how meticulous JMB was, he probably calculated the timing out to a reasonably precise value.

 

[David Hoback]

Yup, that and the “Flapper”, which was actually the first in 1873. As this one was 1889.


And to think, from this it was less than 30yrs until Browning made the BAR. Although not really used until WW2, it actually came out at the end of WW1. And just 1yr later, in 1919 he made the Ma-Deuce! STILL a BONAFIDE butt kicking machine used today! Browning was an absolute genius, SO radically advanced in thinking, not just for his time…but many decades later!

 

[4v50 Gary]

The beauty of that design is that the gas operates directly on the op-rod and that the spring is mounted directly to it. Other Soviet designs were convoluted and had too many parts; making them susceptible to failure. Kalashnikov's safety came right from the Rem Model 8 and if you look at the design of the trigger set up, you'll find the same on the Browning A5 and M-1 Garand. Kalashnikov took the best ideas and put them together right the first time.

 

[David Hoback]

Precisely a reason of the beauty of the AR15’s Direct Impingement system. Very few parts, and nothing moving apart from inside the Action.

Reason I shake my head over people thinking the Gas Piston ARs are so great. No thanks.

But I digress. Did I mention that Browning was one of the greatest geniuses our World has ever known?

 

[halfmoonclip]

This design actually saw use, in the form of the Colt Potato Digger Machine Gun.
The nickname came from the flapper by the muzzle, looking ready to make an excavation.
The recent TV mini-series, about the Rough Riders, features these, as well as lots of other great period arms.
Moon

 

[David Hoback]

Yes! The Colt 1895 Machine Gun. Or “
“Potato Digger” One thing to note, as we don’t hear of his name much, but Matthew S., the brother to John Moses, was involved in designing many firearms with his older brother John. The Potato Digger is one of their collaborations.

 

[theotherwaldo]

There were two of these 1895s mounted in the Jacksonville, Alabama town square under the Confederate Memorial statue.
They were in pretty bad shape.
Last time that I checked pictures of the square, the Memorial was still there but I couldn't see any "potato diggers"... .

 

[FOGeologist]

IIRC the Potato Diggers saw limited action in northern Mexico when the U.S. Army was pursuing Pancho Villa in 1916.