Forgotten battlerifles: Johnson & Hakim

[Snowdog]

Forgotten Battle Rifles: Johnson & Hakim

While talking with a friend who's forgotten more about WWII firearms than I'll ever know, he brought up a couple names that I'm not too familiar with.

After uncovering my plans of collecting as many specimens of WWII battlerifles I can find, he mentioned the Johnson and Hakim as future possibles.

I am aware of each, possessing a vague memory of what each looks like. I am also aware the Johnson was chambered in .30-06 and Hakim in 8x57... but how much were they used in WWII?

This friend also mentioned something about the Johnson having a reciprocating barrel... is this accurate?

Also, I was warned about the French MAS bolt action and a tendency for them to experience catastrophic failures (bolt lugs failing, etc). This is the first I've heard of this. I am thinking he likely got that bit of info from an unreliable source, but I'm interested to know if there's any truth in this.

Thanks.

 

[DMK]

Some interesting info on the 1941 Johnson here:

http://www.johnsonautomatics.com/

 

[Mike Irwin]

The Johnson saw limited use.

The Hakim was a product of the post war, and saw NO use. It wasn't even made in Egypt until 1948 or 1949.

 

[HerbG]

As I recall reading, the Johnson was issued early in WWII to some units of Marine Raiders and later replaced by the Garand. I believe the Dutch government bought some Johnsons in 7x57, but I've never seen one. The Johnson operates on the short recoil principle, and the barrel does move as a part of the gun's operation.

I fired a Johnson in the 1960's when it was being sold for about $100 by several purveyors of surplus guns. It shot reasonably well, but its design was obviously inferior to the Garand as a battle rifle. The US did well to stick with the M1!

 

[Gordon]

My Hakim is 3" at 100yds accurate because I have a scout mount on the rear sight and a Redfield 4X scope on it (at the moment) . This is with 80's Yugo 8mm ammo. I have 2 original 10 round magazines, and one aftermarket 30rounder for blasting with this huge blaster.

 

[JohnKSa]

Wasn't the Hakim a copy of the Swedish Ljungman? Although Sweden was neutral, the rifles were introduced in 1942 or so and it's possible (though not likely) that some of them found their way into battle somewhere during WWII...

The Ljungman is probably a nicer rifle too.

 

[cookhj]

i rememeber a few years ago when ljungmans were everywhere. now, you can't find one to save your life. that is, unless you have one already.

 

[Mike Irwin]

Ljungmans were first produced in 1942.

The Hakim, essentially a copy in 7.92x57, didn't come along as a licensed copy until the late 1940s.

 

[Gewehr98]

The Swedes set up Hakim tooling for the Egyptians...

Hence the strong family resemblance between the Hakim and this WWII Swedish autoloader, horse-traded into by yours truly:

 

[Sven]

Johnson has a quick-swap barrel system... some guys forget that when you swap barrels, headspace can change. Just a headsup. Cool design.

 

[Detachment Charlie]

Your Johnson

Good Old Uncle Dave, a WWII Marine Tarawa vet, told me the M1 won out because all the Marines wanted to do was polish their Johnsons.
(Sorry, broken ribs, too much pain medicine and a dull Saturday morning are responsible for my posts this morning.)

 

[Mike Irwin]

Sven,

IIRC, the quick barrel change feature was associated with the Johnson Light Machine Gun, but not the rifle.

Lots of machine guns in the WW II era were made with quick-swap barrels, and head space for them rarely seemed to be an issue.

 

[Sven]

Huh, when I was at MilTech the owner there showed me how he could pop the barrel off... would have sworn this was a semi-auto.

 

[Mike Irwin]

Sven,

It could well be that the barrel could be quickly dismounted from the Johnson rifle, but was it really a "quick swap" feature, or something done for maintenance?

Remember, there have been quite a few American sporting arms (Winchester, Savage, and Marlin) that could have the barrel dismounted quickly, but as long as it was put back on that particular rifle, things were copacetic.

 

[Jim K]

One of the advantages of the Johnson over the M1 was that the Johnson barrel can be easily removed simply by using a bullet point to unlatch the lock that holds it in place. No other parts have to be removed. While this made cleaning easier, it was not a "quick change" feature because extra barrels were not issued with the rifle.

The Johnson had good features but, IMHO, was not as good as the M1 rifle and would not have been as good a battle rifle, although the Marines who used it liked it very much. FWIW, it pioneered the multiple lug bolt concept that was later used on the AR-10 and AR-15/M16 rifles.

The Dutch rifles were in .30-'06; the .270 and 7x57 calibers were postwar conversions by Winfield Arms, though I think Johnson made the barrels. Johnson also made barrels in several other calibers, including 7.65mm Mauser, 8mm Mauser, and 7.62 NATO to try to interest foreign nations, but nothing came of those developments.

Jim