John Moses Browning

[tark]

A reference to the original lyrics to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic". I know exactly what you mean .

And yes, it most certainly was.... Sadly, too few people in this world have any idea what we are talking about. Not much history taught in schools these days.

BTW, that's a pretty fine group displayed in your handle.

 

[rpenmanparker]

Thanks. 25 rounds at 7 yards out of a Ruger SR 1911 9 mm Commander. What is the word they use for that kind of inability to do no wrong in sports like basketball? Unconscious? That is what it felt like.

Back to JMB, I was just thinking maybe his folks were trying to say, “Not THAT John Browning!”

 

[drband]

I believe the civil war era firebrand referred to was John Brown.
Not sure why Brown would be confused with Browning, but maybe so...

 

[rpenmanparker]

I believe the civil war era firebrand referred to was John Brown.
Not sure why Brown would be confused with Browning, but maybe so...

Whoops! Irrational enthusiasm. Well, I was just fooling around anyway.

 

[Jim Watson]

I have seen a picture of a Garand primer actuated rifle ca 1920, with a big box magazine. BAR part maybe.
But we ended up with the fixed magazine, enbloc clip. I guess the brass was worried about "wasting ammo" which might have been a concern in the days of mule delivery of supplies. Or maybe they were worried about privates losing box magazines. There was a .303 with the magazine chained to the gun, and the M14 has stripper clip guides.

I have read two different stories about the primer actuated guns not making it any further. One was that progressive MR and IMR powder did not give the fast pressure rise of Pyro DG and did not bump the primer back smartly enough. The other was that crimped primers for reliability in machine guns kept the primer from backing out and operating the gun.

Of course in those days Mr Browning's recoil and gas operated guns were doing well.

 

[tarosean]

Nope, 100% serious. If 1911's were so great, why are there so many threads on how to make them unjam and make them reliable?

You realize 1911's were only one of the thousands of guns he designed?

Very common on the dedicated 1911 boards.

The same ca be said for any dedicated gun board. Go to glocktalk and see how long it takes to find issues, or Sigfourm, or S&W etc etc etc etc.

 

[tark]

I have seen a picture of a Garand primer actuated rifle ca 1920, with a big box magazine. BAR part maybe.

Indeed it was. Garand's first primer actuated gun had a sporter stock and employed a BAR magazine. His second model is pictured in post# 74. Much more military in appearance. In post #80, you give an excellent summary of what happened to the primer actuated concept. It was no longer feasible.

 

[Jim Watson]

I read of another primer actuated automatic that depended on dedicated ammo with deep deep primer pockets. The primer served as a piston over a fairly long stroke and gave the heavy firing pin a good push to operate the action.

 

[.308 Norma]

Now, now, it's "John M. Browning Firearms Museum"...

I still call it the “Browning” museum. It’s located in the old Ogden Union Station along with 3 other museums and a couple of art galleries.

http://theunionstation.org/

BTW, one of the 3 other museums is the Browning-Kimball Classic Car Museum. I’m not sure if the Brownings that started the classic car museum had anything to do with John M. Browning. But it too is well worth a “look-see” IMO.

 

[rskent]

Nope, 100% serious. If 1911's were so great, why are there so many threads on how to make them unjam and make them reliable?

I think they are very reliable. When people try to make them “better” is where the problems start.

If you take a combat pistol and try to make it into something else the results are predictable.

 

[JeeperCreeper]

You realize 1911's were only one of the thousands of guns he designed?

128 patents. Basically he was the McDonald's of gun designing.

I didn't know his son Val was a big gun drawer too, though.

Back to the OP, I'm sure his three-word-name comes from getting mixed up with his 23 siblings and 3 mothers.

 

[rpenmanparker]

I think they are very reliable. When people try to make them “better” is where the problems start.

If you take a combat pistol and try to make it into something else the results are predictable.

That is not exactly how I understand it. They were developed to run ball ammo. Through no fault of the originator hollow points including those with a highly sloped bullet are now popular. The issues often occur when running the more modern ammo. Another thing I learned during my handgun self defense course is that malfunctions can be cleared in less than a second or two, even the most severe, the Type 3. They don’t have to be a problem in a gunfight.

 

[tarosean]

128 patents. Basically he was the McDonald's of gun designing.

Remember he also sold a bunch of designs that never saw the light of day so the competition couldn't get a hold of em.

 

[rpenmanparker]

Remember he also sold a bunch of designs that never saw the light of day so the competition couldn't get a hold of em.

That doesn’t seem to make any sense. Do you mean he sold designs that were never produced because the competition bought them and buried them?

 

[natman]

Nope, 100% serious. If 1911's were so great, why are there so many threads on how to make them unjam and make them reliable?

The issues with 1911s jamming is when they are used with hollowpoint ammo, which didn't exist when Browning designed the gun for FMJ. If your depth of knowledge of Browning's achievements is no deeper than that, I'd advise that you study his many accomplishments before you say anything more. Start here. Garand and Stoner were great designers and their firearms are classics, but JMB was the kind of genius that comes around all too rarely.

 

[rpenmanparker]

The issues with 1911s jamming is when they are used with hollowpoint ammo, which didn't exist when Browning designed the gun for FMJ. If your depth of knowledge of Browning's achievements is no deeper than that, I'd advise that you study his many accomplishments before you say anything more. Start here. Garand and Stoner were great designers and their firearms are classics, but JMB was the kind of genius that comes around all too rarely.

The instructors at Front Sight where my self-defense handgun course was given do not use the term jamming for the three common semi-auto pistol malfunctions. They contend that a jam is a different type of failure, so severe that gunsmith intervention is usually required. So the term they use for the common inability to fire is malfunction as in type 1, type 2, and type 3 malfunctions.

 

[Sovblocgunfan]

That doesn’t seem to make any sense. Do you mean he sold designs that were never produced because the competition bought them and buried them?

Winchester bought many of his designs for the express purpose of not letting JMB take them somewhere else. And some of them were never produced. So yeah, to some degree that's accurate. At the time, his standard arrangement was to just sell the design to the people he was working for. The Auto 5 was his first design where he wanted royalties.

Here is a design for a 10 ga pump that Winchester never produced: http://armspost.com/john-browning-patent-356271/

And another for a recoil-operated shotgun that used a toggle-like assembly and ejected shells from the top: https://patents.google.com/patent/US730870

Here's a ton of others that were never produced. Several pump shotguns, lever actions, and a couple pistols, I think... http://armspost.com/category/history/john-browning/page/2/

 

[rpenmanparker]

Winchester bought many of his designs for the express purpose of not letting JMB take them somewhere else. And some of them were never produced. So yeah, to some degree that's accurate. At the time, his standard arrangement was to just sell the design to the people he was working for. The Auto 5 was his first design where he wanted royalties.

Here is a design for a 10 ga pump that Winchester never produced: http://armspost.com/john-browning-patent-356271/

And another for a recoil-operated shotgun that used a toggle-like assembly and ejected shells from the top: https://patents.google.com/patent/US730870

Here's a ton of others that were never produced. Several pump shotguns, lever actions, and a couple pistols, I think... http://armspost.com/category/history/john-browning/page/2/

I see. Yes the buyer wanted the design buried, but the buyer was his usual customer Winchester. They didn’t want him to take it elsewhere.

 

[forward observer]

That doesn’t seem to make any sense. Do you mean he sold designs that were never produced because the competition bought them and buried them?

The explanation for this is pretty simple. From 1885 until around 1902, every new firearm introduced by Winchester Repeating arms was designed and patented by John Browning. Although he had no contract with them as an independent inventor, they still had a gentleman's agreement that Browning would give Winchester first choice at any new long arm design he came up with--in addition to any they might have requested

Consequently, Winchester bought quite a few of designs from him that they never put into production or even had the intention of doing so----simply because they did not want the designs to get into the hands of any competitors and come back to burn them. This is how much they thought of Browning's inventive genius.

He literally drug them out of the antiquated and limited 1860's black powder toggle link action rifle design age with a totally new action that was so strong that it could handle smokeless powder almost a full decade before it was introduced in the marketplace,

To dismiss John M. Browning's lever action designs as being derivative of the earlier toggle link action is analogous to dismissing the internal combustion powered automobile as derivative of the steam powered locomotive.

Just a few months ago, I finished a fascinating biography of Browning written by Curt Gentry aided by Browning's eldest son--the late John Browning Jr. It's a fascinating look into the man and his many creations. All designed by a man with nothing more than an 8th grade public school education and no formal engineering training at all.

Cheers

P,S. I see that while I was composing this several others gave the reason for the
unused patents. I guess I need to be faster next time. Oh well

 

[CapnMac]

Adam Savage

Yeah, he was on tht tv show with Jamie Hynaman []

 

[CapnMac]

I do my best to innocently refer to the, by the wrong title.

There's rather a long-standing custom in the military of refering to all those under O-5 as "Mister [last name]." Using their rank is considered a bit like when your mom adds your middle name to your first--you are probably not getting extra dessert tonight. Rank +[last name] is definitely hearing all three of your names; you'd best hope a Commendation is about to be read. []

 

[CapnMac]

If I remember rightly (and I could be wrong) but JMB was in business with several of his brothers, and several of his sons followed him into the trade. So there were near a half-dozen Brownings all turning out gun work in Utah at some point. So, using all the names (or at least all the initials) makes sense.

 

[Mizar]

Yeah, he was on tht tv show with Jamie Hynaman []

Adam, Arthur, they start with A...

 

[MistWolf]

The instructors at Front Sight where my self-defense handgun course was given do not use the term jamming for the three common semi-auto pistol malfunctions. They contend that a jam is a different type of failure, so severe that gunsmith intervention is usually required. So the term they use for the common inability to fire is malfunction as in type 1, type 2, and type 3 malfunctions.

If something is jammed in the works, it's a jam.
Stovepipe? Jam.
Double feed? Jam
Case stuck in the chamber? Jam.
Popped primer locking up the action? Jam.

 

[rskent]

That is not exactly how I understand it. They were developed to run ball ammo. Through no fault of the originator hollow points including those with a highly sloped bullet are now popular. The issues often occur when running the more modern ammo.

I was referring to trying to make the guns more accurate, and or changing the size of the gun, or changing the caliber of he gun, or any of he other changes that people do to make the 1911 “better”.

Another thing I learned during my handgun self defense course is that malfunctions can be cleared in less than a second or two, even the most severe, the Type 3. They don’t have to be a problem in a gunfight.

I am certainly no expert in gunfighting, but I would think any malfunction during a gunfight could be problematic.