Lever Action Machine Gun

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denton

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Invented by John Moses Browning. It's at the Browning Museum, in Ogden, Utah.

The "flapper" in front of the muzzle has a hole through the center, to allow passage of the bullet. Escaping gasses move the flapper, which pulls the rod, which chambers and fires another round. I guess it's also unique because it's a machine gun with a tubular magazine.
 
There's a firearms museum in Ogden. How did I not know this. I visit a friend there fairly often.

Can't believe I've been missing out.

Neat gun. Insane geniuses come up with all sorts of crazy stuff.
 
I would truly LOVE to see how the BATFE would classify this.......... I remember first reading about this back in the 80s and being amazed at Browning's intellect. I would also pay good money to see it fire..........
 
Drail said:
I would truly LOVE to see how the BATFE would classify this.......... I remember first reading about this back in the 80s and being amazed at Browning's intellect. I would also pay good money to see it fire..........
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They'd classify it as a machine gun because it fires more than one round for a single pull of the trigger. It's no different from any other machine gun, except that this one has its operating system exposed.

I agree that it's amazing what some of these guys were able to come up with. The time period where inventors are just getting their feet wet with a new concept (before everyone agrees on the "best" or standard way to go about doing things) is always really interesting to watch. You get some really cool and off the wall ideas.

Any of our resident 07/02 SOTs want to take a shot at making/converting a lever action into a machine gun?
 
Telekinesis said:
Any of our resident 07/02 SOTs want to take a shot at making/converting a lever action into a machine gun?
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I believe I'll pass. My uncle took great pains to teach me not to try and get in the middle of the friendly folks from the BATF and their regulations. Besides, I don't really see the concept as practical. How can you pull the trigger back and not get your fingers slammed when the lever closes?
 
Here is the "holy grail" of 1911s: The two prototypes that JMB submitted to the military for evaluation. The top one is the type that was accepted. The bottom one is a hammerless version.

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I apologize for the low resolution... hosting service really knocks the resolution down to save storage space.

They have tons of goodies--the prototype 1886, the prototype BAR, a Singer 1911 which is extremely rare, tools from the original workshop, and a bunch of working miniature firearms, including a Gatling gun that fires 22 Shorts.

The original Browning Brothers shop is a couple of blocks away on Kiesel St. You can still dimly read the name on the front and side of the building.
 
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Officers'Wife said:
I believe I'll pass. My uncle took great pains to teach me not to try and get in the middle of the friendly folks from the BATF and their regulations. Besides, I don't really see the concept as practical. How can you pull the trigger back and not get your fingers slammed when the lever closes?
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I mean, it's not against ATF regulations for a person/company with a 07 Manufacturer's FFL that pays the 02 Special Occupational Tax to make machine guns. That's kinda the whole point behind getting an 07/02 - to legally build NFA weapons (including machine guns).

And of course it's not practical :D but it's interesting, fun, and different. From a purely practical standpoint, milling and drilling an AR receiver is a much easier way to make a machine gun if you're just looking to have a MG. For that matter, an open bolt submachine gun would be easier than this too. I was just thinking it would be cool for someone to make a modern reproduction and get some close ups or even a video of it firing, and the only people who can legally do that are 07/02s. If I had one, I'd give it a shot.

And I'm sure that the lever would be trimmed so it wouldn't hit your hand when it comes back.
 
Uhhhh....I don't think that is a machine gun. I believe It is semi auto lever action. Years ago ( 30 + ) the Rock Island Arsenal Museum has a similar rifle. It was "The John Browning Memorial Museum") in those days and it had one example of everything Browning ever touched. Some of the displays were on loan, and these items were returned when the museum changed it's name.

I have to wonder if it is possible that is the same rifle??
 
There is a very good chance that this is the same item you saw at Rock Island. Kind of neat how that works out, isn't it? The fellow staffing the museum was very well informed, and his story was that the original item was non functioning when they got it. It spent an extended time at a gunsmith shop being restored to working condition.

According to the sign posted in the case, once activated it kept on firing until the magazine was empty.
 
I've read about this JMB invention. But I've never seen it! Thanks for posting the picture!


Good thing the BATF wasn't around back then, Mr. Browning would have had visitors, armed with weapons that he would have LOVED to disect!:evil:
 
My first thoughts spot on, the potato digger's father. Moses really had to stay up late to design that ugly rifle.
 
He only built it to prove the theory of operation. And it did. A lot of wasted gas pressure could be used to operate the action. Would have loved to see people's reaction to it at that time. It would never hold up for very long but it proved his point. Anyone know what caliber it is? Looks like a big bore from the mag tube dia.
 
total recoil said:
My first thoughts spot on, the potato digger's father. Moses really had to stay up late to design that ugly rifle.
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The story is he got the idea after seeing how far tall weeds moved from the muzzle blast one day when out shooting in tall grass. He thought all that wasted energy could be put to use so he drilled a hole in a spoon and made that Rube Goldburg linkage to prove the point.

Real Man of Genius, for sure!
 
Drail said:
He only built it to prove the theory of operation. And it did. A lot of wasted gas pressure could be used to operate the action. Would have loved to see people's reaction to it at that time. It would never hold up for very long but it proved his point. Anyone know what caliber it is? Looks like a big bore from the mag tube dia.
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I believe it's a Winchester 1873, which means it is probably .44-40, but it could be .38-40.
 
Looks like the Rube Goldberg of machine guns. I think it is really neat and cool even if it is not a practical design .
 
It only seems a natural progression that one would take an existing design and cobble together a manner of taking advantage of motion or lost energy somewhere.
For example, my machining started for paintball purposes, and there's a still-popular design called the Autococker. It began as a pump-action until the designer essentially just slapped on an extra regulator, attached a pneumatic piston to the bolt, and drilled a hole in the trigger to attach it to a switch so the overtravel in the trigger pull will recock itself.
 
That's the worlds very first gas-operated firearm and machine gun. If you ask me, that's not bad at all for a proof of concept from 1890.
 
And Maxims first working MG was also a Winchester lever action converted to recoil operation.Spring and piston connected to extended but plate and recoil drove the gun back against it. Maxim (who invented a lot of useful stuff besides the recoil operated MG) figured all that "kick' could be put to work.

Yes JMB was shooting with his brothers and noticed the grass blowing down in front of the muzzles.

He went to his shop and bored a hole in a small steel block a bit over bullet size and fired a round through that and sent it flying across the shop. Then he sat down THAT SAME DAY and put together the flapper rifle such as is seen here. Over the following week he tweeked it and ended up with a model with a gravity fed magazine as the gun did occasionally out run the tubular magazine.

I have often dreamed that at a yard sale in Odgen someone might come across one of his other mother's (his Dad had three wives as was the custom with successful LDS members of the time) table cloths with lead pencil drawings of concepts he had at supper. He also had to buy her new pie plates as he would sometimes pull out a set of tin snips and make models at the table from the pie plates recently emptied.

BTW JMB went on a mission as a missionary after becoming a family man and a successful gun designer and business owner.

-kBob
 
That gun is a machine gun!! That long, forward curving thing IS the trigger, and the lever stub hits it when the action returns to battery.

But is it really a machine gun? The trigger is pressed for each shot, by the lever stub. A machine gun fires two or more rounds with a single pull of the trigger but that's not what is happening here. The trigger is actuated for each round fired.

An interesting question for the ATF guys.
 
Doesn't matter. Look up the "sputter gun". An MG doesn't need a trigger, or even an FCG.
 
Wouldn't this gun fall in the same category as a trigger crank. The trigger is pressed and released with every shot.
 
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