John Moses Browning
John Moses Browning (born January 23, 1855 in Ogden , Utah , USA , † November 26, 1926 in Liege , Belgium ) was an American inventor, developer and manufacturer of weapons. In the course of his life he obtained 128 patents for weapons technology.
Life
Jonathan Browning's father had a gunsmith's shop in Ogden. He was one of the thousands of Mormon pioneers who fled for their lives from Nauvoo, Illinois in the Salt Lake Valley in Utah in 1846/47 . He was an avid member of Latter-day Saint Church of Jesus Christ , still headquartered in Salt Lake City .
In October 1869, John Moses Browning built a rifle from spare parts for his brother's birthday. In the spring of 1878 he began work on his first single-shot rifle . The application for a patent for the single loader rifle was registered on May 12th, and on October 7th, 1879 it was granted as US patent 220271.
He was married to Rachel Theresa Child since April 10, 1879. In 1880, Browning set up an arms factory with the help of his brothers. Beginning March 28, 1887, Browning served two years as a missionary for the Mormons in Georgia.
On November 26, 1926, John Moses Browning died of a heart attack in his office at the Fabrique Nationale d'Armes de Guerre in Liege.
Milestones & Patents
The application for a patent for a bolt action bolt action rifle with a barrel magazine was registered on March 20, 1882. On September 13, 1882, he applied for a patent for lever action rifles with a tubular magazine and external hammer, which led to the development of various Winchester rifles (see Browning's Winchester developments ).
In the spring of 1883, Browning formed an alliance with TG Bennet, Vice President and General Manager of Winchester Repeating Arms Company . The rights to a single loader with drop block and lever actuation that he developed went to Winchester. This weapon became known as the Winchester in 1885 . On May 26, 1884, Browning applied for a patent for another lever action rifle, which was granted to him in October 1884 with US Patent 306577. John and his brother Matt traveled to New Haven to deliver the gun. The gun became legendary as the Winchester in 1886 . In contrast to the previously manufactured Winchester rifles with knee joint locks, it has two locking wedges that lock into corresponding recesses in the system case, which allows the use of much stronger and, above all, longer cartridges. The smaller model 1892 fired cartridges that were also fired in the revolvers of the time.
On February 16, 1886, Browning was granted patent 336,287 for a lever action rifle shotgun. This became known as the Winchester Model 1887 and was the first working bolt action shotgun.
On December 13, 1887, he applied for a patent for a .22 caliber forearm repeater, which was granted to him on June 26, 1888 as US Patent 385,238. The weapon came out under the name Model 1890 and became a huge success.
In the fall of 1889, Browning began developing the first models that used expanding gases for the repeating action of the weapon. He brought the development to a patent application for the principle of the gas pressure charger on January 6, 1890.
On June 30, 1890, he applied for a patent for a forearm repeater. This rifle was marketed under the Winchester Model 1897 and Model 1898 names. On August 3, 1891, Browning applied for patents for two different gas pressure boosters.
On November 7, 1892, Browning applied for a patent for a machine gun . The Colt-Browning M1895 machine gun was a gas pressure loader and was named "Potato Digger" during the Spanish-American War, because a lever that carried the gas piston swung back and forth under the barrel and attached to a shovel for digging up potatoes remembered.
With his patent application on January 19, 1894 for the first sports repeating rifle with low-smoke powder, which became known as the Winchester Model 1894 , one of Winchester's greatest successes was achieved. In 1928 the million mark was exceeded. It is a further development of the 1886 model with a locking wedge and was mainly used for hunting.
On November 19, 1894, Browning applied for a patent for a lever action rifle with a fixed box magazine. This development was specifically intended for ammunition with pointed projectiles , which were too dangerous in the tubular magazine because of possible spontaneous ignition. The product name was Winchester Model 1895 . On September 14, 1895, he submitted the draft of a semi-automatic pistol for patent application. On October 31, 1896, three pistols with movable slides were registered .
A contract between Browning and the Belgian arms manufacturer Fabrique Nationale d'Armes de Guerre (FN for short) on July 17, 1897 secured the right to manufacture a pistol with a movable slide in .32 caliber for the market outside the USA. Production started in 1899.
As early as 1895, Browning designed a self-loading pistol with a locked bolt with the magazine housed in the handle. The weapon, a gas pressure loader, worked on the same principle as the Colt machine gun model 1895 , the "Potato Digger". One day before Independence Day, on July 3, 1895, he demonstrated the prototype he had made to John Hall , the vice president of Colt, and Carl Ehbets , the company's chief engineer. The gun never went into production, and Browning was showing off a new prototype as early as 1896, this time a recoil loader that went into series production in 1900. Both weapons were patented on the same date, April 20, 1897, the gas pressure loader under Pat. 580,923 and the recoil loader under Pat. 580,924.
One of Browning's most important inventions was the Browning locking system for self-loading pistols. Colt launched the Colt Model 1900, a semi-automatic pistol designed by Browning , in February 1900 . This was the first semi-automatic pistol in the USA and the forerunner of the American Army Colt M1911 pistol in .45 ACP caliber . The Browning pistols were copied around the world and used in most armies.
On February 8, 1900, Browning applied for the first four patents for the Browning Auto 5 . Production at FN began in 1903 and at Remington Arms in 1905.
At about the same time, John Moses Browning developed a rifle for small caliber cartridges with a detachable barrel and patented it in 1914 (US Patent 1083384, Jan 6, 1914). This weapon called FN-Browning self-loading rifle cal 22 was manufactured by FN Herstal in Belgium and in the USA by Remington Arms from 1914 .
The first large-caliber self-loading rifle was granted patent 659,786 on October 6, 1900. The production rights for the USA were given to Remington, and in 1906 the rifle appeared as Model 8 .
At the beginning of the 20th century he developed the medium machine guns Mod. 1917 and Mod. 1919 in .30-06 rifle caliber and, as a further modification, the heavy M2 in .50 caliber (12.7 mm). The Mod. 1919 was the standard machine gun of the US armed forces until it was replaced by the M60 at the time of the Vietnam War and is still used by these and many other armies today. a. of the Bundeswehr, deployed around the world. In 1918 he developed the light MG BAR , which also remained a standard weapon for US troops until the Vietnam War.
The caliber 12.7 × 99 mm NATO (or .50 BMG: Browning Machine Gun ) was developed by him.
The last weapon developed by Browning in Liège before his death was a self-loading pistol, which was only completed in 1935 by the Belgian engineer Dieudonné Saive as the Fabrique Nationale GP35 pistol (GP stands for Grande Puissance). This weapon is known today as the FN Browning High Power .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Patent US220271 .
- ↑ Patent US261667 : Applied March 20, 1882 , published September 13, 1882 .
- ↑ Patent US306577 .
- ↑ Patent US385238 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Browning, John Moses |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American weapons technician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 23, 1855 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ogden , Utah , USA |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 26, 1926 |
| Place of death | Liege , Belgium |