John Moses Browning Trivia

[RoyalTenenbaum]

I am fascinated by Browning. I have two of his products designed at least 100 years ago or more, and superior in many ways to modern counterparts. So in the selfish interest of learning some obscure info about this intelligent inventor, let the Browning Trivia Thread begin!

John Moses Browning was honored by King Albert of Belgium with the Cross of Knighthood of the Order of Leopold, awarded in 1914.

 

[Hoosier Gun Coat]

Did you also know that JB never made any money off of royalties? He made his money from the sale of his patents which he mainly sold to winchester. A lot of the early winchesters were brownings design.

 

[42769vette]

Did you also know that JB never made any money off of royalties? He made his money from the sale of his patents which he mainly sold to winchester. A lot of the early winchesters were brownings design.

i believe he sold his patents to savage and remington for the square back shotgun aswell.

also didn't he sell the 1911 patient to colt?

 

[Field King]

John was a Morman and his forefathers helped settle much of the west!

 

[Hoosier Gun Coat]

i believe he sold his patents to savage and remington for the square back shotgun aswell.

also didn't he sell the 1911 patient to colt?

Yes he did. When JB designed the Auto 5 he offered it to Winchester. He tried to sell it for many years but for some reason Winchester was scared of it. They screwed up big time. FN was the first to manufacture the auto shotgun in 1903. In 1905 Remington was licensed to manufacture it as the Model 11. The Browning model is known as the Browning Automatic 5.

Another tid bit:
John Browning started WWI, sort of.

 

[RoyalTenenbaum]

Yes he did. When JB designed the Auto 5 he offered it to Winchester. He tried to sell it for many years but for some reason Winchester was scared of it. They screwed up big time. FN was the first to manufacture the auto shotgun in 1903. In 1905 Remington was licensed to manufacture it as the Model 11. The Browning model is known as the Browning Automatic 5.

Another tid bit:
John Browning started WWI, sort of.

Sort of? Go on...

A5 is the best shotgun!

 

[42769vette]

Sort of? Go on...

A5 is the best shotgun!

this on both accounts

 

[Slow Hand]

It was one of his Pistols that killed Archduke Francis Ferdinand.

I'm a big fan of JMB. His dad was a gunsmith as well, he made a muzzle loader with a magazine called a harmonica gun.

His family setteled in Hannible, MO for awhile, the boyhood home of Mark Twain.

He started his dealings with Winchester when a Winchester rep came to the Browning's shop in Utah to buy a loading tool to see if it infringed on Winchester's patents. It did, but the rep also bought one of the Browning Bother's singls shot rifles and took it back to Winchester to see if they could use the idea without infringing on Browning's patents. They couldn't, so they bought the rights from Brownings and it became teh 1885 Winchester Hi-Wall/ Low Wall series.

JMB came up with the idea for using the expanding gasses to work the action of a gun while shooting with his brothers in a field with high grass. He saw the grass lay down and came up with a way to use those gasses to function the action of a rifle.

When he died, he was reported to have more money than the entire rest of the town of Ogdon, Utah.

Winchester bought hundreds of patents from JMB and never used them just so that other companies couldn't buy them and have a chance at making a competing rifle.

When desiging the 1911, he made different prototypes with and without a grip safety so the Army could decide which they preferred.

In much of Europe, his FN autopistol designs were so popular, the standard term for a smaller, comcealalbehandgun was simply "a Browning".

Many of his protoypes sent to Winchester were simple hand carved wooden models. The engineers woudl use those models and make a prototype out of metal and more often than not, it's function just as JMB had envisioned!

Doug K

 

[Hoosier Gun Coat]

Sort of? Go on...

A5 is the best shotgun!

Sort of. The pistol that was used to assassinate the the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie on June 28, 1914 was the FN .32 caiber model 1900. It was the first Browning pistol to be commercially produced.

 

[pinhead56]

I am fascinated by Browning. I have two of his products designed at least 100 years ago or more, and superior in many ways to modern counterparts. So in the selfish interest of learning some obscure info about this intelligent inventor, let the Browning Trivia Thread begin!

If you are really interested in John Browning, I recommend the book "John M Browning American Gunmaker; An Illustrated Biography of the Man and His Guns", by John Browning (JMB's oldest son) and Curt Gentry, published by Browning c1964. I have the 10th printing from 1991. It is a very good read and lots of info.
http://www.amazon.com/John-Browning-American-gunmaker-illustrated/dp/B0007DZF9Q

 

[RoyalTenenbaum]

Perhaps the single most infamous Browning-designed firearm was a FN Model 1910 handgun, serial number 19074. In 1914, Gavrilo Princip used the .32 ACP pistol to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie. This event arguably sparked World War I. The pistol was rediscovered in 2004. So I gotta wonder, where is it now?

 

[Hoosier Gun Coat]

Perhaps the single most infamous Browning-designed firearm was a FN Model 1910 handgun, serial number 19074. In 1914, Gavrilo Princip used the .32 ACP pistol to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie. This event arguably sparked World War I. The pistol was rediscovered in 2004. So I gotta wonder, where is it now?

It's in my safe. Oh, did I say that out loud?