21 JAN--This Day in US Military History

2015-01-21T16:23:30-05:00

EDITOR: A correction must be noted. John Browning was born on the 23rd. I am correcting the error.

1855 -John Moses Browning, sometimes referred to as the “father of modern firearms,” is born in Ogden, Utah.

Many of the guns manufactured by companies whose names evoke the history of the American West-Winchester, Colt, Remington, and Savage-were actually based on John Browning’s designs. The son of a talented gunsmith, John Browning began experimenting with his own gun designs as a young man. When he was 24 years old, he received his first patent, for a rifle that Winchester manufactured as its Single Shot Model 1885.
Impressed by the young man’s inventiveness, Winchester asked Browning if he could design a lever-action-repeating shotgun. Browning could and did, but his efforts convinced him that a pump-action mechanism would work better, and he patented his first pump model shotgun in 1888.
Fundamentally, all of Browning’s manually-operated repeating rifle and shotgun designs were aimed at improving one thing: the speed and reliability with which gun users could fire multiple rounds-whether shooting at game birds or other people. Lever and pump actions allowed the operator to fire a round, operate the lever or pump to quickly eject the spent shell, insert a new cartridge, and then fire again in seconds.
By the late 1880s, Browning had perfected the manual repeating weapon; to make guns that fired any faster, he would somehow have to eliminate the need for slow human beings to actually work the mechanisms. But what force could replace that of the operator moving a lever or pump? Browning discovered the answer during a local shooting competition when he noticed that reeds between a man firing and his target were violently blown aside by gases escaping from the gun muzzle. He decided to try using the force of that escaping gas to automatically work the repeating mechanism. Browning began experimenting with his idea in 1889. Three years later, he received a patent for the first crude fully automatic weapon that captured the gases at the muzzle and used them to power a mechanism that automatically reloaded the next bullet. In subsequent years, Browning refined his automatic weapon design. When U.S. soldiers went to Europe during WWI, many of them carried Browning Automatic Rifles, as well as Browning’s deadly machine guns.
During a career spanning more than five decades, Browning’s guns went from being the classic weapons of the American West to deadly tools of world war carnage. Amazingly, since Browning’s death in 1926, there have been no further fundamental changes in the modern firearm industry.

https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/january-21/

January 21

21 January 1642 – Director of the New Netherlands colony, Willem Kieft, calls for a meeting of the Twelve (family representatives) to organize a military response to the increasing raids of the Hud...

Response by Capt Richard I P. made Jan 21 at 2015 4:30 PM

2015-01-21T16:30:30-05:00

John Browning, Genius, patriot.

Response by SFC Mark Merino made Jan 21 at 2015 4:38 PM

2015-01-21T16:38:29-05:00

I wish I was a distant relative, entitled to free samples.

Response by LTC Stephen C. made Jan 21 at 2015 4:40 PM

2015-01-21T16:40:58-05:00

1SG Private RallyPoint Member, John Browning's son, 2LT Val Allen Browning was purportedly one of the first to carry the BAR and demonstrate its effectiveness during WWI. By the time I got to fire them at the SF weapons course in 1970, they were all pretty much worn out.
Sometimes, we had to hump Browning's M1919 .30 cal machine gun, and that bad boy was heavy. We all much preferred to carry the M60 (7.62 mm) machine gun. It was much lighter.
However, Browning was the singularly most influential and creative force in the history of firearms.