The Guns of John M. Browning - By Richard L. Baird 

John Moses Browning  

John M Browning was the greatest firearms designer who ever livedor ever will live. Bold statement, huh? By the end of this piece Ihope you will agree.

I started collecting Browning’s designs without knowing it. My firstlove in guns was semi-auto pistols. I bought several withoutknowing they were Browning’s. Then in 1999 I visited the BrowningFirearms Museum in Ogden, Utah, and I was hooked. I then setabout to collect every pistol design of Browning’s that was sold tothe public. Unfortunately, I could never afford every variation or prototype that exists.

Browning’s first pistol to go into production was the FN (FabriqueNationale) Model 1899. That model beat the Colt 1900 by one year.FN also produced the Models 1900, 1903, 1906, 1910, and HighPower or P35 of Browning design. John Browning’s influence in gundesign in Europe is so great that the word “browning” is defined asany semi-auto pistol.

Colt also produced the Models 1902 Military, 1903 Pocket Hammer, 1903 Pocket Hammerless,1905, 1908 Pocket Hammerless, 1908 Vest Pocket, 1911, and .22 Automatic Target Pistol(Woodsman). I displayed his pistols at the exhibition show for two years and then decided I had tohave his rifles.

From 1885 until Browning’s split with Winchester in 1902, every rifle and shotgun brought out byWinchester was Browning’s. Considering the popularity of the previous Winchester rifles, that wasquite a feat. Browning gave Winchester the prototype for the Auto 5 or Remington Model 11 to youRemington fans, in 1900. They refused to give Browning a royalty deal to acquire the model, soBrowning picked up his gun, took it across the ocean to FN, and the rest is history. Winchester never bought another Browning design. My guess is that Winchester is still kicking itself over thatdecision!

Browning’s rifles include the Winchester Models 1885, 1886, 1890, 1892, 1894, 1895 and 1900 aswell as the Remington Models 8 and 24 and the FN Patent 1900 (same as the Remington Model8), FN .22 Caliber Automatic Rifle (same as the Remington Model 24), and the FN Pump Action.22 Caliber Repeating Rifle (Trombone Model). I displayed his pistols and rifles for two years andthen had to get his shotguns also.This year I added his shotguns to my display. These include the Winchester Models 1887, 1893,and 1897; the Remington Models 11 and 17; the Stevens Model 520; and FN Auto 5 andSuperposed. The Superposed shotgun was Browning’s last gun design. He was working ongetting it into production when he died at FN in 1926.

In addition to the guns in my display, Browning also designed five full auto machine guns. Theseare the Colt Model 1895 Machine Gun, the Model 1917 .30 Caliber Machine Gun, the Browning

 Automatic Rifle (BAR), the Browning .50 Caliber Machine Gun, and the 37 mm Aircraft Cannon. After all these years, the Browning .50 Caliber Machine Gun is still widely used by our military.These guns plus the Colt 1911 made a clean sweep for Browning. Every gun submitted to US

 

Military trials won out over all competition and was accepted for military use.

Richard L. Baird of Ohio has been a member since 1994 and has been kind enou gh to s et 

up his ever-evolv ing and expanding dis play at recent display shows . Knowing h e could not 

be with u s this May, Richard volun teered to do a Featured Display at the March meet ing.

For more informat ion on do ing a display at an upc om ing meet ing, con tact Laura Kno tts,

Bus iness Manager or any off icer, director or past p resident.