Browning: One Man's Impact

HHISTIST OORRYY— PAST AND PERS PECTIVE Browning: One Man’s Impact John Moses Browning was the most prolific gun designer ever — yet his guns were marvels of simplicity and reliability. by Charles Scaliger n a particular fall day in 1889, the members of the Ogden Rifle O Club of Ogden, Utah, were out in force. The men were target shooting, but doubtless found the brilliant fall colors of aspens and oaks on the high peaks of the Wasatch Range a distraction. Enticing too were the flocks of migratory waterfowl wheeling overhead and grouse calling in the brush. But all rifles that day were trained on paper targets, although one of the competitors, an unusually tall man with stern but handsome features, was having trouble concentrating on hitting the mark. As his good friend Will Wright took a shot with his rifle, the taller man noticed how a clump of desert weeds in Always tinkering: Browning did not merely create and perfect one type of gun design; front of the rifle was knocked back by the he created guns that ran the gamut: single shots, lever-action guns, pump guns, bolt- action models, semiautomatic versions, and fully automatic ones. He created both blast from the gun. rifles and pistols and developed guns of every size, from the .22 caliber rifle shown It was not the first time the tall man here to a 37 millimeter cannon. or any of the spectators had seen such an event; the big bore rifles fashionable on the Ogden Union Station Collection Western frontier always produced a formi- somehow. “It might even be possible to But the idea of a gas-operated automatic dable muzzle blast. But the tall man, who make a fully automatic gun,” he surmised, weapon was an altogether revolutionary was, at age 34, already an accomplished “one that would keep firing as long as you idea and its originator, unassuming Utah gunsmith and firearms manufacturer, had ammunition.” gun-maker John Moses Browning, the most found himself for the first time taking To a casual listener in the late 19th cen- creative inventive genius ever to apply his notice of the muzzle blast and pondering tury, such an idea would probably have talents to the creation of firearms. what it meant. Every discharge of a gun seemed preposterous, even though rapid- released a tremendous amount of energy, fire weapons were no novelty; the French Pedigree much of which was dissipated in the blast and Belgians had deployed the first mi- Browning had a gun-maker’s pedigree. out of the muzzle. Now the tall man found trailleuse in the 1850s, and the American His father, Jonathan Browning, grew up himself wondering whether that burst of Civil War saw the deployment of the fa- in frontier Tennessee and made a living energy could somehow be put to use. mous Gatling gun. These guns, along with repairing and building firearms on his own Unable to concentrate any longer on the the Gardener gun developed in the 1870s, account. He eventually settled in Quincy, competitive shoot, the man called his two were all operated by hand cranks, and Illinois, on the Mississippi River, at a fate- brothers and left the shoot. Asked for an were not capable of true automatic fire. ful time in that state’s history: 40 miles up- explanation, he said only, “An idea hit me The Maxim gun, the first true automatic stream, an obscure and much-reviled new — biggest one I ever had.” weapon, which used recoil force to cycle religious sect, the Mormons, were build- On the way back to town, the tall man the gun, was developed in 1884, and could ing a settlement. began thinking aloud, explaining to his fire roughly 600 rounds per minute. The One day a Mormon stopped by Jona- two brothers his belief that the energy gun was deployed to devastating effect by than’s shop, and began telling the Tennes- from the muzzle blast might be harnessed British forces in colonial Africa. see gunsmith about the new religion. Be- Call 1-800-727-TRUE to subscribe today! 33 HHISTIST ORYORY— PAST AND PERS PECTIVE ing’s invention was enough to enable him and his brothers to slowly expand their Ogden business, but conferred neither fame nor fortune. All of that was to change, however, when a salesman for the Winchester Re- peating Arms Company happened across a rifle the likes of which he had not seen before. The name and place of the manufacturer, “Browning Bros. Ogden, Utah USA,” were stamped on the barrel. The salesman, knowing that his bosses were always interested in potential competitors, purchased the weapon for 15 dollars and sent it to the Winchester factory in New Haven, Connecticut. The management at Winchester, who had neither heard of Browning Bros. nor ever seen a single-shot rifle of such high quality, was indeed interested. The rifle’s Ogden Union Station Collection serial number, 463, indicated that hun- The .30 caliber “Browning Peacemaker” was the first gas-operated machine gun in the world. dreds of the guns had already been made, It got its nickname in action during the Spanish-American War. Though a recoil-activated machine a significant new competitor from a com- gun — the Maxim — was already in use amongst the world’s armies at the Peacemaker’s pletely unexpected quarter. inception, gas-operated machine guns would dominate from that point forward. T. G. Bennett, vice president and gen- eral manager of Winchester, boarded the fore long, Jonathan and his wife converted Proud of his accomplishment, young westbound train within a week of receiv- and moved north to Nauvoo, the Mormon John doubtless expected lavish praise from ing the mysterious new rifle, determined settlement, where Jonathan’s gunsmithing his father. Instead, the elder Browning, upon to find its maker and, if possible, purchase skills soon proved invaluable to the Mor- examining the firearm, shook his head and the rights for its manufacture. mon settlers. When the Mormons were said, “John Mose, you’re going on eleven. The imperious, no-nonsense Bennett driven from Illinois and forced to move Can’t you make a better gun than that?” must have cut quite a figure in the dusty westward, Jonathan went along, keeping Abashed, John took apart the firearm, streets of Ogden in 1883, the well-heeled, the pioneers’ guns in good repair for the reflecting as he did on his father’s gentle professionally attired Easterner on the arduous and dangerous trek across the rebuke. Had he taken a little more time and rough and ready streets of a young western high plains to the valley of the Great Salt care, he could have made a much better railroad town. He lost no time locating the Lake. Jonathan and his family settled in weapon. The rest of his life was eloquent Browning Brothers gun shop on Ogden’s Ogden, 40 miles north of Salt Lake City, testimony that his father was right. John Main Street, where, despite his bewilder- and soon built a prosperous gun smithy. Moses Browning, son of a Utah Mormon ment at the youth of John and his brothers, John Moses Browning grew up in sparse- pioneer, became the most prolific firearms he offered to buy rights to the exclusive ly settled 19th-century Utah, when Indians inventor the world has ever known, design- manufacture of John’s gun. still came regularly to the town looking for ing dozens of new guns, from single-shot It was the great turning point in John’s food or to trade with the Mormons. The ar- rifles to anti-aircraft cannons, and account- life, a moment that, though neither Ben- rival of the railroad in Ogden transformed ing for more than 100 patents. nett nor Browning could possibly have that tiny settlement into something of a foreseen it, would prove pivotal in the hub, bringing with it increased business Manufacturer to Inventor military history of the modern age. For for Jonathan Browning and his sons, who His career as an inventor began modestly John Moses Browning, despite the suc- all worked in the family business. enough. With his brothers, John took over cess of his business, was an inventor, not Although all of Jonathan’s sons were his father’s gun shop, enlarging and ex- a manufacturer, at heart. He confessed to hard workers and able gunsmiths, John panding the business. In 1878, when he Bennett that he already had the details for Moses stood out from a very early age. was 23 years old, John invented his first a new rifle — a repeater that could handle When he was 10, John constructed his first marketable gun, a single shot rifle which large cartridges, something none of the re- gun using only a broken flintlock barrel, a quickly became one of the most popular peating rifles then made could do — fully piece of wood, and some wire and scrap firearms in the intermountain West. By the fleshed out in his mind. If Winchester tin. Crude though the weapon was, it suf- early 1880s, the Browning brothers had were amenable, he would be happy to ficed to shoot three prairie chickens with produced roughly 600 of the meticulously work on that gun as well. a single shot. crafted rifles. The income from Brown- Bennett, with a successful businessman’s 34 THE NEW AMERICAN • Augus T 17, 2009 instinct for superior talent, paid John $8,000 Despite the popularity for the rights to the single shot rifle, and of his inventions, however, When John was 10, he constructed his an alliance that lasted 19 years was born.

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