Taylor Powell Kevin Cantera History 1700 December 5, 2013 John Moses Browning There arent very many

people throughout history who have been able to contribute to society and revolutionize any given aspect of life. There are even fewer who have been able to make these great improvements and have society benefit from them fifty years after they have died. John Moses Browning was one of these few people. John was a gunsmith/inventor, and chances are you have been affected by him in some way. Whether it is through hunting, sport or warfare, Browning left a legacy that continues to improve and impress today. John was born on January 23, 1855 in Ogden, Utah. His father was Jonathan Browning, a gunsmith from Nauvoo, Illinois. Jonathan was a Mormon and practiced polygamy, having a total of three wives and twenty-two children. John Moses was the eldest son of the second wife, Elizabeth Clark. She also had another son, Matt, and a daughter who died in infancy. As John grew up, he developed a close relationship with Matt, which they would have their entire life. When Jonathan had purchased an acre of land to build Elizabeths house, he built a small building a few yards from the house. This little shed-like structure would become the shop, and this is where John would spend many hours of his childhood, digging through the junk pile that was kept in the corner of the shop. There wasnt a piece of metal wasted, and John learned the different parts of guns before he learned his ABCs. His father was always patient and willing to answer his questions. John even found small jobs to do such as gathering different parts or

cleaning and buffering parts. As he got older, John would take charge of the shop when his father would run on different errands, and he loved it. At the age of ten, John gathered a smashed barrel of an old flintlock, a stick of wood, a piece of wire and a scrap of tin. Using these scrap materials and Matt as his aide, he secretly built his first gun while his father was away from the shop. Their very crude firearm didnt have a trigger, but was fired by pouring gunpowder into the chamber. The two boys went out and shot three prairie chickens, which the family ate for breakfast the next morning. Jonathan was in the middle of his meal when he asked where the chicken had come from. John explained to his father, who asked to see the gun. When Jonathan had finished examining the gun, he said, John Moses, youre going on eleven; cant you make a better gun than that? John could immediately see several ways to improve the gun and was disappointed he didnt take more time to make it better. In his youth, John learned a lot of tools and skills which would come in handy later on in his life. Before he was a teenager he was sharpening scissors, mending cooking utensils and repairing sewing machines for the women in his neighborhood. He even picked up on moccasin making by watching an old Indian who would spend a few days each year making moccasins in the Browning yard. As you can tell, John was a bright young man and had a quick, intelligent mind. This would serve him well in the gun-making business. Just after John turned thirteen, a wagon freighter came by the shop with a broken single barrel shotgun. A heavy box on his load had slipped and pinched the middle of the gun. Jonathan told the man that it cost more than it was worth to fix it. There was hardly a metal part that wasnt bent or mangled in some way. The freighter decided to buy one of Jonathans other rifles and on his way out handed the mangled rifle to John. John just stared at the gun. He wasnt

worried about fixing it, but couldnt quite decide where to begin. His father knew the repair would be difficult, and decided not to tell John that the project was beyond him. Instead he turned back to his work. Well, John finally decided to take the gun apart, one piece at a time and all the way down to the smallest screw. He even disassembled the pieces that were broken and mashed. With all of the parts spread out in front of him, he could evaluate the situation. He examined each piece and concluded that he there wasnt a piece that John couldnt make if he needed it. He worked on it every spare minute for several weeks. His father would watch impatiently as John would make and correct mistakes, but wisely withheld his advice. John finally finished the gun with a firm belief that he was truly a gunsmith. Even his father, who was never one to give much praise, showed his approval by allowing his son to cut the stock for the gun out of his precious plank of walnut. The completion of such a project propelled John from boyhood to manhood. Jonathan realized that there was another gunsmith in the family. The year 1878 came by, and one day John was sitting at a table trying to fix a single shot rifle. All of the complicated pieces were spread out before him, and John remarked to his father that he could make a better gun himself. Jonathan replied that he knew he could and that he would like to see it finished before he died. This gave John the incentive he needed and he recruited Matt for some aid. The gun was finished and patented in about a year. The patent model itself is currently in the Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. Jonathans wish was granted when he lived to test-fire that first rifle. Jonathan was proud to have raised such an excellent gunsmith, and was glad to have helped give direction to Johns talent. Jonathan died on June 21, 1879 at seventy-four years old.

On May 12, 1879, John married a young lady named Rachel Teresa Child. Rachels father was a merchant and gave them many gifts, but they couldnt be delivered until they built a home, which was about a year later. By the time the house was finished, John was building a new shop. He was starting to get bigger, and in this new shop he would take off in the firearms market. But this shop, which they called the Browning Gun Factory still wouldnt be enough. John was getting swamped with customers and didnt have much time to work on his new ideas because of the amount of work production took. It turns out that a salesman for Winchester Repeating Arms Company had seen Johns single shot rifle and bought one for himself. He sent this to Winchesters headquarters and they decided they wanted to buy the rights to the gun for mass production. They came to Ogden and paid John $8,000 for the rights to the gun. Both sides defiantly benefited because the Winchester Company gained a nice reliable gun to put on the market, and they had turned competitor into friend. John benefited because now he had the funds to establish a better production and distribution rate, allowing more time to focus on his inventions and ideas. John produced several guns for Winchester, some of which include: Winchester Model 1886 Lever Action Repeating Rifle, Model 1887 Lever Action Repeating Shotgun, Model 1897 Pump Action Shotgun, Model 1894 Lever Action Repeating Rifle, and Model 1895 Lever Action Repeating Rifle. One day John was with one of his friends and they were out shooting one of Brownings guns. His friend fired a couple of shots and the gases from the blast rustled some nearby weeds. This gave John another brilliant idea. He wanted to invent an automatic shotgun that used the gases to naturally re-cock the gun, making it ready for the next shot. He created a test gun, and once his theory was validated, applied this new idea to three different guns, two machine guns and a repeating shotgun. These two machine guns were the first automatic rifles that used

expanding gases for cycling. One was the famous Browning Automatic Rifle, or the BAR, as it was popularly called and the other was the Colt Model 1895 Peacemaker. These would be sold to Colt and the U.S. Government, serving in three different wars. They say that the sound of the BAR was one of terror and comfort. Comfort for those who were using it and terror for those who werent. The BAR would become a staple to U.S. Military, being given to each soldier. The military was looking for a gun that would break the even tide in the trenches, and the BAR proved to be that gun. The repeating shotgun would ultimately cause the break-up of Browning and Winchester. Winchester doubted the practical use of Johns automatic shotgun, so he took a sample of the product and went to Belgium. Here he made an agreement with Fabrique National de Belgique (FN) to produce his shotgun. He also sold the same shotgun to Remington, a U.S. based company. John was now going global. John was constantly working on many different projects, and also had a major impact in handguns. He was the first one to invent the covered slides which cover the barrel and the firing mechanism. He invented all sorts of handguns that ranged from small .25 caliber pistols to the .45 caliber Government Model. One of the semi-automatic pistols John came up with was the Browning FN Model 1910. It was this model that was used to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, which led to the start of World War 1. John also designed many automatic pistols. Some of his more popular models were Colt's .45 ACP M1911 Government Model and FN's Browning High-Power Model P-35. John Moses Browning died on November 26, 1926 in Herstel, Belgium. He was working on his superposed Over Under shotgun in his sons office when he developed heart failure. His son, Val, would finish the project. The War Department of the United States of America assigned

a military escort to meet the ship that was carrying his body home. They draped the colors on the casket and stood guard until all the formalities were complete, thus paying respect to the Father of Modern Firearms. I could go on and talk about more of his inventions and the things he did, but I think that it can be put a little bit simpler than that. I will just finish by saying that he left so little undone that there have been no major changes to smaller firearms since his death. John Moses Browning has become a legend in the field of firearms.

Works Cited "24 X 7." John Moses Browning. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Dec. 2013. <http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0771851.html>. "Google Drive Viewer." Google Drive Viewer. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Dec. 2013. <https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pdfs/US129 3022.pdf>. "Gun designer John Browning is born." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 6 Dec. 2013. <http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/gun-designer-john-browning-isborn?catId=11>. "John M. Browning Firearms Museum." Union Station. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Dec. 2013. <http://theunionstation.org/index.php/museums-2/john-m-browning-firearms-museum/>. "The M-1911 Pistols Home Page." The M-1911 Pistols Home Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Dec. 2013. <http://www.m1911.org/browning.htm>. Family Records- Unpublished

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