The Guns of John Moses Browning: The Remarkable Story of the Inventor Whose Firearms Changed the World
Tomorrow I start my last class for SDI’s gunsmithing class, and I will be building a 1911, so that informed this week’s book, which is The Guns of John Moses Browning: The Remarkable Story of the Inventor Whose Firearms Changed the World by Nathan Gorenstein.
John Moses Browning was born January 23, 1855, in Ogden Utah Territory to Johnathan Browning and his second wife, Elizabeth Clark. Now, if you have even a vague knowledge of US history, then 1855 in Utah probably tells you the family was Mormon, and indeed they were, Johnathan Browning having been an early convert to the faith, and was one of the original converts, I believe learning directly from Joseph Smith.
When Johnathan Browning converted in Illinois, he was married to his first wife, also Elizabeth, and the whole Browning clan converted and moved to Utah. Once there, Browning Sr took on two additional wives, plural marriage being allowable under early Mormon doctrine. His first wife, also an Elizabeth, was not thrilled with this, but Mormon doctrine only requires tacit approval from the first wife…meaning she could have said something like “not in my house” which Browning Sr took to mean “ok but house your next family someplace else.” Which is what he did, both his second and third wives and the children from those marriages all grew up more or less in the same household, while Elizabeth the first and all the children from the first marriage remained in their own household.
John Browning, growing up in Ogden, which was still very much the wild west, designed his first shotgun when he was 10 years old. It was basically soldered together with wire and he’s very lucky it didn’t explode in his face when he fired it. After he killed three grouse with it…by design, they were all closely together, so he was able to I think kill one out right and injure the other two enough he was able to kill them by hand. But he then showed Browning Sr his shotgun, and Browning Sr broke by stepping on it. Because it was that badly built.
But it was an early start for his future, and he spent the next decade building everything from bow and arrows for the neighborhood kids in exchange for chores, to learning how to make moccasins from a Native American who came by annually to make shoes for the Mormons.
As he grew up, he worked in his father’s shop and his father was a gunsmith, among other things. And eventually he said something about inventing firearms and his Browning Sr said something like I’d like to see that…not sarcastically, but because he was genuinely proud of his son. Sons…. younger brother Matthew and the half-brothers of the third wife Ann Emmett all, again, were part of a family. And this does eventually become a family business.
As part of his launch into manhood, John Moses and brother Matthew purchased his father’s shop from him and set about inventing firearms. Now, John Moses came by his brilliance quite honestly, as Browning Sr had invented a harmonica gun, and he created his first rifle in 1878, which Browning Sr lived to see before dying June 21, 1879. At this point in history, the family rift between Elizabeth the Firsts family and the rest of the Browning clan became set in stone. Browning Sr died intestate…without a will. So, the executor of his estate was his I believe eldest son by Elizabeth the Firsts. And while John Moses and Matthew Sandefur had a contract showing they had purchased the workshop from Browning Sr prior to his death, his half-brother and the husband of one of his half-sisters, determined that the lathe, anvil, and bellows, were not included in the sales contract, and should be auctioned.
John Moses and Matt managed to buy these items back during auction, and given the incredible success that John Moses and Matt, both together and independently of each other, one can’t help but feel the children from the first marriage…done fucked up.
Browning Sr. also lived long enough to see John Moses married to Rachel Theresa Child, who, unlike Browning Sr’s wife, expressed a very clear opinion on plural marriage. When John Moses brought up the possibility of a second marriage, Rachel said “over your dead body.” There was no misinterpreting that statement, and Rachel remained John Moses’s only spouse, and together they had ten children.
Now, part of what brought John Moses to my attention, was that I did not know his designs had been manufactured by Winchester until last October when I read Captive of the Labyrinth. So, how he came to the attention of Winchester Arms is that a salesman for Winchester was in Ogden and stopped at Browning Bros store, where they sold, among other things, rifles that Browning had designed and manufactured. At a very small scale, because they were not set up for mass manufacture, but the salesman noticed they were exceptionally designed and made. He also noticed that the Browning’s were selling bootlegged all in one reloading device, to which Winchester owned the patent.
Rather than just unleashing the Winchester legal machine on Browning for their illicit manufacture of a Winchester product, the salesman purchased one of the rifles, and took it to Winchester president, Thomas Bennett. And Winchester tried very hard to replicate the Browning single shot rifle without violating Browning’s patent, and they couldn’t do it.
So, Bennett made the trip to Ogden…or invited Browning to New Haven, I don’t remember which, and purchased the patent. And rather than burning what looked to be a very lucrative bridge, they agreed to settle Browning’s own patent violation of the reloading device for the bargain basement sum of $1.
And this began almost two decades of a solid working relationship between Winchester and Browning. Winchester would purchase their patents and then not even make the firearm, because they already had something similar in their product line, but they also knew that if they didn’t purchase the patent, someone else would, and then there would be competition.
And this worked for a bit, but since Browning was never an employee of Winchester, as he built up a name for himself, and branched out from rifles, to shotguns, to machine guns, to pistols, designing everything from lever action, to pump action, automatic, semi-automatic, gas operated, blow back action…I mean, he just kept going and going and going.
When he started dipping his toes into fully automatic, trying to come up with something that was more user friendly than the Gatling gun, which worked ok during the Civil War, but was ungainly to use and could jam, he developed the first belt fed, fully automatic, gas operated machine gun. And since this was clearly not a hunting machine, Browning took the design to Colt, which had the contract to supply the US Army with firearms. And Browning demonstrated superb craftsmanship, firing 1800 rounds, only stops being when he changed the belts, without jamming once. The barrel got red hot, but never failed. It was an impressive display.
In addition to this, he had begun work on the first pump action shotgun, the model 1893. Unfortunately, while Winchester did manufacture this, the gun was buggy, with one customer report reading “He was out hunting, and while shooting the bolt blew back into his eye. He would not shoot the gun anymore and would make us a present of it.” That note was with the shotgun when the customer returned it to the factory. After Winchester confirmed that he had been using appropriate ammunition, Winchester basically issued a recall, which was so thorough there are very few 1893 shotguns left. Those few are most likely in private collections, and never fired for safety reasons. The shotgun Winchester replaced the recall with was the 1897, which was such a superior shotgun, the military used them extensively during trench warfare in 1917, where it became known as the Trench Sweeper. For more details on that, I would refer you to the Fat Electrician, who did a video on the Winchester 1897, and why Germany, the country that introduced the world to mustard gas, petitioned to have use of the 1897 declared a war crime.
Now, while Winchester produced the first pump action shotgun off Browning’s design in 1893, 1893 itself was a pivotal year for Browning for a different reason. February 15, 1893, he signed a patent over to Colt, in return for a royalty payment on each gun sold. This was new for Browning, who previously had sold each patent outright. When he attempted to change the dynamic with Winchester, pointing out his royalty contract with Colt, Bennett refused, and his long relationship with Winchester ended.
And in 1895, he invented the first slide-action pistol, technically called a short-recoil semiautomatic pistol. This has become basically the standard in semi-automatic pistols, and the author says, “Browning’s design outlasted all its competitors to become the fundamental mechanism of virtually all modern handguns.” Any movie, tv show, video game, where someone grabs the top of the handgun and slides it back to let it snap forward, ready to fire…that’s all due to John Moses Browning.
In March 1897 Browning made his first trip to Liege Belgium, where the Fabrique National d’Armes de Guerre factory was located. He did so as a result of a friendship formed several years prior with Hart Berg, who was working as the general sales agent and international representative for the factory and invited Browning over. And while there, Browning demonstrated a prototype that fired five hundred shots in a row without jam or failure. FN immediately made a deal for a $2,000 payment up front and a royalty of 2 gold francs per pistol sold. By August 1904, 100,000 pistols had sold, and by 1909, that number was 500,000. In addition to the royalties, the pistol was the first to carry his name: Pistolet Browning.
So ubiquitous and famous was that slide action, that soon any slide action pistol was called le browning. It was wildly popular new tech and sold like crazy in Europe, and following the boom of gun purchases, there were a ton of news stories about accidental discharge leading to accidental death. Because even a hundred years ago, Europeans couldn’t handle firearms. Browning actually did take this into consideration, and started designing double safety features, one operated by the thumb, one on the grip.
Browning’s success did breed lawsuits, not for the accidental death…I mean, 100 years ago, people were still adopting the very adult and bizarre belief that you were responsible for your own actions, even the accidental ones. While the failure of the Winchester 1893 would have brought legitimate lawsuits if Winchester’s customer service team hadn’t leapt into action, accidentally pulling the trigger while showing off for your girlfriend was blamed fully on the shooter. No, the lawsuit Browning faced as a patent infringement lawsuit filed by Georg Luger. Luger is probably a name recognized, as his parabellum pistol, which used a toggle linkage, was also wildly popular, and was a popular wartime souvenir for returning doughboys.
The lawsuit had to do with the toggle linkage, which in itself could not really be patented, but the first design was from an older firearm, designed in 1893 by Hugo Borchardt. Borchardt’s pistol was way too big, at 14”, and, and just generally ungainly. Luger, over in Europe, was put in charge of a redesign that would make it usable and easier to carry. Independently of this, Browning was working on a toggle bolt linkage all on his own, which in the contract for manufacture with Winchester was acknowledged to be similar to the Borchardt design; however, the toggle linkage itself was used in a bunch of different industries, like Singer sewing machines, which is where Borchardt had got his idea for the toggle linkage. So, while the design was similar to Borchardt’s design, it was different enough for Browning’s patent to be granted in 1899. A year later, Luger filed for patent infringement with the US Patent office. Unfortunately for Luger, Browning had sketches for the idea going back to 1894, and a working prototype as of 1897.
So ultimately Luger would lose his case and tried to ultimately back out of the lawsuit; however, Browning’s integrity had been impugned, so Browning basically demanded satisfaction in court. Which he won quite handily. And for his part, did everything he could to ensure the parabellum would not be manufactured in the United States.
And between the lawsuit with Luger and the advent of WWI, Browning would create what is arguably the most famous handgun of all time, the Colt Model 1911. And the reason for its invention is the military was looking for an upgrade in their sidearms, and after some very not scientific testing…namely they had a couple officers shoot cadavers and cows with various calibers to determine what would be the most effective…it was determined that sidearms should be .45 caliber. What’s interesting about this is that the military’s testers, Major Lewis La Garde and Captain John Thompson, while deciding on the .45, also stated explicitly that the only truly effective handgun bullet was the one that hits a vital spot. Which is a fun thing to read, since twitter warriors all maintain that it’s useless to even fire a .22 at someone. Yet they all basically just fall under the aegis of bigger is better, so don’t fire a .22. Despite the reality, that all you need to do, is make sure the other guy loses blood pressure before they can hurt you. Which is exactly what La Garde and Thompson determined.
With the advent of WWI, Browning was called in to create a fully automatic machine gun. There were other manufacturers who were given the opportunity to get the government contract. But the results were not even close. Browning fired 20,000 rounds in 53 minutes and 17 seconds. The next closest contender took 98 minutes and 17 seconds. The competition spent almost half their time clearing jams and replacing broken parts. Whereas Browning’s design was only out of action for 46 seconds.
Up to this point, Browning had basically led a pretty charmed life, patenting 128 different inventions, and building up the family fortune, traveling overseas multiple times, world fame and prestige. This all hit a brick wall, from which the family would never really recover, on April 9, 1923.
Browning’s daughter Elsie had married one Benjamin Franklin Ballantyne. Ballantyne appeared to believe that because she was Browning’s daughter, and he was now Browning’s son-in-law, he was entitled to a cushy job with the Browning family, with a cushy paycheck. When none was forthcoming, because he had nothing to offer the Browning’s in return for this cushy job, he became resentful and belligerent. Part of that was that Ballantyne was an abusive drunk, and liked to spend money he didn’t have, which necessitated Browning paying off Ballantyne’s debts. Ballantyne seemed to think that Browning should give him the money to pay the bills; instead Browning paid the debtor directly, which embarrassed Ballantyne. And on April 9, it all came to a head when Elsie began divorce proceedings. Browning’s son John “Jack” and Matt’s son Marriner, who was close with his cousin Elsie, went to the couple’s house to help Elsie pack and leave. But when Elsie actually got in the car to leave, Ballantyne became belligerent and demanded she return to the house, which she did. Jack and Marriner went with them at Elsie’s request, and once inside, a drunk Ballantyne pulled out a gun. Marriner was quicker on the draw and shot him. He died several hours later, and made a dying declaration that he had not been armed and was just shot in cold blood.
This was enough for the State of Utah to file murder charges against Marriner and Jack. Both were ultimately acquitted, but the stress was too great for Matt, who suffered a heart attack and died. Matt had been Browning’s life long partner and best friend, and Browning would die three years later on November 26, 1926, also of a heart attack, while visiting the FN factory in Liege, Belgium.
This book was so good. It was fast paced, it reads like a novel, it pulled me right it and kept me reading. If you want to know more about the Man behind the Legend, I highly recommend The Guns of John Moses Browning, by Nathan Gorenstein.
