John Moses Browning, an American engineer, rightfully takes his rightful place among such great gunsmiths as Kalashnikov, Makarov, Nagan and many others. He is called a revolutionary among the creators of military equipment. This article will cover interesting facts about John Moses Browning, his life and professional career.
Parents
John Moses Browning was born in the 50s of the XIX century. The family in which he grew up had a rather strange composition: his father had three wives and more than twenty children. This is due to the fact that the Browning belonged to the religious movement of Mormons, in whom polygamy is considered the traditional form of married life.
At that time, the exodus of the followers of this religion to the American desert of Utah was just taking place. It was there that the family settled. My father built a house and founded an armory near the city of Salt Lake City in a small village.
Acquaintance with the weapon
Many of the biographies of John Moses Browning say that the boy got acquainted with the name of the various parts of firearms long before he learned to read. From early childhood, he helped his father in his workshop, being interested not only in the process of manufacturing products, but also trying to make some improvements.
At school age, he also spent most of his free time with his parent. Even then, John knew how to draw and understand schemes for hand weapons. The boy also made his first attempts to create his original models of pistols and rifles. School lessons did not interest John Moses Browning very much, since by the time he was a teenager he had chosen a lesson for himself that he was going to devote his whole life to.
The young inventor could obtain the necessary knowledge by working as an apprentice with his father. Already at the age of 13, he, deciding to make a gift for his younger brother, designed and independently assembled a firearm. The young man found materials for these weapons in the waste left over from the production activities of his father’s company.
The dad of the future designer, seeing how talented and capable of weapons business his son is growing, allowed him to use his work tools to create his own model of rifle. These weapons were soon designed and manufactured.
Independence
John started a family at a fairly young age, barely reaching his 20th birthday. But in those years, he still worked in his father’s workshop, not having an independent practice of making weapons. When the head of the family died of an incurable disease, the young designer was about 25 years old.
Then John Moses Browning with one of his brothers organized his own firearm manufacturing company, which bore the sonorous name of "factory". Despite the fact that this company had such a pompous name, it consisted of only seven workers. In the bank account of the two brothers who ran this enterprise, by the time the business began, there was capital in the amount of less than $ 1 thousand.
First success
Despite the low-budget production and small staff, thanks to the creative approach to manufacturing weapons and the talent of the head of the company, John Browning, the company's products were in quite considerable demand. Already the first weapon developed for this plant was sold out very quickly.
Employees working on equipment inherited from Browning's father’s workshop simply did not have time to complete all orders. And those wishing to purchase a miracle weapon became more every day.
The first patent for the manufacture of a rifle and a major contract
Then the young man was lucky. An agent at Winchester, one of the largest firearms manufacturers in the United States of America, noticed a superb shotgun recently invented by Browning and suggested that he sell a patent for the manufacture of the gun. This contract was a turning point in the professional career of the designer.
The talented inventor no longer had to worry about the imperfection of equipment, which wore out more and more and more every day.
Now a large plant was engaged in the implementation of his inventions, the products of which were popular not only in the United States of America, but also in many other countries of the world. The weapon, which went under his brand, was in service with a huge number of armies of various states from all over the globe.
Common Name
In the 90s of the XIX century, the designer acquired literally stellar status. Photos with John Moses Browning appeared on magazine covers and in newspapers, and the name of this inventor has become a household name due to the fact that the companies for which he designed weapons began to name guns and pistols in his honor. Many of these samples are still in production. To this day, they have not lost their significance, and many people consider Browning's inventions to be the most convenient and reliable weapon.
In 1902, an engineer began to collaborate with one of the Belgian companies. The gun, which he designed for this company and immediately went into series production, spread over the world in the amount of more than a million copies in the first 10 years of sales.
Restless traveler
John Browning had to be torn between work in Europe and the United States of America, where his own company continued to exist. It was estimated that he crossed the Atlantic Ocean about 200 times.
During World War I, John Moses Browning switched to developing a new weapon, an automatic easel-type weapon. In 1917, a stationary machine gun was designed, and a little later - a hand weapon of this type. The second of these inventions was so perfect that its production does not stop to this day.
The work of the great gunsmith lives
Browning died in the workplace, as a person completely devoted to his work. His company continues to exist today.
She is led by his descendants. Currently, this company produces mainly hand-held small-caliber weapons.