John Moses Browning, an American engineer, rightfully takes his rightful place among such great gunsmiths as Kalashnikov, Makarov, Nagant 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 explained by the fact that the Brownings belonged to the Mormon religious movement, in which polygamy is considered the traditional form of married life.
At that time, the exodus of adherents of this religion to the American desert of Utah was taking place. That's where the family settled. My father built a house and set up a gun shop near S alt Lake City in a small village.
Introduction to weapons
WoMany biography of John Moses Browning says that the boy got acquainted with the name of 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 making 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 the schemes of hand weapons. The boy also made the first attempts to create his original models of pistols and guns. School lessons were not very interesting for John Moses Browning, since by the time he was a teenager he had chosen an occupation to which he was going to devote his whole life.
The young inventor could get the necessary knowledge for this by working as an apprentice with his father. Already at the age of 13, having decided to make a gift for his younger brother, he designed and independently assembled a firearm. The young man found materials for this weapon in the waste left from the production activities of his father's company.
The father of the future designer, seeing how talented and capable of weapons business his son is growing, allowed him to use his working tools to create his own rifle model. This weapon was soon designed and manufactured.
Independence
John started a family at a fairly early age, barely in his 20s. But in those years hestill 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 company for the manufacture of firearms, which bore the sonorous name "factory". Despite the fact that this company had such a pompous name, it consisted of only seven workers. The two brothers who ran the business had less than $1,000 in capital in their bank accounts when they started.
First success
Despite low-budget production and a small staff, thanks to the creative approach to the manufacture of weapons and the talent of the head of the company, John Browning, the company's products were in fairly significant demand. Already the first weapon designed for this factory sold out very quickly.
Employees who worked on the equipment inherited from the Browning father's workshop simply did not have time to fulfill all the orders. And those wishing to purchase a miracle weapon became more every day.
First rifle patent and major contract
Then the young man was lucky. An agent of Winchester, which was one of the largest manufacturers of firearms in the United States of America, noticed an excellent gun recently invented by Browning and suggested that he sell the company a patent for its manufacture. This contract was a turning point in his professional careerconstructor.
The talented inventor no longer had to worry about the imperfection of the equipment, which every day wore out more and more and fell into decay.
Now his inventions were put into practice by a large factory whose products were popular not only in the United States of America, but also in many other countries of the world. The weapons that came out under his brand were in service with a huge number of armies of various states from all over the world.
Common noun
In the 90s of the 19th century, the designer acquired literally star status. Photos with John Moses Browning appeared on the covers of magazines and in newspapers, and the name of this inventor became 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. They have not lost their significance to this day, and many people consider Browning's inventions to be the most convenient and reliable weapons.
In 1902, the engineer begins to cooperate with one of the Belgian firms. The gun, designed by him for this company and immediately entered mass production, in the first 10 years of sales spread around the world in the amount of more than a million copies.
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 calculated thathe crossed the Atlantic about 200 times.
During the First World War, John Moses Browning switched to the development of a new weapon, an automatic easel type. 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 cause of the great gunsmith lives on
Browning died in the workplace, as a man wholly dedicated to his work. His firm continues to exist today.
It is run by his descendants. Currently, this company produces mainly hand-held small-caliber weapons.
