Everyone knows who John Moses Browning is. As such, this isn’t going to be a windy, abbreviated biography about the grandfather of modern firearms.
With 128 arms-related patents to his name, talking about the entirety of his lasting legacy could - and has - filled multiple books. Dozens of his gun designs and improvements are still being used today, more than a century after their invention.
With that in mind, here’s a look at just a smattering of them broken up into rifles, shotguns, machine guns, and pistols — because, yeah, he designed lasting entries in all of those categories. These are some of the guns of John Browning that matter most.
Rifles of John Browning
Winchester Model 1885
On May 12, 1879, Browning was a 23-year-old fledgling gunsmith in Ogden, Utah, when he filed a patent for a "Breech-Loading Fire-Arm." It would change his life and set a new course for one of the largest arms makers in the US.
When the patent was approved on October 7, 1879, the Browning Model 1878 Single-Shot Rifle was born. John, along with his three brothers, produced some 600 of these rifles by the time they were visited by a man named Thomas Bennett in the spring of 1883.
Bennett was the Vice President of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, and he was very intrigued by the gun that the Browning brothers were making.
By the time he returned home to Connecticut, Browning was $8,000 richer and Winchester had secured the rights to what would become the Winchester Model 1885 Single-Shot Rifle.
With that one gun, Browning and Winchester had entered into what would become one of the most prolific and profitable firearms deals ever. Winchester bought everything Browning presented to them, making John a very wealthy man and ensuring that Winchester was continuously out in front of all of its competitors.
Winchester still makes the Model 1885, albeit in smaller numbers, but it stands alone as the springboard that propelled Browning to the pedestal upon which he rightly resides today.
Winchester Model 1894
While the Winchester Model 1894 wasn’t Browning’s first patent, and it certainly wasn’t his last, it would prove to be one of his most famous and enduring gun designs. Winchester would go on to sell more than 7.5 million Model 1894s in the following 130 years.
Hunting was, and still is, an integral part of the Model 1894’s success. Because this new gun could hit harder and farther than its lever-gun predecessors, hunters in the Wild West used it to great effect.
The terrain in the region often provides sweeping views and vast distances. In that environment, the Model 1894 in .30-30 was the perfect gun to harvest game to feed the family, a wagon party, or a military outfit.
It also possessed all the attributes that made lever actions the preferred gun of the era, including simple operation, robust construction, and the ability to fire repeatedly as fast as one could work the action and pull the trigger.
Winchester’s Model 1894 may not be known as “The Gun That Won the West” - that nickname belongs to its older cousin, the Model 1873 - but it certainly tried hard to win that moniker.
Even after the west had been “won,” the Model 1894 kept Winchester’s frontier legacy alive. When Westerns and cowboy films became hugely popular in the mid-20th century, the Winchester Model 1894 became the go-to rifle for film and television prop masters.
They were plentiful, and they could pass for any lever gun from the mid-to-late 1800s. For example, Robert Duvall carries a Model 1894 as Ned Pepper in True Grit (1969), which takes place in 1873.
The Winchester Model 1894 is not the gun of any particular era; it’s a gun of many eras, and its design is timeless. To this day, you’re still likely to see a Winchester Model 1894 in someone’s safe, truck rack, or deer camp - the gun is literally everywhere and has been for more than 130 years.
Shotguns of John Browning
FN Auto-5
The Auto-5 (or just A5) shotgun was the first commercially successful semi-automatic shotgun in the world. Utilizing a long recoil operation where the entire barrel recoils to the rear to cycle the action, the Auto-5 is unmistakable in appearance with its iconic humpback design on the receiver.
As influential as the design was, the gun almost never happened. A dispute with Winchester over royalties left Browning without a manufacturer. He went to Remington, but the company president died while Browning was literally in the lobby waiting to meet with him.
Eventually, he took the design overseas where Fabrique Nationale (today known as FN Herstal) made them and, in a bit of an ironic twist, Remington licensed the design from them as the Model 11.
Browning really thought of everything. Semi-auto feeding issues can be mitigated by way of friction and bevel rings that fit on the magazine tube. Depending on the orientation, the gun’s recoil can be slowed down or sped up depending on the type of load being used.
The proper setup of the rings ensures that the user doesn’t endure excess recoil, and that the longevity of the gun is extended.
Production of the Belgian-made A5 ran from 1905 to the start of World War II. During the war years, production was done entirely stateside by Remington. After the war, production returned to Europe where FN made the gun until 1975.
Production then shifted to Miroku in Japan before the model was discontinued in 1998. Today, the Browning gun company makes an A5 shotgun that resembles the original, but internally, it's a very different design.
Winchester Model 1897
The Model 1897 shotgun wasn’t the first pump action shotgun on the market — that distinction belongs to the Spencer Model 1882 — but it was the first truly successful pump action shotgun on the commercial market.
With more than 1 million produced over 60 years, its numbers far eclipsed the Spencer and had an overall design that set the standard for what we have come to expect from pump action shotguns to this day.
The Model 1897 is a beefier version of the earlier Model 1893, because it was designed to handle smokeless powder loads whereas the 1893 only had black powder shells in mind.
Featuring an external hammer that is cocked by the bolt as it runs to the rear when pumped, the Model 1897 was available in a variety of different gauges, barrel lengths, and overall configurations to include the infamous “trench guns.”
Interestingly, modern research indicates that very few trench gun configurations were actually used in that capacity. They were actually far more commonly used as “riot guns” by law enforcement.
Perhaps the most notable feature (or flaw, depending on who you ask) is the ability for the gun to slam fire. This allows the shooter to pull the trigger to the rear to fire the first round and then hold it there while pumping the action and setting off the remaining shells in the magazine tube.
Internal, hammerless shotgun designs appeared in the coming decades after the Model 1897’s introduction and their sleek lines eventually became the way of the future. Still, guns like the iconic Mossberg 500 and Remington 870 owe their existence and success to Browning’s design of the Winchester Model 1897.
Machine Guns of John Browning
M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle - The BAR
Machine guns from the late-19th and early-20th centuries were behemoths: complex contraptions that often required a water supply for cooling, a tripod, and a small crew of men to operate.
Sure, they got the job done in gruesomely effective fashion, but their lack of mobility hindered the ability for soldiers to truly harness the power and battlefield prowess of a machine gun.
That all changed with the introduction of the Browning Automatic Rifle, or simply the BAR for short. (Cue the “Three German soldiers walked into a BAR…” jokes.) Depending on the exact configuration, the BAR weighed between 16 and 19 pounds.
Gas operated and fed by box magazines loaded with 20 or 40 .30-06 Springfield cartridges, this was a truly man-portable machine gun that needed no crew to operate and could move freely on the battlefield by just one soldier.
In February 1917, Browning gathered a group of military officers, congressmen, and senators in an open area in Southeast Washington, D.C. and put on a live-fire display that was so impressive he was awarded a production contract right then and there.
Because of the United States’ comparatively abbreviated involvement in World War I, the BAR saw limited use there, but was used extensively in World War II, Korea, and even a bit in Vietnam before being replaced by the M60 machine gun in 7.62 NATO.
This all paved the way for the venerable M249 SAW in 5.56 that has been in use for decades, along with the new M250 LMG that has been fielded in recent years.
Browning M2 - The Ma Deuce
Browning’s M2 machine gun is everything that the BAR isn’t. It isn’t small. It isn’t light. It isn’t chambered for a small rifle caliber.
The M2 is a heavy machine gun (literally: 84 pounds without the tripod) that just won’t die. Designed in 1918 at the end of World War I in conjunction with its powerful .50 BMG cartridge, the M2 wasn’t formally introduced to the world until 1933, some seven years after Browning’s death in 1926.
That alone is a testament to the man’s legacy. Though dead and gone, the design was so good that other men helped refine the design and bring “Ma Deuce” to life.
Over the years, more than 3 million M2 machine guns have been made by dozens of companies and have been used by more than 60 different countries.
Perhaps most impressive of all is the fact that this gun, whose genesis dates back more than 100 years, is still in use today by both the United States and countries around the world. It's been tweaked, but the basic design and even chambering remains the same. It's been fired from the ground, defensive positions, wheeled and tracked vehicles, and aircraft.
Machine guns like the M2 both dish out and take a lot of abuse. As such, it’s really impressive that these guns just keep shooting. Countless other machine gun designs have emerged in the past century, but good ol’ Ma Deuce is still standing as a reminder to all of the newcomers that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Pistols of John Browning
Colt M1911 - The Longest Serving U.S. Military Sidearm
The 1911 handgun is a single-action, semi-automatic pistol chambered in .45 Automatic Colt Pistol, or .45 ACP, which was also a cartridge of Browning’s design.
When the United States military started looking to adopt a new sidearm at the end of the 19th century, no one would have been able to imagine the legacy that would ensue. Heck, no one would have imagined that the new gun would be a semi-automatic!
Government work moves slowly, and the trials took years. Finally, in the early months of 1911, Colt and Savage had emerged as the top two contenders in the military trials.
On March 15, each company submitted a handgun for a 6,000-round torture test to be completed at Springfield Armory in Massachusetts.
The two guns used were the Colt with serial number 5 fired by E.G. Reising (of later M50 submachine gun fame), and the Savage with serial No. 4 fired by Charles Nelson, an arms inventor with numerous patents assigned to Savage.
After all 6,000 rounds had been fired, Colt appeared to be the winner. The final verdict, though, would not arrive until a couple weeks later. On March 29, 1911, official notice was sent to Colt by Lt. Col. John T. Thompson (of later “Tommy Gun” fame) informing them their design had “passed the prescribed tests and has been adopted” as the new military sidearm.
Since then, the 1911 went on to set a record that is unlikely to ever be broken. At 74 years, it holds the distinction of being the longest-serving official sidearm in the United States. Sure, it’s still used in some capacity, but it is no longer in the majority, having been replaced by the M9 and then the M17.
Almost immediately upon adoption in 1911, the public clamored for the new gun and Colt started making commercial guns for the public that were identical to the ones used by the military.
In the 110+ years since, the pistol has remained just as popular and is an absolute icon in the world of classic arms. Vintage pieces are highly collectible and just about every handgun maker in the world makes a 1911 variant - even the once-defeated Savage.
FN Browning M1910
It might seem an odd choice at first to choose the M1910 for this list instead of the M1900, which was the first commercially successful semi-automatic pistol to hit the market, but hear me out. You’ll understand why very soon.
The FN M1910 was more than just an improved redesign of the earlier M1900. Sure, it was indeed that, with a shortened overall length, an operating spring around the barrel, both magazine and grip safeties, and availability in both .32 ACP and the more powerful .380 ACP (also Browning’s design).
The gun is arguably the most historically influential of all Browning’s guns and is the biggest part of his lasting legacy, due to its infamy. On June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip used an FN M1910 handgun in .380 ACP to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo.
With the simple pull of a trigger, the world was plunged into a gruesome conflict that would become World War I. The outcome of that war, and the blame that it laid at Germany’s feet, is what ultimately led to World War II.
In turn, the outcome of World War II still shapes our geopolitical world and countless global conflicts to this day.
Browning died on Nov. 26, 1926, doing what he loved. He was at his bench in the Fabrique Nationale factory in Liege, Belgium, working on what would become the Hi-Power pistol when his heart failed him. He was 71.
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