immensely tough, even when the rifle was grossly over-stressed. Its success was marked by the gradual demise of all the other single-shot rifles on the American market, and it was only discontinued by Winchester in 1920 because of the increasing popularity of repeating arms, most of which were also Browning designs.
6. EARLY RIFLE DEVELOPMENT
In May 1884 John Browning applied for a patent for his new repeating rifle, and this was granted in October of that year. As if to prove his versatility, during the summer of 1884 he occupied himself in designing another rifle of the same type, but with a completely different operating mechanism.
Bennett had insisted on being the first manufacturer to see the new Browning model, so after the granting of the patent John and Matt set off to New Haven, John carrying the repeater wrapped in brown paper. In New York City the Brownings were entertained by a salesman from Schoverling, Daly and Gales, a man they knew well from his visits to Ogden and whose familiarity with guns they respected. After seeing the sights, eating a good meal and downing several drinks, they returned to the hotel where John showed him the new repeater. To say the salesman was impressed would be an understatement. It was, he declared, not only the best rifle in the world, but also probably the key to the future of the Winchester Company.
Bennett, when the Browning brothers saw him at New Haven shortly afterwards, agreed and purchased the patent outright from John for a reputed fifty thousand dollars, a quite enormous sum of money in 1884. But his faith was justified, for the 1886 Winchester, which became known as the Model 71 in 1936, remained in production for seventy one years, selling over 200,000 units, and incidentally, like the later Models 1892 and 1894, becoming familiar the world over from its appearances in countless western films. Indeed, the weapon is still very popular even today, despite production having ceased in 1957.
As well as buying the 1886, Bennett also asked John if he could design a lever-action repeating shotgun. John replied that he could, but suggested that a slide-action weapon might be preferable, adding that he had already designed such a gun. Bennett was interested, but pressed John to design a lever-action, as that feature had virtually become a Winchester trade-mark. He then asked roughly how long such a gun would take to design, and suggested two years, but John thought he could work a bit faster than that. That conversation took place in October 1884, and the patent on the new gun was filed in June 1885.
Winchester bought the design and introduced the weapon as the Model 1887. It had a simple, rugged and reliable action, and proved to be the world’s first successful repeating shotgun. It remained in production, though with a minor model change to the Model 1901 at the turn of the century to enable it to handle smokeless powders, until 1920, by which time over 78,000 had been sold.
It is instructive to realize that, due entirely to Bennett’s visit to Ogden in 1883, Winchester was able to introduce three entirely new weapons in a three year period, all of which went on to become market leaders in their classes and all were solely the product of John Browning’s genius. When the Model 87 went on sale, he was still only thirty-two years old.
Like Jonathan Browning, John was a Mormon and despite what he knew was his true vocation — designing weapons — he also accepted that he had commitments to the church. In 1887 was sent as a missionary to the southern states for two years, returning in March 1889. But by 1887 his head was already buzzing with new and exciting ideas for firearm designs, and there is no doubt that his eagerness to continue inventing and developing weapons contrasted sharply with his religious duties and beliefs. But he did his duty and went as a missionary, though after his return it is perhaps significant that he never again took an active role in church activities, limiting his participation to occasionally accompanying his wife Rachel to services. Almost certainly he regarded those two years as a complete waste of his time.
Upon his return, John Browning threw himself into his work with renewed vigour. An indication of his enthusiasm is that twenty patents were granted to him in just over three years. His method of working was rather unusual. By then he did not use blueprints, or even produce drawings, of the designs he was developing. Instead he would ‘assemble’ the mechanism in his head, and only start making templates or parts when he was certain that it would work smoothly and correctly.
Once a model had been constructed, he would take it into the hills around Ogden and test-fire dozens of rounds, noting critically the way the weapon behaved. Then he would sit at home after supper, loading the piece and working the action, noting any roughness or irregularity. The next morning Ed would find John in the shop, the gun stripped on the bench in front of him, while he filed, fingered or just considered a part. With any minor modifications made, the test-firing would begin again, and the process continued until he was sure the gun was right in every respect.
And then there were the trips out east to Winchester at New Haven, where John would show the gun or guns he had produced. And, invariably, T G Bennett would buy the weapons, usually with little haggling over the price, though John quite often accepted Winchester goods in part-payment. These the Browning brothers sold through their new and very much larger two-storey shop in Main Street, Ogden, where the business was booming.
The reliance placed upon John Browning by Bennett and the Winchester Company is exemplified by the fact that for almost twenty years no new gun introduced by Winchester was designed by anyone other than Browning. In fact, Bennett bought a total of forty four Browning guns over a period of seventeen years — a larger number of weapons than were patented by all the other inventors working in America in the same period — though only ten of these guns actually reached the production line.
It may seem poor business practice to buy goods which are never intended to be sold, but actually Bennett was ensuring the success of Winchester. By giving John Browning the asking price for any gun he produced, he was effectively giving Winchester a monopoly of Browning’s genius. He was well aware that if he refused to accept a gun, Browning could simply take it to Colt or one of the other major manufacturers, where he would be welcomed with open arms, and Winchester would then face a competitor producing a weapon of a similar quality to its own. As far as Bennett was concerned, the cost of thirty four patents was simply the equivalent of a payment on an insurance policy.
It must be emphasized that all these designs were entirely different. John Browning did not take out separate patents for only minor alterations, and frequently included notes within each patent application confirming that a particular mechanism could be adapted to a different weapon — a shotgun when the patent was for a rifle, and so on. And when each new patent was granted, the task of other firearms inventors in America became that much more difficult.
Bennett had finally agreed with John about the potential for a pump-action shotgun, and the weapon was duly introduced as the Model 93 (later known as the Model 97), and remained in production until 1957. This weapon was extensively used during the First World War, as so-called ‘trench guns’, and issued to those American troops who were demonstrably skilled in trap and skeet shooting. These men used the shotgun to destroy enemy hand grenades in flight, and in one celebrated incident a small force of some 200 US soldiers used devastating massed fire from their Model 97 shotguns at extremely close range to defeat a major assault by German troops.
Another pump-action weapon, the Model 90 .22 rifle, caused a certain amount of embarrassment at the Winchester factory. When Bennett had asked for the gun to be designed, John had been very busy and, breaking with his usual routine of providing a working model, he had sent only a set of detailed drawings.
After a short while, John received a letter from an official of the Winchester Company which recommended that he cease work on the weapon, as an assessment of the drawings by Winchester engineers had shown that the rifle would not function. John read the letter, made a working model of the gun as quickly as he could and sent it straight to Winchester with a terse note stating that, as far as he could see, it worked well enough. The Model 90, and its two later successors the Models 06 and 62, went on to become arguably the most popular .22 pump-action rifles ever produced, selling well over two million units and remaining in production until 1958.
In 1890 another request was made to John Browning by Bennett when the inventor was visiting New Haven with Matt, this time for a rifle similar to the highly acclaimed Model 86, but slightly scaled down to handle the .44/40 round and to replace the ageing Winchester 73. Bennett was clearly in a hurry, and he offered John ten thousand dollars if he could deliver a working model in three months, and
