I don't think there is a hunter, shooter or just a fan of firearms and contemporary history who has never heard of John Moses Browning. The man, the genius, the inventor who directly or indirectly linked his name to all the most important inventions in the armigero field of the twentieth century.
Di Mark Benecchi
John Moses Browning was born on January 23, 1855 in Ogden, Utah. He was one of the 22 children of Jonathan Browning (born October 22, 1805!) Who, as a good Mormon, had three wives. The young John Moses had noble origins in the manufacture of weapons, because his father was a notable gunsmith who had already introduced several innovations in this field. As a child, John spent a lot of time in his father's workshop and already knew the names of all parts of a weapon before he had even learned the alphabet. Already at the age of six he was making fishing accessories out of scrap iron, which he hammered on a miniature workbench made up of a wooden house. The father Jonathan Browning, moreover, famous for his patience, he could not always hide his irritation in the face of the constant "why?" of little John Moses, who disturbed him while he was working. The life of this typical American boy is full of anecdotes that allow us to glimpse, years in advance, the profile of a brilliant inventor of international fame.
John Moses filed his first patent, when he was only twenty-three, for the "JM Browning Single Shot Rifle". The drafting of the patent text in the proper form cost him a greater effort than that which he had devoted to the invention itself, and which consisted in a simplification of the percussion mechanism which increased durability and safety. During the same period Browning he married Rachel Teresa Child, who was his lifelong partner. Shortly before his death his father gave him the business and the young Browning, associated with his brother Matt (who had never operated a machine tool) and with less than a thousand dollars in the bank transformed the modest family shop into a small arms factory with seven employees. Far from any urban center and without capital, the company could barely sustain itself, until luck helped to make the inventor known. A representative of the Winchester company sent a gun manufactured by the Browning brothers, which he discovered and bought in another state, to the top of his company, because the idea had seemed interesting to him. The rep had a very good nose indeed, as the Winchester general manager immediately set off on a long journey of over six days to the Wild West to meet the Browning brothers. Amazed by the fact that he found himself in front of two twenty-year-olds who worked in a country shop, he was however insightful enough to go beyond appearances and immediately conclude commercial agreements with them that continued for several decades.
As years go by, John Moses Browning he granted licenses to various manufacturers for the dozens of inventions and weapons he had developed. It is no exaggeration to say that John Moses Browning invented everything there was to invent in the field of firearms. Furthermore, it should be noted that, since the beginning of the century, the essential part of its technological innovations has neither been improved nor supplanted. This demonstrates the high degree of perfection to which Browning it had arrived after years and years of studies and prototypes. But the turning point for the already established Browning firm came in 1897, when another insightful commercial director, this time from the National War Weapons Factory in Herstal (Belgium), noticed a 7.65 caliber Browning pistol with the original locking mechanism. The FN obtained the manufacturing license and it was the beginning of an uninterrupted collaboration between the inventor, who lived on the shores of the Great Salt Lake and the factory located along the Meuse. Browning reached the pinnacle of his fame with the Auto 5 semi-automatic shotgun (still highly appreciated by both hunters and collectors from all over the world) which had considerable commercial success, so much so that the brilliant gunsmith decided it was time to organize a visit to Herstal. But his fame, without any doubt, was sealed with the commissioning of one of his greatest creations: the semi-automatic pistol GP - HP caliber 9 mm Parabellum (Grande Potenza - High Power), produced in more than 10 million units. and that since 1907 it has been adopted by most of the police forces and armies around the world.
On the other hand, the name Browning has become the synonym for designating this type of pistol. None of Browning's successes came from chance.
Like all great and tenacious American pioneers, John Moses made his fortune by working really hard and battling the competition and bureaucracy of that time. The strength of his character and the steadfastness of his principles were extraordinary and when in the last decades of his existence he was offered an honorary title by a university he refused it, citing as the only reason the fact "that he had imposed himself as a rule of life of do not accept anything that has not been earned by working alone ”. This great and unsurpassed genius of arms spent his last moments of life in his office in Herstal, during his 1926st stay in Europe. He died in XNUMX of a heart attack in the arms of his son Val and his last words were: "My son, I really know that I am going to die ...." That day the workers stopped working and paid homage to the remains of the man who had entrusted their company with the task of realizing the essence of his talent. Repatriated to the United States, the inventor received military honors, and his son Val always continued his collaboration with the Belgian factory. John Moses Browning invented, built or contributed to the project of weapons such as some models of the legendary Winchester lever, the Colt 1911 semi-automatic pistol, the Browning Auto 5 rifle long barrel recoil, lo 12-gauge lever-action shotgun mod. 1887, machine guns mod. 1917 caliber 30, mod. VZ -30 cal. 7,92 mm , M2 cal. 50 (all with delayed closing system), the mythical BAR submachine gun mod. 1918 A1 (from which derives the homonymous, very famous semi-automatic hunting rifle), the BL 22 lever and one of the best over-and-under shotguns never built: the B 25. Today Browning, after one hundred and twenty-five years from the birth of the parent company, still builds prestigious, reliable and elegant hunting weapons, managing to combine old traditions with avant-garde technologies.
My grandfather used to hunt with a Browning shotgun, my father with an Auto 5 and when I too took the license back in 1976, they could only give me a semi-automatic "Browning". Two years later, on the occasion of my high school graduation, my first BAR rifle in 270 Winchester caliber also arrived. Today I am very proud to have two 5-gauge Auto 12 semiautomatics, my grandfather's side-by-side shotgun, a BAR MK II, a BAR 1/50 Rupicapra, a BAR Prima Lusso and a BAR Long Trac Eclipse Gold left-handed, all in 30.06 caliber. I think this is enough to show how much I appreciate and respect the good brand created by the great Browning. And then there is another anecdote that I want to tell you: when as a boy I went hunting for wild boars (the so-called "Cacciarella Maremmana") and there were few who had to beat a large stretch of scrub, the old Capocaccia always said to my father, his deputy: “Gianni, take five Browning and close all wide "! Because in the seventies - eighties it was taken for granted that whoever owned a semiautomatic had one of the most beautiful creations of the genius John Moses.