As readers of that article will learn, Canadian servicemen who have been waiting;
for their vintage nine-millimetre Browning Hi-Power semi-automatic pistols to be replaced will have to wait a while longer.
M'eh.
Now, how can I say that when I just approved of the replacement of the less vintage M16/M4 in the U.S. Army, sort of, and the much less vintage M249?
Well, because the Hi-Power isn't really going to be replaced by anything that needs to replace it.
The Hi-Power was a pistol that John Browning was working on at the time of his death in November 1926. Browning never really finished designing his automatic pistols even though various version of them had been in production by that time for over 25 years, and one of them, the Colt M1911, was a hugely successful military pistol already. In spite of that, a perfectionist, he kept working on the design and was doing so at the time of his death.
Upon his death, FN employee Dieudonné Saive took the design up and completed work on the handgun, which is frankly extremely similar to the M1911, in 1935. People can argue which is better and never reach upon a conclusion. At any rate, the gun went into immediate military use at the time, and in one of the strange ironies of the Second World War, it was used by both sides. The Germans, who used a lot of pistols, kept them under production in Belgium. The Allies were already producing them in Canada for Chinese contacts and took over those. It became the handgun used by Commonwealth paratroopers, although M1911s also were. After the war, it became the standard handgun of Commonwealth countries, in the same fashion that the FAL became their standard battle rifle.
They are still used by Australia and Canada, among others. Canadian ones were manufactured by the Canadian John Inglis plant.
Who?
The John Inglis Company.
Okay, you've probably never heard of Inglis, unless you are a history student. John Inglis and Company was a Canaidan manufacturing company that started firearms manufacturing just before World War Two, when the Commonwealth forces were rearming. It started off with Bren Guns and ended up making 60% of them for the Commonwealth forces. They also made Hi Power pistols for Commonwealth forces.
And then after World War Two, they stopped and went into appliances. In 1987 they were acquired by Whirlpool.
Canada's adopted the Hi Power pistol as its sidearm after the war, or sort of during the war, ultimately replacing a vareity of other things. They've apparently (although I somewhat question this) been using Hi Powers made during World War Two ever since.
If that sounds fantastical, keep in mind that there are still M1911s in use in the U.S. military, albeit rebuilt more than once, that were built during World War Two. Moreover, in 2020 a Browning M2HB .50 machinegun went into Anniston for refurbishing that had been built in 1933.
These things can last.
Which is actually a good argument for keeping them.
Canada wants to replace theirs.
Why?
Well, that's what armies do.
Okay, in fairness, they're old. And most of the nations that did use them no longer do. But that's more than a little bit because that's what armies do.
But not all.
Australian soldier firing a Hi Power. Australia still uses them as well.
It has something to do with handguns.
In most armies, handguns play a marginal role. There are some exceptions. In the U.S. Army handguns are sort of a big deal, which reflects their historical role in the U.S. Army, which is unique. But in most armies they aren't used a lot.
Given that, the fact of the matter is that they last a very long time and their actual role, while marginal, can be filled by about any modern handgun that's a good one.
And by modern handgun, we mean a handgun that came after 1910, more or less.
Semiautomatic handguns were perfected by John Browning at that point in time, and absolutely any of the good semiautomatic handguns made after that fit the bill. The bigger question, really, is cartridge.
Every theoretical development in handguns that has come after World War Two has been marginal at best. Making the bodies out of synthetics? M'eh. For really long-lasting handguns, the jury is still out on that. Striker fired? Yep, that's a good feature. . . albeit one that's been around since before 1910, but it's not such a big deal in a military handgun that it really actually matters.
Optical sights?
Military handguns are used so little, by most who carry them, that this would actually be a detriment. For special operators, sure. But their needs are unique, and they've always had unique supply chains. And most automatic pistols can be retrofitted for this anyhow.
So is there no argument for replacing them?
Well, maybe. But a person sure shouldn't leap to that conclusion.
The linked in article provides one reason:
This is even though Hi-Power parts are no longer available – production of the 1930s design ended in 2017. When Colt Canada, the government’s Strategic Source and Centre of Excellence for Small Arms, receives a batch for repairs, it generally cannibalizes nearly a third to salvage the rest.
The problem with that argument is that its wrong.
It was right at one time, but no longer is. As an erudite commenter on the article noted:
“This is even though Hi-Power parts are no longer available – production of the 1930s design ended in 2017.”
FWIW, Hi-Powers are back in production. FN has resumed production of them, and the US Springfield Armory company has commenced production of them. Not that this should govern the choice, but its an error in the article.
I actually learned since posting that there are now three, not two, companies making the Hi Power now. At least two of the three are making them in the US, including FN. I’m not sure about the third. Those used by the Canadian Army were originally made in Canada, but most of them are almost certainly FN made from Belgium, where production was once centered.
Again, none of this suggests that the Canadian armed forces must stick with the Hi Power, but rather notes that replacement parts should be available, fwiw.
Indeed, Hi Power's have come roaring back into production.
Almost like the M1911 did when something similar happened with it.
And that's worth noting.
Truth be known, the HI Power is an incredibly durable handgun, which its long service in multiple armies proves, and the advantages of its supposed successors is largely theoretical. By going to a newer handgun, the Canadian Army achieves. . . nothing.
Well, nothing in a "this is way better sense". Maybe some other advantage. . . although the experience of the U.S. Army would suggest not. If the advantage is that they now have a source of spare parts, well, they do already.
One of the things I did, when I did that, was to address rifles and shotguns, but only very briefly. I did that in a super long footnote, at the end of the post.
Well, in thinking about it, that wasn't really fair, as that is one way that things have changed, sort of. So here we take a little closer look at that topic.
Rifles are the thing most associated with big game hunting, although in recent years bows have really come in strong. Bows were something that weren't allowed in my state when I was young and I've never personally adjusted to them. I love hunting, but bows don't appeal to me. Interestingly, at one point my daughter took up shooting bows, at a time in which we were also in 4H, but she wouldn't compete with them. Go figure. Maybe back in the Middle Ages our ancestors were victims of Welsh archers or something and we've never really gotten over it.
Anyhow, in North American most hunters use rifles. Some use shotguns, usually with slugs but sometimes with huge shot. Folks who use shotguns do so because the ranges they're shooting at are really close, and shotguns are pretty darned effective in those circumstances but, at the same time, have low danger of carry so there's low risk to other people.
Floridian hunters with shotguns in the early 20th Century. I posted this photograph in our first thread on this topic.
Outside of shotgun territory people mostly use and used rifles. So we should take a look at that.
And it'll be sort of a short look. The reason for that is that in 1918, and for that matter 1908, or 1898, the story is of the Winchester Model 1892 and the 1894.
That may sound simplistic, but it isn't. From the point of their introduction in 1892 and 1894 up well past World War One, and even to the present day the Model 1894, together with the 1892 simply defined the American hunting rifle. It would take World War One to really change that, and even that didn't happen to rapidly.
Even if you know nothing at all about firearms, you would recognize the 1894 The 1894, in its carbine variant, came to so define the "cowboy" rifle that it's appeared in zillions of Westerns in the hands of cowboy actors, and in fact was very commonly used for a cowboy arm for movies set well before the 1894 was introduced. It shared that position with the 1892, which so closely resemble each other that I can't tell them apart in a photograph.
River crossing scene from The Searchers. Every European American character in this scene, except for one, is using a Winchester Model 1892. The movie, however, is set vaguely after the Civil War, in what seems to be the 1870s. In actual history, the Comanches were defeated and on reservations by 1875, interestingly placing their defeat one year before the most famous battle on the Northern Plains, Little Big Horn, which occurred in 1876.
The Models 1892 and 1894 were the product of. . .yes you guessed it, the inventive mind of John Browning. His first "Winchester" design had been a single shot rifle designed along with this brother Matthew Sandifer Browning.
Browning is, without question, the most prolific and greatest small arms designer of all time. Starting in the single shot era and working into the automatic weapons era, his arms designs were singularly great.
Browning was born in Ogden, Utah Territory, in 1855 to Johnathan Browning and Elizabeth Carline Clark. He was one of nineteen children to his father, but not as many to his mother, as his father was a Mormon immigrant to Ogden at at a time when Mormons still practiced polygamy. His father was a gun smith and the young Browning worked in his shop. In 1878 he introduced what would later be known as the "High Wall" single shot rifle which he marketed in a firm started with his brother that was shortly known as the Browning Arms Company. The High Wall was a revolutionary design at a time at which the Sharps was regarded as the pinnacle of single action large bore rifles and it was soon noticed by Winchester which purchased the manufacturing rights to the rifle in 1885.
Patent drawings for the High Wall, arguably the greatest of the single shot rifles or at least a contender for the title. High Walls remained in Winchester production well into the 20th Century and have been revived as a product line by the Browning Arms Company many times since then. A small caliber version, the Low Wall, is also a legendary design.
This, we would note, is counter to one of the myths surrounding the Browning Arms Company, even though the founding story is well known. It is sometimes said that it never manufactured its own arms. It did. It just didn't do so for very long. There actually are Ogden Utah made High Walls, although not many. But those early rifles are Browning made arms, sold to hunters in the West in large calibers.
Advertisement for the Browning Brothers firm in the September 12, 1885 Uinta Chieftain. There's a widespread myth that Browning did not manufacture arms until after World War Two. This is simply incorrect. They did very early on, and then ceased doing so for a long period of time after John Browning's designs took off. The firm itself, or a version of it, continued to exist however.
The second myth here is that Matthew Sandifer Browning dropped out of the picture at this point. He didn't. He did play a reduced and soon no role in designing firearms, but he remained in the company and was a significant businessman within it. And that company would play a unique role in firearms design, with John Browning as its chief designer. Matthew Browning, on the other hand, was the principal businessman in the firm. They both would live, it should be noted, for almost the exact same number of years, dying within a year of each other.
Soon after that Browning designed the High Wall he turned to other designs, with the Winchester Model 1886 being the next significant design. Winchester had built its reputation on repeating arms, having taken over the original Henry repeating rifle line, but it had never been able to make a repeating rifle that fired a large cartridge. Browning changed that, and when he did, the lever action became a much more serious rifle than it had been before.
After this a series of successful Browning arms followed of all types. Significant for our story here, Winchester produced his Model 1887 lever action repeating shotgun starting in that year, introducing the concept of an effective repeating shotgun, which we'll discuss, maybe, later. That would yield ten years later to the Model 1897 pump shotgun which would remain a Winchester mainstay from that year until 1912, when it introduced the non Browning Model 1912 as its premier shotgun. Nonetheless Model 1897s would remain in use and, as we've already seen, they became the US's official shotgun seeing use in World War One, World War Two and even as late as the Vietnam War.
Starting in the 1890s the Browning Arms Company began to branch out from their association with Winchester. At first this was not due to any displeasure with the arrangement, but rather because Winchester did not always take up Browning designs. Before that day came, however, Browning had altered his Model 1886 lever action to produce the Winchester Model 1892 lever action followed by the 1894.
Deer hunter in the Adirondacks carrying a Winchester 94.
The 1894 was unique as it was the first Winchester lever action to be designed for the new bottle necked cartridges that were coming into use. The product of revolutionary cartridge design in Europe that saw high velocity smokeless powder cartridges the new Winchester cartridge that was designed took black powder at first as smokeless powder was a closely guarded secret in Europe that an American manufacturer had not been able to secure until the Dupont company introduced it in the U.S. Winchester jumped the gun a bit by introducing a cartridge that would clearly accept smokeless powder before there was smokeless powder to use in the cartridge, but that development caught up so quickly with the design that its forgotten that it was ever manufactured in that form. That new cartridge would be the .30-30.
Regarded as a hot revolutionary cartridge in that day the .30-30 took American game fields by storm. The cartridge was so dominant that the introduction of the slightly faster .30-40 by the U.S Army for its new bolt action Krag rifle had no real impact on its popularity and the Army cartridge did not supplant it. The Navy's 6mm Lee had no impact on it at all. And the vast majority of .30-30s were Winchester Model 1894s.
Elk hunter in Wyoming armed with an improbable arm for today, a Winchester Model 1894.
Now it wouldn't be true to say that everyone was armed in the game fields with a 1894. For one thing, Browning, before his association with Winchester ended, designed one final lever action, the Model 1895. After the 1895 Browning not only no longer contracted with Winchester, which wasn't taking all of his designs by that point, but he never again designed a lever action. There was frankly really no reason to improve on the designs as the 1895 was the logical final expression of them.
The 95 was specifically designed to take large cartridges including the new military cartridges that were coming on line. The ".30 U.S. Army" version took the .30-40 Krag and shortly after that, after the Army abandoned the Krag rifle following the Spanish American War, the 95 would be introduced in .30-06. That fact alone demonstrates the popularity of lever actions with Americans as the .30-06 in the M1903 Springfield was one of the stoutest military cartridges in the world at the time of its introduction and it was clearly designed to contemplate bolt action rifles, which as we will see were rapidly becoming the hunting arm of choice in Europe and elsewhere.
In addition to the Winchester offerings Marlin offered lever actions that were similar and had their own following. And very serious riflemen continued to use single shots. Browning's High Wall remained in production for serious marksmen for decades and Remington was a serious contender in that field with its Rolling Block rifle. All of these arms continued in use past World War One as common North American hunting arms.
Remington, lacking a repeating rifle, even if had a really good single shot, was the net to turn to Browning with a rifle we've already seen here, which was introduced to compete with the lever action. That was the John Browning designed Model 8, a semi automatic. Semi automatics offered many of the same advantages to sportsmen that lever actions did in that they were rapidly reloading and had compact flat actions, suitable for scabbards when horses remained very common in many typical hunting conditions. The Remington 8 achieved a following but it wasn't able to supplant the 94. Nor was the Winchester Model 1907. Both rifles fired light cartridges by today's standards, even if Remington advertised their rifle as "Big enough for the biggest game", thereby hoping to draw hunters who might otherwise feel that they needed to go for a Winchester Model 95 or perhaps a large single shot.
What was lacking in the American game fields a century ago, however, were two things. One of those things was bolt action rifles.
Now, bolt action rifles existed. And there were a few hunters out there using them. But contrary to fin de siecle Westerns like Joe Kidd (set in the early 1900s) or Big Jake (set in 1909), a person was pretty unlikely to run into anyone with a bolt action rifle even if they were a pretty advanced shooter. Some were around, however.
Actually, quite a few were around, but they were mostly in Europe.
Prolific German firearms designer Peter Paul Mauser, who can be credited with perfecting the bolt action rifle.
By the time we're discussing, the 1910s, Peter Paul Mauser had introduced his final bolt action design, the 1898 and was no longer working on new bolt actions just as John Browning was no longer working on lever actions. The prolific German designer had in fact perfected the bolt action after a rapid series of improvements on them after he first worked on a bolt action which featured the new bottle necked cartridges.
That first rifle wasn't really his design, purely, but the product of a commission to which he contributed, the 1888. That G88 was adopted by a military arm by Germany but Peter Paul Mauser went in on the 1890s to introduce a series of designs that rapidly made it obsolete. New designs came out in 1892, 1894, 1895, 1896 and finally in 1898.
The 1898 design was so advanced that its never been supplanted as a bolt action design, and it rapidly went into commercial production as a hunting rifle. Indeed, that was true of the 1895 version which saw widespread global use as a military rifle but which was also produced in a hunting variant in the Mauser stable of cartridges. 1895s, 1896s and 1898s were well established as hunting rifles by the time World War One broke out and had become the standard by which other rifles were judged by that time in Europe. They were also already seeing use around the globe, particularly in European colonies in Africa.
The globe trotting firearms inventor James Paris Lee, whose life and inventions would take him around the world. He was born in Scotland, came to Canada as a child, moved to the US, and then back to Great Britain. His most famous design served the British Empire for well over half a century and no doubt remains in some use somewhere today. It never took off as a hunting rifle, however.
Bolt actions were introduced to the United States by a series of famous rifle designers but none of them took off as sporting rifles for a variety of reasons. The U.S. Navy, for example, seriously experimented with an early version of the Lee design which would later be adopted by the British. The Navy version was in the US .45-70 black powder cartridge but the same basic design would achieve fame in .303 in British service. Remington also introduced an early .45-70 that was experimented with by the Army, giving the Army the chance to contemplate keeping the .45-70 in a repeating rifle. The new cartridges made that an unwise decision and the Army instead adopted a rifle designed by a Norwegian designer, the Krag. That same design would be adopted in different, no compatible, versions by the Danes and the Norwegians (and kept in production, in the Norwegian example, as late as World War Two by the Germans once they occupied Norway). At the same time, the Navy adopted a "straight pull" rifle, a version of the bolt action featuring a cam that turns the bolt rather than turning it manually, in 6mm. That choice of cartridge reflected a race towards smaller and smaller calibers that would then repeat it self after World War Two.*
Ole Herman Johannes Krag, one of the two men who invented the Krag Jorgensen rifle design. It was the second of his designs to be adopted by his native country as a service rifle, the earlier one being a single shot rifle.
Erik Jorgensen, a gunsmith who worked with Krag on the rile that bears their collective names.
The Krag rifle and carbine and the Navy Lee were not successful weapons. The Lee proved too slow to reload and the .30-40 compared poorly against the Spanish 7x57. The 6mm Navy cartridge proved too anemic. Given that, even though most of the examples had been produced in 1898, the Army adopted a new cartridge in a new Mauser based rifle in 1903. When Mauser introduced the Spitzer pointed bullet after that, the Army had the cartridge redesigned and it became the legendary .30-06, one of the two most used American big game cartridges of all time (the other being the .30-30).
Americans first started using bolt actions for hunting with surplus Krags, which started to be sold surplus after quantities of M1903 Springfield rifles had been produced in sufficient quantities. But other than those surplus rifles, very few bolt actions were in sporting use prior to World War One except among target shooters. Target shooters did purchase them directly from the government, along with a small number of sportsmen, but in the case of the former it was because they had to have them to compete in certain classes of competitive shooting. Oddly, the bolt action did not take off in North America at this time.
The M1903 Springfield Rifle. The 03 Springfield would become the inspiration for the Winchester Model 54, which actually wasn't as good as the 03, and in turn the Model 70, which achieved legendary status with Americans. The 03 itself would go on to be a widely used sporting rifle both in "sporterizations" of military files and in the form of actions bought by Griffin & Howe and used directly for sporting rifle manufacture. At least one hunting variant was made directly for Theodore Roosevelt and, given the era, it's probable that a handful of other such rifles were made. The full service rifle could be ordered in conventional or target variants from Springfield Armory by civilians.
It did take off elsewhere, as noted, and even before World War One all kinds of new and very fast cartridges were being introduce by European manufacturers. Holland and Holland, for example, introduced fast and large cartridges in 98s that it offered. The Rigby company did the same. In North America a designer called Ross attempted to do the same with a custom designed rifle and cartridge, which achieved some following, and which was purchased by his native country, Canada, as a military rifle, but even at that bolt actions retained a very small following in the U.S. and Canada. Arguably the country in which they were most widespread in civilian hands in North America was Mexico, but that was due to the Mexican Revolution.
The other thing that was missing in the American game fields (remember, I said two things were missing) were scopes.
Scopes had come into use as early as the American Civil War but early optics were awkward and not all that great. By the early 20th Century, however, this had begun to change, again in Europe, and more particularly in Germany. By the teens good hunting scopes were being made by German manufacturers.
Once scopes are considered bolt actions have an advantage over lever actions that can't be denied. But scopes were extremely expensive and very rare. It's no wonder that they didn't take off.
And then came World War One.
World War One trained millions of American men in shooting bolt actions. By the end of the war, men from all over the globe were undeniably familiar with them and their virtues, accuracy and good modern cartridges being two of those virtues. When they came home, some of them came home with bolt actions rifles as well, those rifles being fine German 98s.
Additionally, Remington and Winchester had been fully engaged, along with the government arsenals, in making bolt actions, those being principally M1917 Enfields, another Mauser variant. Winchester went right back to its civilian line following the war, but Remington was nearly bankrupted by the sudden cancellation of rifle contracts and was left with thousands of 1917 actions on hand. Turning necessity into a virtue, it adopted those actions to a new civilian sporting rifle, the Remington Model 30.
Early Remington advertisement for their new Model 30. Note how they leaned heavily on the association of the Model 30 with bolt actions of the recently concluded Great War, including noting that the Model 30 was chambered in the ".30 caliber Springfield 1906 cartridge" and that "Any cartridge listed for use in the U.S. Army Rifle, whether service, target, or sporting, will function satisfactorily in this arm".
Introduced first in 1921, the Model 30 was a rifle that was instantly familiar to servicemen and it essentially advertised itself. This changed the playing field for hunting rifles instantly as Remington finally had a repeating rifle of a type that Winchester didn't. Winchester responded in kind by modifying the M1903 Springfield design to introduce the Model 54, a rifle that couldn't help but recall the M1903 that those who had not carried the M1917 were familiar with.
Early Model 54 advertisement which interestingly shows this rifle outfitted, right from the start, with a precision Lyman No. 48 sight. At first precision sights such as this were more popular with American hunters than scopes were. Winchester was already advertising a wide range of cartridges for the Model 54 and noting its suitability for any place in North America.
Everything soon began to change. Bolt actions became increasingly the rifle of western hunters. In 1936 Winchester improved the Model 54 and introduced the legendary Model 70, which became the American standard for decades. Mauser 98s entered the American hunting scene, but oddly often as reconditioned prize rifles from World War One rather than as the very fine bolt actions they actually were. Indeed, the 98 was better than any of the American commercial offerings, but its commonality as a prize rifle detracted from it being viewed that way. One military rifle, however, that achieved legendary status following the Great War and which was used by Griffin & How for its commercial offerings was the M1903 Springfield.
In the same period Redfield and Lyman, manufacturers of sights, took advantage of the new more accurate rifles to introduce highly accurate receiver sights. Unertl introduced high quality powerful scopes in 1934. Lyman then introduced the smaller, and cheaper, Lyman Alaskan scope in 1938. Optics had arrived.
This essentially takes us to the modern era, omitting the very modern era of post Vietnam War era rifles and the impact of the AR15. While there were other developments, unless I wanted to do a directly post World War Two edition of this post, I'm not going to go into them as the post would become too lengthy and dull. Suffice it to say, the Winchester Model 1894 actually remains in production, as does the Model 95, but the bolt action, equipped with a scope, is the dominant big game hunting rifle today. The AR, however, which I've discussed elsewhere, as certainly made an appearance, however. But this takes us through an evolution that's significant. Like the evolution of everything, it didn't happen instantly, but it's significant for the stories we've been telling here.
*And which is now rebounding in the other direction as the Army has reintroduced the use of the 7.62 NATO from the depths which it had declined, introduced a 6.5 cartridges for its special forces, and just announced that it intended to go to a 6.8 cartridge, about .280 caliber, shortly.
Val Browning, whom we recently saw demonstrating his father's Automatic Rifle, is demonstrating his father's heavy machine gun here. Val, one of eight surviving children of John Browning, would go on to head the Browning Arms Company following his father's death.
John Moses Browning entered the heavy machine gun field in 1900, with this gun. That was the era of the Maxim, and even though the Browning gun was lighter, and Browning had a proven track record of firearms design (mostly civilian, however, at that time), the Army showed little interest in it. He improved the design in 1910, but again the Army, which was equipped with a Maxim gun, like nearly every Army in the world, wasn't really interested. By that time, the Army had equipped itself with the heavy, originally Vicker's made, Model M1904 Maxim.
Model M1904, a great, but very heavy, gun. As not water source is connected in this photo, it's clearly staged.
Then came World War One.
It's commonly asserted that the US lacked arms for a modern war and even lacked the capacity to make them, but this is really not completely true. The US certainly had adopted some very fine small arms prior to the Great War, including the M1904. But the demands to equip an Army the size of that which the Great War required but everything in new light. And that put the Browning design back into consideration. After all, if the Army and Marine Corps were going to be buying thousands of machine guns, why not get an American design that was as good, if not better, than what they were then using . . .particularly if they only had 1,100 of the thing they were then using.
The spotlight came on to the M1917 due to an Army requirement that resulted in the testing of several guns, with the M1917 not surprisingly being the best. Remington, Westinghouse and Colt were assigned contracts, but by June of 1918 less than 5,000 had been built. Production would increase in earnest after that, but the gun was arriving late in the war. Given this, the gun would see only limited use in the war, with less than 2,000 arriving in time to be put into action. For the most part, therefore, the United States relied upon French machine guns, with forces serving under the British relying upon British guns. The US did not deploy its existing Maxim guns to France, which would have made little difference in any event, given the small numbers.
The M1917 would go on to be heavily used by the Unites States thereafter, even though production ceased upon 68,000 having been made. At that point, the gun was basically replaced by an updated version termed the M1919, which had a quick detachable barrel. That gun was mechanically identical, but the quick detachable barrel designed for the M1919 dispensed with the need for the water jacket and the extremely heavy quantities of water that had to be transported along with it. For that reason, the M1919 was termed a "light machine gun" and the M1917 was a "heavy machine gun". Use did vary after the introduction of the M1919 with the M1917 being assigned out at the battalion level.
Marine Court heavy machine gun crew, Cape Gloucester, 1944. The Marine in the foreground is armed with a M1 Thompson submachine gun and the one in the bacground with a M1 carbine.
In spite of the M1917 being an extremely good gun its weight put it at a disadvantage as compared to the its mechanically identical sibling the M1919, so those guns that remained in service after the first production run were primarily suitable for the static defense role that they were assigned and, therefore, its somewhat surprising that they remained in service as long as they did. They last saw active service during the Korean War, where their requirement for water proved to be a problem in the winter months. They were phased out of service in the late 1950s as the M60 General Purpose Machine Gun came into use, ultimately replacing the M1917, the M1919 and the BAR in some of its roles. The last ones actively used by the U.S. Army were used at Ft. Benning in the 1960s for training, with their role being that of the gun that fired over the heads of trainees as they advanced under barbed wire.
M1917 in Korea.
Of course, stopping the story of the M1917 with the M1917 is a bit unfair and incomplete. The M1919, which basically replaced it in production, was a M1917 action with a quick detachable barrel, with quick detachable coming in the context of 1919. The replacement barrel screwed in and was headspaced with a series of "go/no go" keys. This system allowed for the water jacket to be completely dispensed with making the gun much lighter. The advantages of this conversion were obvious and after the M1919 was adopted in the year of its nomenclature, production of the M1917 ceased. The designation of light was accordingly applied to the M1919, although the M1917 was "heavy" and the M1919 "light" mostly in context. Having said that, the M1919 was issued further down the organizational chain leaving the M1917 for more of a sustained fire role, for which it was truly more suited.
M1919 in action in Aachen, Germany, during World War Two. The gun looks smaller than the M1917, but the action is exactly the same.
The M1919 was made in much greater numbers, in more than one cartridge over the years, and served seemingly forever. The gun remained the main American "light" machine gun through the Korean War and was officially slated for replacement with the adoption of the M60. Even at that, it continued to see active deployment as a light machine gun in the Vietnam War and saw additional use mounted to vehicles well through the Vietnam War. The gun was adopted to armored vehicle use and helicopter use late in its service life, extending it out for many years. 7.62 NATO versions served in various armies, including the Canadian and Israeli armies, for many years. I saw a U.S. Army tracked vehicle sporting one in the mid 1980s.
The basic M1919 design was additionally developed by John Browning into the giant M2 .50 caliber machine gun which has never been replaced in some roles in the U.S. Army. Browning started working on the adaption of the M1917 in July 1917 pursuant to a request from Gen. Pershing. Basing the cartridge for the weapon on the anti tank cartridge developed by the Germans for their large anti tank rifle, the gun was adopted in a water cooled fashion in 1921 as the M1921. The gun had some functioning problems that were not fixed prior to Browning's death in 1926 and thereafter further work was undertaken by S. H. Green which lead to the M2. Made in several varieties for a variety of roles, the M2 has proven so highly adaptable and effective that its never been replaced in its basic heavy barreled role, that of the M2HB.
M2HB on anti aircraft mount in Normandy, 1944.
And so the basic Browning design that first saw action on this day in 1919, in its later developments, really carries on to this day. Just recently the U.S. contracted, for the first time since World War Two, for newly manufactured M2HBs. And its certainly not impossible that a M1917 carries on somewhere.
M2HB mounted to an armored vehicle in Marine Corps use, November 2002.
2nd Lt. Val Browning, son of John Browning, the legendary firearms designer. By the wars end three out of four of the standard small arms weapons in the infantry would be Browning designs.
On this day in 1918 the Browning M1918 Automatic rifle was first used in combat.
It certainly wouldn't be the last time. Probably nobody knows the date that occurred, if it has, but the last time the US used it in action was probably in the 1960s, as it remained in front line service in the Marine Corps well into the Vietnam War. National Guard units were still being issued the BAR in the mid 1970s. Armies equipped by the United States no doubt had it that long as well, and perhaps somewhere around the world its still seeing some use today.
Which is because it was such a fantastic weapon. . . or maybe it was in spite of it being an awful one.
Saying something like that, of course, really requires an explanation. And to explain it requires a context.
The BAR was designed to be an automatic rifle. In the photos immediately above we see it as it was designed to be, a selective fire (originally) rifle that could be used as an individual weapon to put down a barrage of walking fire. And it was very good in that role. The role, that is, of being an "automatic rifle". It was so good at that role, in fact, that soldiers defeated its later role as a light machinegun by reconverting it back to its original sans bipod configuration.
And, if you've kept up on this blog, or otherwise are familiar with the US's combat experience in World War One, you can see why a weapon like that would have made a lot of sense. The US was trying to sprint over the deadly space of "No Man's Land" and take enemy trenches, ultimately at close quarter. An automatic rifle would be really ideal for a role like that, even if it meant, in the case of the BAR, issuing one that was extremely heavy.
US infantrymen in heavy pack. Soldier on left carries a Chauchat, by all accounts one of the worst automatic weapons any fielded to any army. He is also wearing his garrison cap under his helmet, which can be seen near the back of his head. The soldier on the right carries a M1903 Springfield rifle, the barrel of which is barely visible on his right.
But that role was a short one in the U.S. military, and indeed in most militaries that had a similar weapon. And there were other weapons in that role. Indeed one of the worst weapons of World War One, the Chauchat, was designed for the same role. But even at that time a competing series of weapons, light machineguns, were on the battlefield and were rapidly supplanting automatic rifles. The British, for example, never fielded an automatic rifle but rather fielded two separate light machineguns, the Lewis and the Vickers. The Germans fielded a "light", but not very light, version of their MG08. Those crew served weapons were better able to lay down a barrage of sustained fire than any automatic rifle.
So after World War One the U.S. Army, pleased with the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, had the selective fire option eliminated from production and had the weapon retrofitted with a bipod. It was re-classed, at that time, as a light machinegun, tactics having moved in the direction of a lmg being a squad support weapon. For cavalrymen, however, a separate version, ostensibly somewhat lighter, and featuring a bipod at the muzzle and a monpod on the butt, was introduced as a "machine rifle", with it being given the designation of the M1922. In 1937 the gun was redesigned slightly and became the M1918A1. Improvments continued as World War Two loomed with the eye towards making the weapon a better light machinegun and it on June 30, 1938, the M1918 A2 was introduced, with there being orders to upgrade all existing stocks of the M1918 and M1918A1 to that configuration. The M1922 was declared obsolete before World War Two began, but none the less stocks of them remained and during the war they were issued to Merrell's Marauders as light alternatives, to the M1918A2.
Soldiers of the U.S. Army training with the M1918 A2 BAR (and without hearing protection) during World War Two.
The BAR in both versions were in service when the US entered World War Two, as noted, with the M1922 on the way out. The M1918A2 BAR as a light machinegun remained, but quite rapidly soldiers assigned to the weapon instinctively reverted it to its original role and configuration as an automatic rifle. Typically they removed its bipod and flash hinder as weight adding unnecessary elements. The Marine Corps, huge fans of the BAR, began to issue it two per squad as well, anticipating the latter modern issuance of the current M249 "automatic rifle".
Heavily laden Marine with BAR during World War Two. This is almost certainly a M1918A2 but it has had its bipod and flash hinder removed.
By World War Two it was pretty obvious that the BAR was not the best light machinegun in the world. It was hindered in ammunition capacity from being a bottom loading weapon, unlike the top loading Brno light machinegun that is arguably the best lmg ever designed. Like most light machineguns it also had a permanently affixed barrel which is something that designers began to reconsider in that role with the German introduction of the dual purpose MG34 and MG42 machineguns. Nonetheless, it soldiered through the war and on into the next one, the Korean War and the service found itself ordering additional supplies of them, reflecting wartime losses and post wartime disposals of existing M1918A2s. The Royal McBee Typewriter Company supplied the last BARs to the military during this time frame.
Helmet-less U.S. Army soldier firing M1918A2 BAR in Korea. This soldier has removed his bipod from the BAR. He's also in distinctive Korean War era winter gear, including the L. L. Bean designed "shoe packs" that came in during World War Two.
Following the Korean War the US planned on replacing the BAR as the US went to the GPMG concept introduced by the Germans during World War Two. The US had no plans to put the US GPMG, the M60, in the BAR's role but rather planned to place a heavy barreled M14 rifle in that role, as the M14 began to replace the M1 Garand. And in fact the Army started to do that before problems with the concept, which should have been obvious from the onset, prevented it from being completed. That light machinegun, the M15, was practically stillborn although it was in fact adopted.
The M14 Rifle, the intended replacement for the M1 Garand which did in fact replace it in the active duty branches of the Army and Marine Corps, and the M14A1 which had already replaced the M15 and which was replacing the BAR when the Vietnam War broke out and production of M14 rifles was stopped. The M14 was an excellent rifle. The M14A1 was a pretty bad light machinegun.
Nonetheless, when the Army deployed to Vietnam in the early 1960s it was the M14A1 that went with it, not the BAR. BAR's, however, were supplied to the ARVN.
South Vietnamese soldiers equipped with a BAR and a M2 carbine.
And the Marines retained the BAR. They liked it so much that they kept the BAR well into the Vietnam War where it served alongside the M16A1 and the M60. I'm not aware of whether the Marines were ever equipped with M14A1s, but if they were, they didn't use them. They liked the BAR so much they kept using it, even after the M14, which they also greatly loved, was taken from them.
In the Army, the introduction of the M60 and the M14A! did not actually mean that the BAR completely disappeared, even if the Army did not use the BAR in Vietnam (or at least not much), and instead attempted to use the M14A1 and then went to a designated M16A1 (which was particularly bad in that role). In the Army Reserve and the National Guard the BAR continued to serve into the mid to late 1970s (it was in service at least as late as 1976 in the Guard). This reflected the fact that small arms in the military were in a real state of flux from 1960s forward. The M15 was never made in sufficient quantities to replace the BAR and it self was replaced by a heavy stocked version of the M14 which was never made in large quantities either. The M14 was soon challenged in the rifle role by the M16 and the M16A1 in Vietnam, and production of the it was stopped before there were adequate numbers for the reserves. The M1 Garand therefore carried on into the early 70s when, in the Guard and Reserve, the Garand was replaced with the M16, which now existed in large quantities. The BAR kept on until it was basically replaced, at first, with the M60 in the late 1970s. In the early 1980s the M249 5.56 machinegun was introduced at the squad level in the Army and it ultimately supplanted the M60 in that role, making its way into the Guard in the late 1980s.
Which of course doesn't mean that the BAR disappeared everywhere overnight. BARs were supplied to a lot of American allies and clients, and they were manufactured by other nations. Belgium's FN, for example, introduced the last variant of it, one with a detachable barrel, some of which went to Middle Easter nations.
By that time they were well obsolete. But maybe they were by the late 1920s for that matter. As a light machinegun, it was never ideal. As an automatic rifle, it excelled. Its record was quite mixed.
This is a semi automatic rifle designed by John Pedersen, Wyoming's most prolific inventor. This rifle competed with others early on for the replacement for the M1903 Springfield. That ultimately went to John Garand's design.
More patents are held by Pedersen than any other Wyomingite. Born in Grand Island Nebraska, the family moved to Jackson Hole when he was a child and he designed most of his designs from there. Pedersen continued to use the family ranch as his home base for most of his life, although he traveled extensively and did live in other localities from time to time. At the time of his death he was living in Massachusetts, near Springfield Armory, and perhaps because he was working for the United States government.
His most famous design, although not his most successful one by any means in terms of manufacture and use, was the Pedersen Device, a device which allowed for the 1903 Springfield to host what was basically a semi automatic action. Manufactured in numbers during World War One, they were never actually issued and were discarded after the war. His design for a pump action shotgun, however, lives on today ironically as the Browning BPS. His Model 51 pistol was manufactured commercially by Remington and was recommended for purchase by the Navy prior to World War One, although it was not officially adopted. The cartridge design he created following World War One for military trials, the .276 Pedersen, turned out to be far ahead of its time, although the wise intervention of Douglas MacArthur, given budget constrains during the Depression, kept it from being adopted.
While a very successful arms designer, with many important patents to his name, a great deal of his personal story is lost. He was married and had two children, one of whom was a Marine Corps lieutenant during the Korean War who purchased the famous racehorse Reckless for use in hauling ammunition. His wife was a published author who wrote on widely varying topics. The divorced at some point, but it is not known when. He later remarried late in life to a woman 32 year his junior.
Pedersen would be famous today but for the fact that he was a contemporary of John Browning, the most famous of all American firearms designers. Browning, for his part, called Pedersen the "greatest firearms designer in the world."
Followers of Wyoming's Legislature will note that there's a bill in the current legislature seeking to designate Freedom Arm's .454 Casull pistol the state firearm. For those who don't know, Feedom Arms is a Wyoming company and its signature product is a really huge revolver.
The move has been subject to some criticism, partially based upon its timing, and partially based upon the logical question as to why we need a state firearm. To raise that question doesn't make a person anti firearm by any means, it's just a logical question. We seem to have run through all the logical state things that a legislature might be expected to designate and now we're on to items that seem to be a bit off the beaten path. Having said that, Utah designated John Browning's M1911 pistol as their state firearm some years ago.
That move might actually make more sense than the one being pondered down at the legislature. John Browning was an inventive genius and is generally regarded as the greatest firearms designer of all time. The M1911 pistol was one of his greatest designs, by all accounts. And he was a Utah native. Essentially, Utah was honoring one of their native sons who made a massive contribution to the firearms design and even to the nation's defense. The .454 Casull, whatever its merits, pales to a ghostly shade of white in comparison to Browning's designs.
But why not take a page from Utah's book? If we're going to designated a state firearm, perhaps we should designate something designed by John D. Pedersen?
Pedersen wasn't born here, but he ranched here for many years, being one of the early ranchers in Teton County, one of the locations that out of state folks regard as emblematic of Wyoming. The Pedersen ranch was in Jackson Hole, and to a lot of people that defines their mental image of Wyoming.
In addition to being a rancher, Pedersen is the most prolific and most successful of any Wyoming inventors, holding more patents than anyone else. In addition to ranching, he was a firearms designer. And his designs were firearms designs, here's an example of one such patent here. Note that his address is given as "Jackson Wyoming."
Now, Pedersen isn't as famous as Browning, and that's in part due to. . . well. . . Browning. They were contemporaries of each other, Browning was a giant. Pedersen was an inventive genius however. And some of his designs did to on to be well used, apparently. The pistol depicted in the patent referenced above competed, unsuccessfully, for Army acceptance against Browning's M1911. Pedersen is responsible for one really famous, albeit stillborn, design, that being the "Pedersen Device", an implement that, when inserted in the M1903 Springfield bolt action rifle converted into a light semi automatic rifle. Okay, that idea is kind of weird, but it was inventively weird. It also apparently went nowhere as the Army bought a bunch during World War One, when the invention was patented, but the war ended before they were used, so nobody will ever really know if it was a good idea or not.
Be that as it may, Pedersen is mostly forgotten to Wyoming. Right now the Legislature is pondering adopting a "state firearm" that would seem to be sort of a one off proposition. If we're going do do that, why not honor somebody who was a prolific Wyomingite and fairly well known in his day?
“This is even though Hi-Power parts are no longer available – production of the 1930s design ended in 2017.”
FWIW, Hi-Powers are back in production. FN has resumed production of them, and the US Springfield Armory company has commenced production of them. Not that this should govern the choice, but its an error in the article.