Near the end of WW1, in May of 1917 The US war department held competitive tests of guns by different inventors with the purpose of purchasing them. John M. Browning submitted several guns at that time, one was a 30 cal. machine gun that was timed with an aircraft engine and worked perfectly. However they needed more firepower so he built a 50 cal. for the same purpose. I believe he submitted several guns that same month, all being accepted by the war dept. One was the BAR, the (colt) 45 automatic, and the water cooled machine gun. John M. Browning was the inventor of MOST of the guns we older guys had or wanted to have in our childhood. These were, the 97 Winchester, Model 12 Winchester, Model 86 Winchester rifle, The Winchester pump 22 cal. rifles, Winchester 92 and 94, and 95. It is a dismal fact of history that most of us have loved the Winchester guns but haven 't known that Winchester invented practically none of them. I want to write a book someday entitled " The Man with the wrong religion". It will be the story of John M. Browning. John was a Mormon. I am NOT a Mormon, but am very aware of the contribution he had on the gun industry. Had John been a Baptist or Catholic, he would have been recognized by his country for the genius he was and the great contribution he made, but he had to go to Belgium to gain recognition. It is a sad commentary of my great country that we were, and are so closed minded that we let someone’s church affiliation affect our recognition of his contribution and genius. But then that is just MY opinion.
Thanks for your comment, countrybill. It is probably in response to this article:
How did World War I fighter planes keep from shooting off their own propellers?
It is helpful to include a link to the original article when posting a comment.
Thanks for the info, and come back again!
Regrettably, it’s not necessarily correct info, I’m afraid.
The Colt M1911 .45 calibre automatic pistol was introduced in 1911, the .50 calibre Browning MG wasn’t introduced until 1921, the “Water-cooled machine gun” was invented by Hiram Maxim and was in use with the British as the Vickers Gun from 1912, and John Moses Browning is not an obscure, unsung, and unappreciated genius- everyone with any knowledge of firearms history is aware of his achievements and accomplishments. He made a fortune selling his designs to Winchester and the US Military (amongst others) and, in short, he is widely known amongst shooters as one of the greatest firearm designers of all time. It’s certainly not a secret that Winchester got John Moses Browning to design most of their guns, at any rate.
If there’s anyone who did contribute something significant to the field of arms design that’s relatively unknown today, it would be Robert Adams and Lt. Frederick Beaumont, the British inventors of the double-action revolver in the early 1850s, IMHO.
Some WWII aircraft had a canon firing through the propeller hub. This has always fascinated me, though I’ve never gotten round to researching it. A hollow crankshaft just seems strange to me.
Interesting that until I read the OP, I had no idea Browning was Mormon. I did however know that he was one of the greatest firearm innovators of the last century. The United States Army, almost 90 years later, has still not replaced the Caliber .50 Browning Machine Gun. There’s a concept out there floating around, but it won’t completely replace the M2 for another dozen years or so. That will mean Browning’s M2 will have served the US Army for over 100 years.
Can’t agree with the OP that Browning was “unkown” or “under represented”.
I tried to figure it out using a hollow crankshaft when I was eight, but the piston rods kept getting in the way and powder residue gunked up the oil (I was an imaginative kid). The reality is more boring: the engines were Vs, the props weren’t turned by the crank directly but were geared, and the cannon sat in the crotch of the V and fit through the center of the gear and the hollow prop shaft.
That is the first time I’ve heard that Browning was hounded from this country for his religion. I thought it was so he could make more money. Do you have any references you can point us to that would support your claim?
And I can find no evidence that his break with Winchester was religious. If it had been, I cannot imagine why he would have gone to a Roman Catholic country.
Few people nowadays even know what “double-action” actually means. (Hint: it does not mean self-cocking.)
Belgium was, at the time, a popular place for Arms Designers to setup up a European Office.
Col. Isaac Lewis, inventor of the Lewis gun (the first practical “Light Machine Gun”), left the US in 1912 after pissing off the head of the US Ordnance Board and established himself in Belgium, at which point the Birmingham Small Arms Factory (BSA, in the UK) became interested in his design and brought the manufacturing rights. World War I kicked off not long after that, and because of the royalty payments clause in the contract, Lewis became very, very rich.
Funnily enough, when Belgium was invaded by the Germans during WWII, many of the FN-Browning staff and design team escaped to Britain with the blueprints for various guns, including the Browning Hi-Power.
They went to Canada and established a production line with Inglis (now an applicance manufacturer) and started churning out Browning Hi-Power pistols for the British Commonwealth; thus resulting in the Browning Hi-Power being manufactured and issued by both the Allies and the Axis, who were still making guns at the captured FN-Browning plant in Herstal.
Sure. It was neutral, so you could sell to everybody.
Though the story may be apocryphal, it is said that Hiram Maxim, yet another American who went on to fame and fortune designing machine guns in Europe, was told, “If you want to make your fortune, invent something to help these fool Europeans kill each other more quickly!”
Not only was the Vickers a copy of the Maxim machine gun, so was the German MG08 “Spandau.”
What does it mean then? I’ve always heard it to mean that pulling the trigger will cock and release the hammer.
That’s what double-action is. In order to cock, the shooter must pull the trigger. ‘Self-cocking’ is used by semi-automatics, in which the pulling of the trigger only releases the hammer.
Of course there are single-action and double-action automatics. In the former, the hammer must be cocked by hand or by cycling the action. In double-action, the hammer is cocked by pulling the trigger. After the first shot though, the gun cocks itself.
Close, but not quite, I’m afraid.
“Self-cocking”, in the case of revolvers, is a now obsolete term for what is now known as Double Action Only. A self-cocking revolver was one where pulling the trigger would rotate the cylinder and pull the hammer back and then fire the gun, but you couldn’t manually cock the hammer (they way you do on a Colt Peacemaker).
Double Action revolvers have the ability to be manually cocked (rotating the cylinder in the process) but not immediately fired, OR the firer can just pull the trigger to cock the hammer, rotate the cylinder, and fire the gun. (As opposed to simply cocking the gun but not immediately firing it, which is how single action mode works.).
Firing a revolver in double-action mode has a heavy trigger pull (makes the trigger harder to pull) and makes the gun less accurate (the effort of pulling the trigger throws the shooter’s aim off), but it’s a lot faster than single action mode and at close range that’s all that matters for the most part.
Single action is slower, but because the trigger is only releasing the hammer and not rotating the cylinder as well, it only needs a comparatively light touch on the trigger to fire the gun, making it more accurate.
An Enfield No 2 Mk I* revolver is self-cocking, in that it can only be fired by pulling the trigger (cocking itself in the process), whilst a Colt Python is Double Action, as it can be fired in either single action mode or self-cocking mode, depending on the shooter’s wishes.
This is all very true and worth remembering. The Colt M1911A1 is a single-action semi-auto (the slide has to be manually worked, cocking the hammer in the process, and each time the gun is fired the recoil re-cocks the hammer), whilst the Sig P226 is a double-action semi-automatic, in that the slide can be racked and the hammer lowered, and if the shooter wishes to fire their gun all they need do is pull the trigger, and the gun will cock itself, fire, and the recoil of the slide will continue to re-cock the gun after each shot.
Don’t worry, the differences confuse gun experts as well! 
So you admit yourself that you’re clouding the issue with terms that are no longer used. “Double-Action Only” is used in revolvers and semi-autos to describe a pistol that will only fire in double action. That is, when you pull the trigger it peforms double action or two actions. (a third if you count the chamber rotating, but nobody does)
Which today is known as DAO. And not because manufacturer’s are confused. It’s because that’s what it is called.
No, that is not why it is “Double Action”. It is not double action because it can be fired in both modes. It is “double action” because the trigger performs two actions in that mode of firing. Most double action pistols can be fired in double action (trigger performing two actions) or in single action (trigger performing one action). But, as you seem to dismiss in your post, there are pistols and revolvers termed “Double Action Only”. That means it only works in double action mode–the trigger performs two actions.
It seems the only one confused by the semantics is yourself.
Indeed. Apparantly it also confuses the gun manufacturers who label their guns DAO, DA/SA, DA, SA… etc.
Bear Nenno, I’m a firearms historian, so I deal largely with the ancient, the antique, the obsolete, the obsolescent, and the outdated.
So, for what I do, there is a very important difference between “Self-cocking” and “Double Action”. Webley & Scott, for example, produced a number of their revolvers (The British Bulldog and the RIC model, to name but two) in both “Self-cocking” (DAO) and “Double Action” configurations. It’s not just me pulling shit out of my ass and getting “confused by semantics”. The fact the difference isn’t often drawn these days- and admittedly, to the “modern” shooter there’s no difference between “self-cocking” and “double-action”- doesn’t mean that there isn’t a difference or that a distinction wasn’t drawn at some point in (fairly recent) history.
And why are you arcing up at me whilst agreeing with me at the same time? 
I don’t recall saying a double action revolver couldn’t be fired in either double or single action mode, or that manufacturers were “confused” about terminology. The whole point of my post was to point out that historically, “self-cocking” was not synonymous with “double action” and it’s only been fairly recently that no distinction is drawn.
Actually, I’m increasingly beginning to wonder why I bother anymore. Lately, I’m noticing more and more of my posts being met with hostility and snark. I share my knowledge of old firearms because it’s something I genuinely enjoy and I want to help share that knowledge with people, but since it’s being made pretty clear that my opinions aren’t valued or wanted, I might just as well not bother, it seems.
You claimed that a Colt Python (not ancient or antique) is a double action because “it can be fired in either single action mode or self cocking mode”. That is not why it is called double action.
It is classified as double action because the trigger is capable of two actions–cocking the hammer and releasing it.
You seemed to imply that the two actions described by the label “double action” are the ability to fire in two different modes (single action and self cocking). That isn’t what double action means.
Then I apologise for not being clearer as that isn’t what I meant. What I meant was that a double-action revolver can be fired in either single-action mode or by simply pulling the trigger (which also “self-cocks” the gun)- hence, “double action”.
Fair enough. That was the only part that made me
Yes it is.
That may be why ignorant people think it is called “double action”, but it isn’t.
Yes it is.
When C. S. Lewis was a little boy, he thought that candlesticks were called “candlesticks” because they made candles stick up. When I was a little boy, I thought they were called “candlesticks” because they were themselves long and very narrow, for our house was decorated with colonial and federal-period antiques. But we were both wrong, because “candlestick” actually fossilizes an old meaning of “stick”; “candlesticks” are just “candle things”.
To a gunsmith, the “action” of a gun is not what it does; rather, it is his name for the assembly of moving parts that make it operate. No working gunsmith would have called a self-cocking action a “double action”, because there is nothing double about it, and in the generation or so between the first widespread use of self-cocking actions and the first double actions, no one did. The new term was coined to describe the new and considerably more complex action that worked two different ways, doing the work of two different actions.
Ignorant people as well as the manufacturers and distributors of modern firearms. Do you have anything to back it up other than your word? How do you explain the terms “Double Action Only” and DA/SA?
If “double action” means that the firearm can fire in two different modes, then that makes “double action only” an oxymoron". How can it fire in two modes, but only two modes? The fact is, it can only fire in one mode–double action mode.
If double action means it can fire in two modes, then how do you explain this?