How the Browning HP changed history!

Status
Not open for further replies.
B

BrowningHP_312

Inactive
When John Browning designed the Browning High Power he was working for Winchester. He redesigned a design by Henry Firearms (a lever action pistol) and designed the Winchester 1887 thru 1901 lever action rifles. His deal with Winchester was that they had exclusive rights to his patents the same as if they bought his designs outright.
When he came to Winchester with the HP he wanted a change in their relationship, he didn't want to sell the HP, just license it. Winchester wouldn't go for it so he broke ties with Winchester and had Fabrique Nationale in Belgium produce it under license which started an ongoing relationship with FN to this day.
At this time the US Army was seeking a .45 ACP replacement for their then standard issue sidearm a .38 caliber revolver.
Colt was impressed with the HP & Colt sought out his assistance initially to make his HP chambered for the.45 ACP round, but that wouldn't have met all of the criteria in the specs the Army had set. So he designed the gun that was to become the Colt Model 1911 M1 & M1A from the receiver up. It became one of 3 finalists. (One of which was a .45ACP Luger of which only 2 were made. One was destroyed in testing the other went on to become the highest selling pistol at auction selling for over a million dollars)
The Colt .45 ACP won the contract and was designated the Caliber .45 ACP Model 1911 M1. The Army wanted a few tweeks to the M1 and the new .45 was designated Model 1911M1A.
While Browning sold the 1911 outright to Colt he was able to retain a royalty on a per unit basis that is paid to this day by all manufacturers of the Model 1911M1A. This made John Moses Browning and his brothers (one of which was my Grandfather's grandfather!) wealthy enough to expand their own firearms shop in Ogden, Utah into a real machine and production shop designing firearms of historical significance such as the Ma Deuce! The .50 Caliber M2 which was fitted into practically every Allied fighting plane and is used to this day by Air Forces worldwide as well as the .50 Cal. M2 mounted on a tripod.
Had Winchester Licensed the HP, for over 3/4 of a century our armed forces could have been issued a Winchester Model 1911M1A rather than a Colt.
That is how The Browning HP changed military history!!!
 
Last edited:
The 1911 was designed before the Hi Power. In fact Browning was not being able to use the patents for the 1911, those having been sold to Colt, when designing the Hi Power. Browning died well before the Hi Power went into production. I think you have your timeline a bit messed up.
 
Last edited:
Look into the history of Browning's relationship with Winchester and find out what caused the break in that relationship! Browning wanted his HP and a gas operated shotgun licensed rather than giving Winchester exclusive rights to his patents as he had in the past.
You are correct in the date it was finally produced commercially, 1935, there were tooling issues until 1934 and FN wasn't able to go into production until 1935, hence the initial designation of P-35 by FN.
WWI put a large dent into it going into commercial production. But Browning had made at least 5 prototypes the first being in 1902 before he died in 1926. In 1903 FN was impressed enough with the weapon asking him to refine it into a military grade weapon rather that Browning's vision of a police sidearm.
 
Last edited:
I never stated that Browning retained any patents on the 1911, he sold the design outright to Colt, but he did retain a seemingly miniscule royalty on a per unit basis but the outbreak of WWI increased the value of that seemingly miniscule royalty exponentially! Browning never sought wealth, his love of guns made him so prolific at their design.
Browning came from a large family and was a Mormon and never had an income that was more than middle class after the Mormon Church received their tithes.
WWI changed all that so by his death in 1926 he was well off. It was later generations mismanagement that caused Browning Arms to be sold. But with the few patents and royalties that were retained and WWII the family was able to buy back and expand on Browning Arms, today they even make golf clubs!
 
Last edited:
BHP

Wow.

I don't even know where to start, so I'll just hit the high spots.

The High Power wasn't even a gleam in Johnny's eye in 1902. He'd just finished the .38 Auto caliber Model 1902 for Colt...which was little more than a slightly tweaked Model 1900.

The Model 1905 was his first .45 caliber Auto, and the pistol retained the non-tilting barrel with twin links...one for and one aft...as did the Model 1907. They didn't fare well under the recoil forces generated by the cartridge, which led to the Model 1909, which was the first one with the tilting barrel, single link, and front slide dismount.

Browning's "High Power" was the Grande Rendement...and there were two versions. A locked breech/recoil operated model, and simpler blowback. It was a failure, and the French military soundly rejected it as too big and heavy.

The project was shelved in 1925, and Browning moved on to his superposed shotgun...the project that he was involved with at FN Herstal when he died.

Dieudonne Saive had to wait until the patents expired before he could use Browning's ideas in the High Power. (Locked breech, mating lugs in slide and on barrel, tilting barrel, front slide dismount, etc.)

Browning's A5 autoloader was long recoil operated...not gas.

The 1911 wasn't born. It evolved over a period of several years, starting with the Model 1900, and progressing through several changes to the Model 1909. The 1910 Colt was a prototype 1911, of which only eight were produced...tested and evaluated by the US Army and returned with the request for a manual, slide locking safety. The thumb safety was retrofitted to six of those...resubmitted and accepted...and it became the Model of 1911 US Army.

These guys will fill in the details. I gotta get crackin' here at Dogtown East. Gonna be a long, busy day.

Cheers!
 
Last edited:
The original poster is SEVERELY confused between the 1911 and the HP.

His post reads like something written for a 4th grade school report, but he'd get an "F"!

Real history of the HP:

The Browning Hi-Power was designed in response to a French military requirement stemming out of WWI for a new service pistol, the Grand Rendement (French for "High Yield"), or alternatively Grande Puissance (literally "high power").

FN commissioned John Browning to design a new military sidearm conforming to this specification. Browning had previously sold the rights to his successful M1911 U.S. Army automatic pistol to Colt's Patent Firearms, and was therefore forced to design an entirely new pistol while working around the M1911 patents. Browning built two different prototypes for the project in Utah and filed the patent for this pistol in the United States on June 28, 1923, granted on February 22, 1927.

Browning's patent is here:

http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=...&SectionNum=&idkey=NONE&Input=View+first+page

Browning died in 1926 without having finished his new pistol and FN handed the project over to Dieudonne Saive. In 1928 the key patents held by Colt for the M1911 expired, and Saive incorporated many of the proven elements from this design back into Brownings new work to produce the Saive-Browning Model of 1928.
 
Last edited:
Whatever patten rights of the 1911 design should have expired and become public domain information today. The Brownings cannot possibly be collecting loyalties from whoever making 1911 style pistols.

-TL
 
Last edited:
So this is great, great grandfather. I know nothing about mine.
To the OP. Do you carry the name or was it lost through marriages? Being a Browning sure is tall boots to fill. I do think you may need to recheck your data. As others said countless books and documents say otherwise. If you could list your sources or prove all the historical data wrong that would be, as Joe B. would say "A big ---- deal"
 
While Browning has attained valid historical status as one of the greatest firearms designers ever, the facts about his life are well researched, and the subject of numerous books and articles, which generally all agree on most points, and which bear only a passing connection with the original post.

When John Browning designed the Browning High Power he was working for Winchester.
Click to expand...

Browning didn't work for Winchester. He sold his designs outright, to Winchester.

When he came to Winchester with the HP he wanted a change in their relationship, he didn't want to sell the HP, just license it. Winchester wouldn't go for it so he broke ties with Winchester and had Fabrique Nationale in Belgium produce it under license which started an ongoing relationship with FN to this day.
Click to expand...

Browning NEVER went to Winchester with the HP. When he went to Winchester with the prototype of what would become the Auto 5 shotgun, he didn't want to sell the design outright. (some sources report that Browning was already a wealthy man from his earlier guns, and decided that he wanted the usual license arraignment instead of selling the rights completely)

Winchester (in what has come to be regarded as one of their biggest mistakes) turned him down. Browning then went to Remington. In a tragic twist of fate, the Remington VP (or whoever it actually was) died of a heart attack while Browning was outside his office waiting to see him.

Browning then went to FN, who agreed to make the Auto 5, and THAT began the relationship between Browning and FN, well before the HP was even thought of.

Colt was impressed with the HP & Colt sought out his assistance initially to make his HP chambered for the.45 ACP round,
Click to expand...

Totally false. Kind of tough for Colt, or anyone to be impressed with the HP in 1910, when it didn't exist until 1935.

The Colt .45 ACP won the contract and was designated the Caliber .45 ACP Model 1911 M1. The Army wanted a few tweeks to the M1 and the new .45 was designated Model 1911M1A
Click to expand...

The correct designation is Pistol, Caliber .45 M1911 (1911 was the year of adoption) In 1922-23, some modifications were made to the 1911, and the gun was renamed M1911A1.

That is how The Browning HP changed military history!!!
Click to expand...
As a successful and widely used pistol the HP made history. You can say it changed history, but the way it happened is not what was written in the OP. Not even close.

If the OP was meant to be an "alternate history" fiction, its not bad. If it is meant to be the actual history, it is wildly inaccurate.
 
The biography of John Moses Browning

Come to think of it, I have never seen, read or heard about any major book written about the life and times of John M. Browning.

There are books that 'explain' the social and cultural relevance about the guns of Samuel Colt and expensive coffee-table books on his revolvers and pistols.

In recent years, there is a well-written tome about the Ak-47 titled "The Gun" by a Mr. Chivers.

I have used, fondled and fired the M1911A1 in its available incarnations over here in the Philippines, but I have not opened a book about its venerable designer and inventor. Heck, all I know is that he was a Mormon and being a dedicated one, had three wives.:cool:

If ever there is one, it would clear up issues such as the brought up in this thread. I would look forward--and be proud-- to having it in my library.
 
1911Tuner said:
Dieudonne Saive had to wait until the patents expired before he could use Browning's ideas in the High Power. (Locked breech, mating lugs in slide and on barrel, tilting barrel, front slide dismount, etc.)
Click to expand...

As others have noted, the original poster got far more wrong than he got right in his posting.

Saive worked as Browning's assistant at FN and eventually became FN's chief designer. He had his own kind of genius. It was Saive that developed the double-stack mag used with the HP) -- versions of the "staggered" design had been around before then, but apparently weren't widely used or all that effective; Saive's version worked as it should and greatly increased the gun's capacity.

If you look at the original HP patent documents you'll see that the original HP design called for a single-stack, striker fired gun. (Other commentaries on the gun say the original striker-fired gun had a 16 round double-stack mag, but the design drawings seem to indicate otherwise. I've never seen anything to suggest a double-stack mag was part of the original Browning design, but I might have missed something. Saive certainly developed the mag used in the BHP before JMB's death, but it was only 13 rounds.)

The HP probably ought to be called the Browning/Saive HP as it was long after JMB's death that if finally was produced. It should be noted that Saive used some design features from expired Colt (JMB-designs) patents when the BHP was finally finished.

Here's a link to a TFL post, some time back, which shows the original patent documents and leads to an interesting discussion of the BHP and JMB's role in it's development. http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=492206

Note: Browning died in 1926, in Belgium, while working for FN. The orignal Patent wasn't approved until 1927 (for the ORIGINAL DESIGN, which apparently never saw the light of day except as a prototype weapon), and the BHP itself, didn't go into production until the mid-1930s (1935?). And the French who asked for the design didn't use it...
 
Last edited:
BHP

The HP probably ought to be called the Saive HP in terms of who did most of the design and creation -- and it was long after JMB's death that if finally was produced.
Click to expand...

Yep.

The original poster got far more wrong than he got right in his posting.
Click to expand...

Oh, yeah.

If he comes back...which I have my doubts about...he might learn a few things.

The pistol is known in Europe as the P35. Browning High Power is an American designation that was hung on it when the Browning Arms Company started importing it following WW2.

Before the war, the P35 was relatively unknown here. The GI's captured Souvenirs got the attention and the interest of the American shooters. At the time, Browning Arms Company was a wholly owned subsidiary of FN Herstal...who capitalized on the all-American Browning name...and designated it the Browning High Power purely as a marketing ploy that worked very well.

From that day forward, it's been widely believed that Browning "corrected" the mistakes made on the 1911 with the High Power. I've even heard the claim that Browning said that he wished he'd used the features on the 1911 that he used on the High Power...which is completely false, as we all know.
 
Last edited:
Tuner -- you quoted me before I revised my statement about Saive HP... I got to thinking that Saive used a bunch of COLT patents (all from JMB), so Browning/Saive HP is probably more (or equally) correct.

(I'm always correcting my mis-steps. sigh)
 
OK, this isn't going anywhere positive anytime soon.

Browning, if you're really who you say you are, you need to research your ancestor's contributions to firearms before you start talking about them.

As others have pointed out, virtually everything of substance you've claimed is, in one form or another, incorrect.

A lot of posts have already been deleted; I don't see much else changing if this thread stays open.

You are more than welcome to participate here at TFL, but what you'll find is that the membership here is exceptionally knowledgable about virtually all firearms related topics.

Closed.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top