http://theunionstation.org/browningmuseum.html
My family and a bunch of friends went to the old Ogden train station, home of the John Moses Browning museum. If you haven’t been to the Browning museum, and you’re a gun person, you’re missing out. You need to go, it is kind of like a pilgrimage to Gun-Nut Mecca. It contains most of the Great One’s designs, including prototypes you’ve never heard of, then guns designed by his kids, and even his workshop.
For those of you who don’t know who John Moses Browning was, he was basically the greatest gun designer in the history of the world. Pretty much everything was invented by Browning, and what wasn’t invented by him directly was influenced in some way. We still use his designs today, some of them have barely even changed.
One of the guys took a bunch of photos, and I’ll see if he’ll e-mail those to me so I can post them.
I’ve been a few times, and my personal favorites are the original prototype BARs (including top eject!) and the .45 auto prototype that looks like a cross between a Tokerov and a 1903. It’s hammerless! The prototype of the gun that would eventually become the High Power (designed by Browning, not Saive, in 1923) is really swoopy, doesn’t have a thumb safety, and has some sort of weird hammer/striker mechanism.
Ferdinand Ritter Von Mannlicher was better and more prolific!
Ferdinand Ritter Von Mannlicher was better and more prolific!
So, how many of his designs are still being made?
Mannlicher was clever, and his designs were elegant – but they tend to suffer in the real world.
Gee Vaarok … when will Remington be offering a 700 with a Mannlicher action?
That was an April 1st comment, right?
JMB museum and the IRS center in the same town? What is this, some sort of sick joke? And here I had vowed to never visit Ogden……..
that place is way cool, and its also a Frontrunner stop, so you can save the environment by using mass transit.