And he got lucky a couple of times, resulting in quite an impact. He did want “his” Marine Corps to adopt it. Let me guess what you’ve read or heard about the Johnson semiauto rifle. It gets kind of fuzzy here on whether there was ever an authorization for purchase. It wasn’t. Every step of that process would be observed by people in the Ordnance Corps and other branches, plus members of the gun press, and be well documented and easily accessed later.
It stands to reason because of the numbers. It must have made an impression, because those officers and others began stopping in to see Johnson when in Boston to check his progress. Jan 18, 2008 #1 .
The ParaMarines adopted the Johnson LMG. Not to knock the guy, because I know the info simply wasn’t available before. And that was that as far as the Army was concerned. Melvin Johnson would point out that his test rifles were prototypes, while the Garands were production guns with nearly 20 years of development and a recent redesign of the gas system and some lesser refinements. Johnson would argue for a long time these were not failures, but stoppages, and were caused by the damaged magazines and bad ammo. He had scored lots of hits on targets he didn’t know were there. The rifles used would be two each of the Johnson, the Garand (some of the first after redesign of the gas system), a Winchester prototype, and the M1903 Springfield bolt action for comparison.
The first time I took mine to the range after getting it in the shape I wanted, the club know-it-all was present. The rifle cost was $125 each. A Representative from PA named Snyder headed a report that sought investigations after questioning appropriations for a rifle (the Garand) the Army was having to rework when there was this wonderful new rifle out there. Privacy Policy • Contact Us • Warnings • FAQs • © 2020 National Rifle Association of America. I know I don’t see many. The plan was to equip half of them with Johnson LMGs and half with H&R Reising M55 SMGs. While a tidy profit indeed for the Johnson company, collectors today will pay several times that amount for an original Model of 1941 Johnson rifle with a confirmed USMC provenance. Unknown to Johnson, the Marines had set up some human silhouette targets along a ridge at 600-700 yards, but hidden in the trees. Harry M. Tully of the 1st Parachute Battalion, who was awarded a Silver Star when he used his Johnson rifle to kill 42 Japanese on Gavutu at ranges up to 800 yds. The guns were not in any particular serial number range or sequence, and examples from all three “blocks” (no prefix, “A” prefix and “B” prefix) are known to have been procured by the Marine Corps. The Johnson rifle received the bulk of praise. Johnson or Garand Discussion in 'M1 Garand' started by eclancy, Oct 16, 2007. A lot of it was meant to replicate beach landings and tropical weather, with water sprinklers duplicating rain, sand drags, and salt water sprays. Aberdeen tested the “vertical feed” rifle in mid 1938, again with what Melvin Johnson thought was unfair procedures. The rifle was tested for 11 days, fired 1,200 rounds in shooting trials and another 5,000 in endurance testing, and was subjected to dust tests, sand tests, mud tests, drop tests, and by being jumped on while hung between two boards. Third, a civilian shooter from the onlookers asked permission to shoot the Johnson rifle. The rifle had 22 stoppages. Although it was pretty crude, Melvin Johnson took this rifle around to anyone in the military he thought would look and listen, just to show them the basic principle he had in mind. It was bandaged up, but he reopened the wound loading cartridges into the Johnson. The Ordnance Department reported 86 failures.
Meanwhile, a representative from TX introduced a bill to the House for the Army to adopt the Johnson rifle. Here is a small file on the test between the Johnson and the M1 Garand Rifle. From what I saw when shooting NRA Highpower matches, which is very similar to what this test was, is the participants’ scores come in “knots”, with a group at the very top, then another group about 20 points down, another 20 points below that, and so on. I answered: “An M1941 Johnson”. It would be over seven weeks before the report was completed and sent to Johnson Automatics. My question to you is do you think that the Johnson Rifle was given a fair test by US Ordnance and SA? While everyone likes to think their M1941 rifle was used by the Marines, it’s interesting to note that the Chileans got more than the US Marines did. A representative of the High Standard firearms company said they could be in production within 120 days of signing a contract and be making 500 per day within six months. It weighed a ton because the machine shop had no means to forge items like the receiver, so they just used more metal. President Jackson and were on our way home. by Bruce N. Canfield - Nevertheless, in August of 1940, the Dutch ordered Johnsons. Gun stock wood was in short supply then too, and he was lucky to get any at all, let alone some that were extra wide. Johnson took his early rifle to Quantico in the summer of 1937 when on his annual USMC “summer camp” and demonstrated it to all who were interested. The adoption of the Garand in 1936 and the name “M1941 Johnson” should be a clue here. It just wasn’t out there until Ed Johnson, Bob Lamoreaux, and Bruce Canfield gathered it together. So here is a simplified (believe it or not) story of how the Johnson rifle came to be and how it came to fade away. This was at the height of questioning about the Garand, and the articles got a lot of attention. Until then, people keep repeating the same things whether they are right or not.
And, at that point in time, it was quite an accomplishment to design a full power semiauto military rifle. Rotary Feed Model, Used, Serviceable” to Johnson Automatics, Inc., for $5,000 ($50 per rifle). The refusal of the Netherlands Purchasing Commission to release any more Johnson rifles to the Marines due to the ongoing delays in Johnson Automatics, Inc., rectifying the mechanical problems with them, along with the fact that standardized arms, such as M1 Garand rifles, M1/M1A1 carbines and Browning Automatic Rifles were available, rendered moot the necessity to continue efforts to procure additional Johnson rifles. This loan became permanent.
He then reflected on how nice the old Krag magazine was, because it could be topped off at any time by flipping the door open and filling it up. What is less known is that there was another demonstration near San Diego in November 1940 before the big Marine test began. Gas operation, he thought, was too dependent on consistent ammunition that might not be available in wartime. They didn’t like the weight (half pound over desired), impaired function with present US standard bayonet (which it wasn’t designed to even accept), unreliable function with the intended bayonet attached with muzzle depressed as when firing into a trench unless rigidly held against the shoulder or hip (no kidding), lack of handguards, “safety device not foolproof” (I have no idea what that criteria would be), the effort to seat a clip of cartridges in the magazine might be excessive in adverse dust or sand conditions (again, no kidding), questioned the ability of the exposed magazine body to sustain blows, single stage trigger. The bolt would travel in a generally tubular receiver, and be made in two telescoping pieces with ramps on each piece to rotate the bolt. He felt that if his design had even a fraction of armory development, it could be at least the equal of the Garand. On the other hand, while its use as a U.S. military arm was very limited, the majority of the Marine paratroopers who had occasion to use the rifle in combat were generally pleased with it. The bolt would lock into a breech collar screwed onto the barrel. They liked it’s overall performance, it’s accuracy, ease of disassembly and reassembly, ease of barrel removal, the magazine and the ability to top off and unload, and ability to withstand dirt, dust, sand, etc. But at this time, there was still the Marine hope. One was turned over to Aberdeen for testing.
Taking an order for almost 11,000 guns required a solution. I’m going to drift into the Johnson Light Machinegun (LMG) for a moment because it’s history captures the semiautomatic rifle along the way. He felt the rifles were deliberately sabotaged by the army issuing ammunition from a lot known to have soft brass in the cases, and by army-supplied testers damaging magazines in loading. As all of this was going on, he was working on selling it to some foreign countries. He fired the three mags anyway, with no rear sight or bipod support. And this is where the Johnson semiauto rifle comes back in. It help two clips’ worth, or ten rounds. Or the long operating rod. In December, a new rotary magazine Johnson rifle arrived at Aberdeen for testing. but according to factory records, there was no attempt made to match the serial number of the parts with the number on the receiver. It was not unusual for manufacturers to make a number of arms beyond the contracted sum in the order to have additional guns available for other customers or in the event the original contractee decided to acquire more guns. First was that the Reising proved to be…um, lacking. Joined: Dec 26, 2002 Messages: 1,114 Location: N. Catasauqua, Pa. Gentlemen, Again, a question for the new guys. When Lt Torgerson jumped that day, he was firing the LMG within 130 seconds of exiting the aircraft. The Congressional hearings ended with a verdict that the rifles were equals. They still had their very important colonies in the Dutch East Indies, and they wanted to protect them but needed arms. Stocks were contracted out. With the success of the Johnson LMG and failure of the Reising SMG with the ParaMarines, someone suggested replacing the Reising SMG with the Johnson semiauto rifle, which could be broken down as small as the LMG and probably gotten into action even faster. The Marines, though, showed more interest in the Johnson Light Machine Gun than the rifle, and purchased a limited number of the machine guns from the NPC’s embargoed inventory. Reportedly, the guns sold out very quickly even though that would equate to a 2018 inflation-adjusted per unit price of over $3,500. I need to point out here that from reading Johnson’s correspondence and comments in the book, I don’t get the impression he wanted to push the Garand rifle out. While documentation to confirm the reason for this modification has not been found, it can be speculated that removing the ears from the front sight resulted in a single blade that would make the sight picture similar to that of the ’03 Springfield rifle, with which the Marines would have been very familiar due to its use in basic training. Melvin Johnson was a 2nd Lieutenant in the USMCR in the mid 1930s when the army was about to adopt a semiautomatic rifle. Johnson later stated that the rifles were provided on “… more or less lend-lease which developed into a gift.” Marine paratrooper Capt.
They almost all end with a phrase such as “…and when the dust had settled, the Garand was the new service rifle and the Johnson would become just a footnote in history”. A total of 21,988 Model of 1941 Johnson rifles were manufactured by the time production ceased, which was 1,588 rifles more than the Dutch ordered.
To his surprise as much as the onlookers, all of the rounds went into the center of the intersection. The Marine Corps Equipment Test Board sent out a request for a light, selective fire weapon with a max length of under 26 inches for parachute use.
When the Marines made their first landings of the Pacific campaign on Guadalcanal in August 1942, the Raiders and some parachutists (by sea, not air) went into Gavatu, an island across the channel from Guadalcanal.
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