Prototype Johnson Model R Military Rifle
Semiauto Rifles
•
13m
When Melvin Johnson's rifle design was first going through US military testing in 1938, it was set up to use box magazines. These magazines were a problem - they were not quite fully perfected, and were causing a lot of the problem that the rifle was having. Johnson opted to withdraw the rifle from trials, and revise the design to use a 10-round rotary magazine instead.
This took place after his relationship with the Marlin company had ended, and a machine shop called Taft-Peirce had signed a contract to make rifles for Johnson. They designated the new rotary magazine type of rifle the Model R, and made seven military pattern examples for further trials (as well as seven sporting pattern guns). the military model had a bayonet lug for a Krag/Springfield standard bayonet, and a wooden handguard on the exposed front section of the barrel.
Thanks to the Cody Firearms Museum for allowing me access to film this prototype rifle!
Up Next in Semiauto Rifles
-
Captain Carl Pelo's Model 1954 Protot...
Carl Pelo was a an engineer with Sako in the 1930s, and developed a series of self-loading rifles. He used a short recoil mechanism with a pair of locking flaps on the bolt, much like the Degtyarev machine guns from the Soviet Union. Pelo attempted to market his design both to the Finnish armed f...
-
The M1 Garand's Mysterious 7th Round ...
The M1 Garand ran great in testing, but as soon as Springfield began to crank out production-line guns a mysterious problem appeared. If the top round in the clip was on the right-hand side, the 7th round in the clip would often run askew and malfunction. Where did this very odd problem come from...
-
Features: Full Auto FAMAS F1 vs Semia...
Since I happen to have simultaneous access to both a military-pattern F1 FAMAS and also a civilian semiautomatic MAS-223, I figured it would be nice to compare them side by side and see how they differ. A number of changes were made for the civilian semiauto rifles, including:
- Rifle grenade...
