John Browning

約翰·摩西·勃朗寧（John Moses Browning）或翻成約翰·白朗寧（1855年1月21日或1月23日生-1926年11月26日亡）是美國的槍械設計師，他曾經設計過許多種類的槍支、子彈、火砲，且許多作品現在還被廣泛使用。他可以說是近現代自動武器的重要人物，並自1879年10月7日以降共取得了128項槍械專利。

勃朗寧幾乎影響了之後的所有子彈設計，同時也對槓桿式步槍、單發步槍及滑動式槍機等有顯著貢獻。然而他最有力的領域還是自動裝填槍械。他靠著發明滑動式槍機這種現在被普遍應用的技術來開發自動裝填手槍。他也發明了第一支氣體作用式機關槍，運用了柯爾特-勃朗寧1895模型這個比後座作用式得到更廣泛支持的系統。其他成功的設計還有諸如勃朗寧M2機關槍、M1918勃朗寧自動步槍還有開拓性的半自動霰彈鎗勃朗寧Auto-5等。

歷史

Browning belonged to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served a two year mission in Georgia beginning on March 28, 1887. His father Jonathan Browning, who was among the thousands of Mormon pioneers in the mass exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois to Utah, had established a gunsmith shop in Ogden in 1852. John Moses worked in his fathers shop and later developed his first rifle a single-shot falling-block design, in that capacity. He founded his own manufacturing operation and began to produce this firearm.

Production examples of the Browning single-shot caught the attention of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company who dispatched a representative to evaluate the competition. Winchester bought the design and moved production to their Conneticut factory. From 1883, Browning worked in partnership with Winchester and designed a series of rifles and shotguns, most notably the Winchester Model 1887 and Model 1897 shotguns and the lever-action Model 1886, Model 1892, Model 1894 and Model 1895 rifles, most of which are still in production today in some form.

FN M1910手槍可以説是勃朗寧設計中得到最聲名狼藉的槍械

Perhaps the most infamous singular Browning-designed firearm was a FN Model 1910 handgun, serial number 19074. In 1914, Gavrilo Princip used the .380 ACP pistol to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie. This event arguably sparked World War I. The pistol was rediscovered in 2004.

On November 26, 1926, while working on a self-loading pistol design for FN in Liege, he died of heart failure in the office of his son Val. The 9 mm self-loading pistol he was working on when he died was eventually completed in 1935, by Belgian designer Dieudonne Saive. Released as the Fabrique Nationale GP35, it was more popularly known as the Browning Hi-Power. The Superposed shotgun was his last firearm design, marketed originally with twin triggers. A single trigger modification was later completed by his son, Val A. Browning.

Throughout his life, Browning designed weapons for his own company, Winchester, Colt, Remington, Savage, and Fabrique Nationale of Belgium. In 1977, FN acquired the Browning Arms Company which had been established in 1927, the year after Browning's death.