So I’m waiting for this thing:
Attachment 115938
Any M1941 Johnson fans on board?
https://youtu.be/YpHv3iuASsk?si=dHyZeHev12B6qINd
Printable View
So I’m waiting for this thing:
Attachment 115938
Any M1941 Johnson fans on board?
https://youtu.be/YpHv3iuASsk?si=dHyZeHev12B6qINd
I don't know anything about them but they sure are cool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uXrWAR6GgE
Looks like the grandfather of a FN FS2000. Interesting rifle!
Short recoil operation - the barrel sets back a bit in the "shoulder thing that goes up."
Ten shot rotary magazine, loaded from the side with two Springfield stripper clips.
Alleged to be temperamental and lost out to the M1 Garand. The Marines acquired and used a handful in WW2 though from a shipment that was ordered by the Dutch before the Netherlands fell. Numrich used to have a lot of parts from buying out Johnson's stock when they folded. Only ever seen one in the wild and had an ask like $5K. If I'd had the money though...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1941_Johnson_rifle
Instead of being the Tactical Tuna it is the “Battle Tuna”Quote:
Originally Posted by HeavyDuty
You can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay......
You can even call him Ray JayQuote:
Originally Posted by Borderland
I once went to a training class where the presenters name was Hugh Johnson. We had some Marines there so up front he said his name was Hugh Johnson, not Huge Johnson. I guess he already knew the routine.
Mark Novak is good people. Here he is with my Mateba MTR-6, one of two in the country.https://youtu.be/qTwfMGqCkZ8?si=Z8GlAe0n0FTSHde_Quote:
Originally Posted by Erik
We cut off your Johnson.
And we step on it and squish it,Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleLebowski
(What did you expect?! :D )
I've got one. Twas The Reward for taking care of a co-worker. Doing that put me in a position to buy it.
"Forgotten Weapons" has some very informative videos on Johnsons.
The squad automatic version was apparently a serious handful to control. Curious how the felt recoil is on semi.
If you wanted to avoid detachable box magazines (as the Ordnance Department apparently did on the semi-auto rifle) Melvin Johnson's solution is ingenious.
A casual fan and one I've reference in design work/discussions before and it is one of my favorites from that era. It's also the rifle that lead to one of my funnier discussions in a product planning meeting on designing a rotary magazine:
PM: "What about designing a magazine that can be loaded from the side with stripper clips?" *draws idea on whiteboard*
Me: "You just described a detachable version of the M1941 Johnson's magazine." *shows him info on M1941*
PM: "How . . . how do you know all of this?"
Me: "One, I'm a gun nerd engineer who reads a lot. Two, I grew up watching Tales of the Gun and Shooting USA."
I have one. As a Garand lover, when the opportunity came up to buy an M1941 Johnson several years ago, I had to jump on it. Being able to compare the two was too much temptation to resist.
Buying that rifle became the push into one of my deepest rabbit holes.
I did things backwards and bought "the" Johnson book after buying the rifle. I strongly recommend that anyone with the slightest curiosity of the Johnson rifle buy the book "Johnson Rifles and Machineguns" by Bruce Canfield and Edward R. Johnson. The Johnson co-author is Melvin Johnson's son, and he contributed a wealth of information and records that had been collecting dust in the family for decades.
A lot of what I had read and been told about the Johnson rifle was just flat wrong, and the book corrected it.
Mine is what collectors know as a "Winfield Arms" rifle. This company bought around 16,000 Johnson rifles from the Dutch in the 60s. That's around 75% of the total production. Winfield brought half of those in through Canada, and sold a few at a time so they wouldn't flood the market. They sold them through American Rifleman and Guns & Ammo ads. I don't recall if the book says this, but it at least gave the strong impression that most of them you see today are these that came through Winfield Arms. Base models were $69.50, but they also had " upgraded" models. Many were mildly sporterized with such atrocities as having the stock changed to a nasty rollover cheek piece style, the bayonet lug removed, and the front sight changed to a "streamlined" style.
Mine was one of those.
Luckily, there is, or was, an old gentleman in Texas named Jim Scott who restores them to original, and he's pretty reasonable, considering. I had that done to mine ASAP after delivery.
So how do I think the M1941 Johnson and the Garand compare? In short, they are closer than I expected.
I like one better in some areas, and the other in different areas. If you made a checklist of various points, then went down the list checking the plus or minus box for the appropriate rifle, you might alternately check one then the other from top to bottom. I like the Garand's rear sight better, even considering the zero-holding problems with the early assemblies. The Johnson would be much easier to clean regularly with corrosive-primed ammo used at the time. The Garand trigger wins easily. I can't believe a Marine would put such a trigger on a rifle as Johnson did. But then, the Johnson is much more forgiving of variations in ammunition. On a whim, I tried cast bullet loads going 1800 fps, and they functioned 100%.
So yeah, as I shot the Johnson and my Garands, I kept seeing that same back and forth.
My opinion after owning one for over 15 years is it wouldn't have mattered which one the US used in WWII. Nothing would have changed had the US used the Johnson instead of the Garand. The war wouldn't have lasted a day longer or shorter.
When talking about them now, there is a point I feel I always need to make; something I had not considered before about this comparison. When tested, the Johnson was basically a prototype rifle, while the Garand had been the service rifle for almost five years. Also, while Melvin Johnson was a captain in the USMC reserves, this rifle adventure of his was a side gig. He was an attorney by trade whose hobby was guns. He still managed to cobble together a factory and get it equipped during strict government controls on things like rifling machines or even steel. Garand, on the other hand, had been employed at Springfield Armory working on his rifle and fully backed by the government for nearly 20 years. Had Melvin Johnson also worked on his rifle with even half the time and resources, how might it have been?
So does pornhub, if you're interested in that kind of thing. Not that there's anything wrong with that...Quote:
Originally Posted by 314159
It's an interesting rifle, but for a period gas-operated semi auto battle rifle think I prefer my FN 49 to either a Johnson or a M1 Garand; the FN is also stripper clip fed, very robust and adjustable for (and tolerant of) different cartridges/bullet weights. And exceptionally easy to field strip and clean/lubricate. Best, Jon
All three (M-1, M1941, FN-49) are so close in their specifications/features they are functionally interchangeable.
Perhaps the most notable fact is that the recoil operating system of the Johnson was never really developed by anyone else (the Dror notwithstanding).
Still like to have one though.
There were some 7mm Johnsons sold to Chile, too.
Everybody likes to think their M1941 is an ex-USMC rifle, but the truth is more went to Chile than the Marines.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Watson
Speaking of the Marines, here’s a fun maybe-fact:
When the Marines made their first island invasion of the war on Guadalcanal and surrounding islands in 1942, they had not yet adopted the Garand but they had 23 M1941 Johnsons (and 87 Johnson LMGs) with them. It’s very possible the Johnson saw WWII combat before the Garand.