Johnson?

[LittleLebowski]

We cut off your Johnson.

[LittleLebowski]

We cut off your Johnson.

And we step on it and squish it,

(What did you expect?! )

[Erick Gelhaus]

I've got one. Twas The Reward for taking care of a co-worker. Doing that put me in a position to buy it.

[314159]

"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.

[ragnar_d]

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."

[BarryinIN]

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?

[Hambo]

"Forgotten Weapons" has some very informative videos on Johnsons.

So does pornhub, if you're interested in that kind of thing. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

[JonInWA]

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

[314159]

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.

[Jim Watson]

There were some 7mm Johnsons sold to Chile, too.