Added: 7 months ago
From: Iraqveteran8888
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  • @jrms999 Actual i think you're thinking of the Johnson light machine gun, not the Johnson rifle.

  • At last someone on YT has posted an in-depth review of the gun that armed the First Special Service Force ("The Devil's Brigade" to its Nazi foes)

  • just looking at it looks make you imagine how it can rip you apart with one type of bullet

  • Interesting loading mechanism.

  • my wish list just keeps getting longer, I need to hit the lotto

  • One advantage of the Johnson design compared to the Garand is that you can keep the magazine topped off. Shoot one, load one, like a shotgun. And it uses common stripper clips, like the M1903's the Marines were still using in the Pacific in 1942, before they got the M1's.

  • you are a god

    

  • Gah that's just so problem prone. I'd rather go with the M1 Garand.

  • Too bad they chambered it in 30-06. It would so much more controllable in a smaller round. Same lesson the Germans & Soviets came to.

  • My Johnson has never been refinished in very good shape I shoot this better than anything I have why does my bolt not stay open after final shot. I sure it is a marine issue, my relitive from okinawa gave it to me since weapon are illegal sn-3369 I does shot 10 round flawless but the bolt does not stay open on the final shot? why

  • In it's spare time this rifle writes horror story's and lives on 19 cents worth of beans a day.

  • This is very well made, informative and accurate. As to the cost, if you can find one of these, they usually run, for a decent one, $6,000 (USD) and up. Only 20,000 or so were made, since it was more complex and therefore expensive than the Garand. It had some definite advantages, such that it could be loaded with individual rounds, whereas the Garand requires the en bloc clips and can give you "Garand thumb" if you don't know what you're doing.

  • It's a 10+1 I believe. I fit 2 stripper clips in there no problem, so I don't know what the fuck that guys malfunction is. Great piece of military history

  • I bought mine in California for around $4000

  • So instead of a Bar, it's a Jar....I wonder...

  • I agree that the M1 is better but this is a nice rifle to have to. I'd love to go hunting with it.

  • I think I ll go with the M1

  • you sure it isnt a 9+1 and not a 10?

  • Looks like everything the M1 Carbine should have been but wasn't, compact,large caliber, accurate. No wonder the Marines liked it in the jungles of Guadalcanal.

  • that thing looks wicked. never heard of it.

  • To be honest with You I thought it was less accurate than it actually was during the Bowling Pin Part..But the Recoil is higher than Garand. But a Bit more accurate i think

  • CLICK..BANG

  • What's tht clicking after each shot?

  • This is one expensive rifle to own! To add to it's combat credits it was also used by Dutch colonial forces against the Japanese in small numbers and later against Indonesian rebels in 1947-1949 'Police Actions' alongside the No. 4 Lee-Enfield. I knew a vet who lived in my street who used this weapon in 1948-49 and it saved his live many times in the close confines of jungle combat. Sadly he is no longer among us.

  • man thats an insane price even for an awsom gun

  • may look wierd but it sounds awesome.

  • Good evening to you all from Holland

    The Johnson rifle was rejected by the US goverment in faver of the garand rifle in the pre war period but you can thank the Netherlands goverment whom where desperatly in need for guns they made the contracts wich made it possible to buy the machinery to produce the guns and MG .

    search on google for the complete story

  • Comment removed

  • please do a field strip cool rifle

  • Also would like to add, the Johnson is actually faster to load than a Garand. Reloading is much easier to do with stripper clips when the bolt is closed. It is more difficult to load as you showed in the video with the bolt open due to the cartridges wanting to slide up in to the chamber. I also own a Garand, the Johnson is easier and faster to load. The Para-Marines would actually take out and ditch the bolt hold open device.

  • It would of been cool if you showed the bolt design and how it operates. That would actually give others an idea of how advance the Johnson rifle actually was. As someone had mentioned in a previous post, Eugene Stoner took a long hard look at this rifle before designing the AR15/M16. The Johnson bolt design is in similar fashion(multi-lug bolt locking), including the buffer assembly which also consists of a large mainspring and tube running down through the stock. And this was 1930s technology.

  • what is the pricerange?

  • @bojoboura anywhere from expensive to tapping into the kids college fund.

  • @Iraqveteran8888 yah thank you for the info i got yah.

  • @bojoboura we hit the arizona gun show not a couple months back.. we saw 4. one of which had no magazine 6000 dollars... the semi good condition went for 10k and the pristine crazy good unissued parts matching one was around 20k. *dont know if thats just horrible pricing or just common place*

  • @bojoboura last gun gun show 3000-5000 USD so get the credit card out!

  • @bojoboura Currently, $5K to 8K.

  • @bojoboura I've seen a good M1941 Johnson offered for about $6,000. It was a pretty good rifle, but NOT AUTOMATIC, in spite of the heading on this video. It's semi-auto. The Marines used this wpn during WWII. But Marines are a bayonet-oriented society, and the reciprocating barrel wasn't very happy with a bayonet attached. The "10-shot" capacity required loading with a full chamber, giving 2 more shots than the M1. Detachable barrel was favored by ParaMarines who could shorten it for jumps.

  • @bojoboura Upwards of $10,000...

  • It really looks like a pregnat fish or something..

  • @OgamerNL Yes it does...lol

  • Could you do a video about your Rifle Rest? the coldwell?Is that the brand? Thanks for the upload love the videos. I am looking for something to take to the range for bench shooting i have not seen any reviews of it on youtube. thanks.

  • @glockman1727ak47 You may get your wish, yes.

  • @Iraqveteran8888 Thank you very much! Feel free to talk about all of the rest you have.

  • In my opinion, this looks way cooler than the m1 !!!

  • Sweet gun,I love the 30-06 rounds.

  • i want one of these it looks awesome

  • With the way things stand here in Canada, even if I had the money and the contacts to get one of these, I wouldn't bring it in, just for the fact that it would be defaced to comply with the magazine limitations... Maybe, someday, I'll have one of these without destroying a piece of history.

  • Is there a reason you do not talk into the camera? Would improve your videos. Just a suggestion.

  • @ptmccain Depends on the environment and the subject matter. Sometimes, I have to take a video when I can, and I don't always have the luxury to do multiple takes, or control the wind for that matter. I don't plan it either way, it's just how it comes out. I have over 400 videos on here, so I'm sure some of them are right

  • Fantastic looking rifle. How much did you pick it up for?

  • my Uncle Tony Poe always spoke highly of the Johnson Rifle,, I think he had one during ww2 in the Pacific ..Yes , he was a Marine..

  • Thanks for the vid. I've always wanted one but they want some serious change for them.

  • Cool, thxs for sharing !

  • Wow, where on earth did you find this rifle?

  • @thenomadrhodes It found me.

  • Very cool video, I wonder what the accuracy is like with a reciprocating barrel like that?

  • nice one sir

  • I don't know if the Garand is "friendlier" during loading since if your finger slips, it will bite your finger.

    Can the Johnson be single loaded? I read that you could load it with single rounds if you didn't have any stripper clips. That made it a little more practical (tom me) than the Garand, since it has to have an enbloc clip.

  • Damn, very audible trigger reset. . .

  • @txanarchist It's actually not that loud, it's just that this camera picks up a mouse fart from two football fields away. 

  • The Thompson machine gun was also manufactured in Rhode Island.

  • wow....now all i need is 8 grand and i can have one

  • you should post a video on the 1903a1 Springfield if you can get your hands on it

  • Nice piece of history you've got there. Thanks for sharing.

  • Pretty nice rifle. Quite a rare and beautiful piece it is. Keep up the nice video's eric!

  • Thanks for the video. This is the first video i`ve seen with the Johnson being shot. I have seen pictures of the Johnson being used during ww2 in the Italian theater. The gun was issued with a side mounted magazine. Do you have any information on these?

  • I'm not the most knowledgeable person when it comes to elder era firearms. But this looks a lot like a large up-scaled version of the M1 Carbine. Would you happen to know if the M1 Carbine was based off this firearm?? Such as the M14 and Mini 14?

  • @gangsta2wo6ixworld The Johnson looks similar to the Carbine but is bulkier.The M1 Carbine is chambered for a different cartridge: the .30 Carbine (7.82x32mm in metric), not the 30-06(7.62x63mm). The M14 is chambered in 7.62x51mm while Mini-14 fires an even smaller cartridge: 5.56x45mm.

  • Really awesome gun and nice video. Do you think if you left it loaded the spring would loosen and you could get 10 in there?

  • Nice to see a rare classic I know this was one of two marine weapons that was issued in the pacfic another was a supplement to the bar and had a pan on the right side

  • Very interesting rifle, reminds me of the Ruger rotary mag

  • And as easy to load as a Mosin Nagant.

  • Nice looking firearm .

  • Man that's cool

  • hey eric i dunno if this question has already been asked but what is the clicking i keep hearing before/after each shot? may be a dumb question but i dont know what it is.

  • @dminor214 The clicking is the shooter properly following through with his trigger.... what you are hearing is the reset as he releases the trigger and it re-engages.

  • @dminor214 Trigger reset

  • I heard that the combined American/Canadian Special Service Force also used these rifles as well. All the same amazing video, especially showing the accuracy with those bowling pins.

  • You are one lucky Hombre Eric. Most shooters have never seen a Johnson rifle let alone shoot one. I guess I need to bone up on things 'cause I didn't realize the Johnson was short recoil gun. I hope the owner knows what a treasure he has. Thanks again for a great vid and please keep 'em coming.

  • When they say 10 round capacity, they probably meant 9 in the mag, 1 in the chamber.

  • @ziegler117

    I don't think so. If (!) I remember correctly mine does take 10 in the mag, plus one in the chamber. I can check later when I get home.

    And to the poster of the video; thank you for this HQ vid, very nice! I haven't shot my Johnson yet, but I will try to get a video up on Youtube when I get around to it.

  • Great to see this rifle out shooting not many vids on it

  • Very Cool! Thanks for sharing!

  • Really cool rifle!! Thanks for showing it to us

  • @Iraqveteran8888

    Thats really neat. I'll have some uncommon guns on my channel, as soon as I can work out my range membership, be sure to check it out when I get some stuff upped.

  • @VintovkaMosin Cool. Hey man....you have to start somewhere. I didn't make all this shit pop up over night.

  • So, do you own this?

  • @VintovkaMosin Way too rich for my blood. One of my good customers wanted me to take it out and "verify" it for him. He has an impressive collection and is always more than willing to let me take out the rarer peices.

  • I was always told that this was what special forces used instead of the BAR cause it was lighter, but then agian I'm no expert on this, and neither was the guy I heard from

  • THAT is a cool gun. I've seen them around, never fired one.

  • very nice rifle you have there Eric. me jealous now ;-).

    Very hard too find and a nifty price tag too.

  • i love how it sounds

  • Store I use to go to had about 3 of these in a rack once. All well over $2,000

  • 1st time ive even heard of this rifle thanks for the upload.

  • Theres a guy at the Tampa gun shows that always has one on display .Never saw anyone shoot one .

  • looks like a hell of a deer gun! oh yea IraqVet I think we would all love to see a filmed deer hunt with one of your mil-surps!!

  • @RedSoxBowHunter Not only am I going to film a deer hunt with a mil-surp, but it will be a 100+ year old rifle.

  • I see they have a fancy one on gunbroker for about 4,000 but it has a super fancy stock not your military version ..Glad you showed very interesting and learned something also

  • I think you bowled a 300. =]

  • Is that a price tag in the rifle?

  • @Julius44bc If you have to ask, you probably should look the other way. They aren't cheap.

  • Nice, there's been a couple of 1941 Johnson's on sale here in Finland recently, 2100 and 2900 something euros respectively. I was kind of tempted to go through the hassle of getting permits to get one...and having seen this kind of makes me think I should have :D

    Just an idea, how about doing a comparison video with the 1941, the Garand, SVT-40 and K-43?

  • @SadoYeti That might be able to be arranged.

  • @Iraqveteran8888 That would be very nice, for people like me who may have only handled(Ljungman) or owned(SVT) one or two of of the world war 2 era semis and not come across the others outside of a museum :)

  • @SadoYeti I don't awlays own the weapons you see in my videos, but I have ready access to most of them, so If I can put it together, it could be a possibility. I have access to Hakims, Garands, SVTs, etc

  • @SadoYeti

    Heh, the cheaper one is not for sale anymore, it is in my safe now :-D

  • @Revesvett Small world hahaha...but Very good, it's an intriguing piece of military firearms history for sure :D

  • Great vid

  • whats the click before you shoot?

  • @agj9 Trigger resetting

  • @Iraqveteran8888 hey quick question :D if u could only use an shoot one gun for the rest of your life...what would it be? :) mine would be the r700 .270 synthetic

  • excellent vid on a largely obscure rifle

  • Nice rifle! You are always doing videos of rifles that I've never heard of. And I for one appreciate the history!

  • @metalsk8r123 If you don't have 2 minutes to learn something, you're in the wrong place. Go find a couch warrior channel to follow.

  • were you "staging" the trigger? i was hearing a little click before you sent em down each time.

  • @chaos311clarity Yeah. I shot so many bolt guns on here, you don't ever hear it, but when shooting a semi auto, it's always a good idea to follow through your trigger control and gently allow the trigger to reset. It makes you more consistent, and gets you in the habit of squeezing the trigger straight back and not getting on it too much.

  • Hypothetically, If i were to buy one, how much would it cost me?

  • @Silenthen1 Cabelas in rogers MN has a nice one for $5,900. I saw another one once before at a gun show for around the same price.

  • @MaverickX87X That's pretty good for a rifle like that. Cheers for the info buddy!!

  • Great video Eric. A real treat to see a Johnson rifle in action! Hard to believe but they were selling those up here for less than $600 about 20 years ago, I still regret not having bought one.

  • That is really cool. Beautiful condition too!

  • Great info on gun I was not familiar with. Beautiful wildflowers.

  • Speak of the Devil. I went and commented on IRC that Bucky's gun in Captain America was a scoped M1941 and here you are making a video of it.

  • Nice I think it ws used by the devils brigade and some raiders usmc as well great history

  • There aren't too many bits of footage of this gun on youtube. Thank you.

  • I love this gun, I always have :D The Canadians used them as well in the European theater.

  • The Johnson rifle was also fielded in the Chinese Civil war by the Nationalist forces.

  • How did the felt recoil on the Johnson compare to the Garand more less?

  • That is a beautiful rifle. How much does one cost?

  • @Poppys1963

    Around $4000.

  • Interesting piece of military history.

  • nice gun! I think i remember seeing this in that HBO special "The Pacific" in the early episodes! I never know it was given to cuban exiles during the Bay of Pigs Invasion! (: for gun history!

  • Nice rifle...gotta love that 06 power

  • thats for sharping a piece of history . very interesting rifle .

  • Interesting piece!

  • Good video Eric.

    Eugene Stoner looked at the operating system of this rifle when he was designing the AR15.

  • ahhh you forgot to show us the groups ..... nice gun thanks for taken her out

  • @dills2403 Yeah I filmed a segment on it, but I didn't include it. The rifle performed very well, putting 6 shot groups into about 3 MOA until the barrel heated up, bringing the groups out to about 5 MOA. These rifles were bad about stringing when they heated up with the reciprocating barrel design.

  • man id love to shoot that rifle dont find anything lie that up here in canada

    and it would be hard to pin the mag to 5rd as semi auto rifles here cant hold 5 rd to be legal i hate it theres some that can have more like rimfires and ar's(max is 10 with ar pistol mags)

    man id love to come down there and shoot with you guys 

  • very interesting piece of military firearm history. thanks for sharing.

  • Can't go to war without bringing your Johnson.

  • The Johnson holds a special place in my heart as one of those fugly, complicated rifles that was just way to cool to say no too!

  • oh awsome i aint seen one of these in years!!! growing up this was like one of my dream guns that and the retro m16s!!! keep up the good vids!!!

  • That is sweet! how much?

  • That's by far one of the coolest looking semi auto rifles I've ever laid eyes on...

  • Now that is a cool rifle thanks for sharing.

  • Ahh yes, the reject to the M1 ;)

  • Very cool that you were able to shoot this one I've only seen a few of these

    Thanks for posting

  • Ok, This is a little hard to get but could you do a video with the Pedersen rifle. It also compeatd against the M1 Garand. Its a pretty amazing and interesting rifle.

  • @Mauser2012 There's not many of those things left, and what are out there still are either in private collections or museums.

  • Very cool. Thanks for the vid.

  • Cool rifle. Bet it was expensive though.

  • @curlybobz 5k

  • Am I wrong or does that look VERY similar to the RUGER AC 5.56.

    I shot one of those about a month ago,VERY AWESOME AND ACCURATE FOR A FULLAUTO.

    Thanks bro,

    Anthony

  • @boosted28 The AC556 is just a full auto version of the Ruger Mini 14, which is loosely based on the M14 service rifle.

  • What was the year of manufacture of that particular rifle?

  • good vid ive heard of these and seen them but ive never seen one fire

  • i seen a few before at gun shows

  • sweet gun thanks for sharing. It looks like it weighs a ton.

  • The 1st special service force or devils brigade also used this rifle during WW2 

  • Trade for a mini-30? : )

  • @iraqveteran8888 Nope, just a bunch of bowling pins getting blowed up... Makes me wish I had a one (or five or six...) Johnson Rifles for myself!

  • @TomBuhls The rifle grouped very good. I filmed a segment showing the groups (like I always do) but I forgot to include it. If you are interested in seeing the targets I can post pictures to facebook if you wish.

  • Extremely cool gun to feature, I've not seen one before. Thanks for showing it! :)

  • But.......  How did it group?

  • @TomBuhls Did I not put the groups at the end?

  • shit...

  • Best groups were about 3 MOA and the worst were around 5 MOA once the barrel got really hot.

  • that's a pretty neat gun, i've never heard of it

  • can you estimate a price for one of these?

  • @bobiscool308 Beater 3.5k all the way to museum grade running in the 5-6k range

  • @Iraqveteran8888 so a beat would be like 3,500 but a museum grade running would be like 5000 -6000