VERY RARE JOHNSON MACHINE GUN

The M41 light machine gun was designed by a Boston lawyer and Captain in the Marine Corps Reserve named Melvin Johnson Jr. His goal was to build a semiautomatic rifle that would outperform the M1 Garand the Army had adopted. By late 1937, he had designed, built, and successfully tested both a semi-automatic rifle and a prototype light machine gun (LMG). Each shared a significant number of physical characteristics and common parts, and both operated on the principle of short recoil with a rotating bolt.

The Johnson LMG was one of the few light machine guns to operate on recoil operation and was manufactured to a high standard. The Johnson was fed from a curved, single-column magazine attached to the left side of the receiver. Additionally, the weapon could be loaded by stripper clip (charger) at the ejection port, or by rounds fed singly into the breech. The rate of fire was adjustable, from 200 to 600 rounds per minute. Two versions were built: the M1941 with a wooden stock and a bipod, and the 1944 with a tubular steel butt and a wooden monopod.

When firing, recoil forces along with the mass of the weapon's moving parts all traveled in a direct line with the shoulder of the gunner. While this in-line stock can be seen in the M16 rifle today, it was a novel idea at the time. Since recoil was directed back into the shoulder, muzzle rise was minimized. Due to this design, the sights had to be placed higher above the bore.


Johnson LMG in useThe Johnson LMG has many parallels with the contemporary German FG42. Both had in-line stocks, fed from the left side, and both fired from the open bolt in automatic mode and closed bolt in semi-automatic mode. Both weapons proved somewhat awkward to carry with a loaded, side-mounted magazine (especially the Johnson, which had a magazine with an unnecessarily lengthy single-column design), and this feature tended to unbalance the guns. Despite these similarities, there is no evidence that either weapon had any effect on the design of the other. Both machine guns attempted to solve similar problems, and adopted similar solutions.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• JOHNSON
• MACHINE
• GUN

[Gool349]

looks like the german FG42

[hummerskickass]

Repeal the 1986 full auto ban

[SuperNiggadave]

@Gool349 Not really. The Johnson was recoil operated and the FG42 was gas.

[Panzershrek1945]

The U.S. Army obtained 125 Johnson rifles from USMC for 2 tons of explosives during WWII.

The rifles were issued to the 10th Mountain Division (?). 

[INbredMonarchy]

If I was manufacturing guns I would build exact replicas of this one.

[FredDude27]

@MarbleDemo

Sir, the private's weapon's name is Charlene, sir!

[whokilledkenny67]

Hey, you are also left eye dominant. Finally one of my brethren

[GohModley]

These are my kinda rednecks

[MarbleDemo]

Beautiful Rifle, Whats her name?

[ThadKs]

It is similar in purpose to the fg42 but was developed completely independently