Fans of rare fullauto and World War II firearms, rejoice! Brownells Gun Techs and avid firearm historians Keith Ford and Steve Ostrem recently visited Rock Island Auction Company and found a pristine example of a wouldbe successor to the Browning BAR, the Model 1941 light machine gun designed by Melvin Johnson. This futuristic shortrecoil, rotating bolt machine gun can shoot fullauto OR single semiauto shots. In fullauto, the Johnson fires from an open bolt, which helps cool the barrel and prevents "cooking off" a round in the chamber. In semiauto, it fires from a closed bolt. Even more unusual, the Model 1941's fullauto rate of fire can be switched between 200 and 600 rounds per minute. However, it would be pretty hard to get off 600 rounds in 60 seconds from the awkward sidefeeding, singlestack, 20round magazine! Unlike the BAR, the Johnson's barrel is easy to replace (a nice plus), but the gun is a bear to shoot because of its heavy recoil (a big minus). About 9,200 were built and served mostly in the South Pacific. In the end, the Model of 1941 just wasn't an improvement over the BAR. It remains a fascinating footnote in firearm history.

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