to get the ball rolling here, vote for your choice on "most influenceial"

most influencial to what???

thats your choice.

off the top of my head i picked a few names. no write ins. if you think i forgot someone, convince me in a post that they should be added to the list, and i will edit the poll, if i can (i dont know if you can edit a poll).

Man, between Colt and Browning....that's a hard choice.Overall, I guess JMB contributed more to the firearms scene.....JMO
Dan

For what.......oh yeah.....
Browning:
simi auto pistols...adopted by several mfgs..
Lever rifles....adopted by Winchester
automatic rifles
auto shotguns...by Remington and Browning
machine guns......M1919 and the M2....still in use!
I'm sure there are a lot more that I can't recall at the moment.
Dan

He isn't as well known as some of those listed, but his contributions have lasted the test of time better than most. Daniel Wesson. While he is well known as half of Smith & Wesson, Daniel Wesson was a genius engineer and machinist. Browning built his lever action designs by starting with Wessons lever action pistol. It takes a little study, but Daniel Wesson's patents and fingerprints can be found on many firearm designs that have been built continuous from the 1850's right up to today. Colt didn't become successful until after Sam Colt died and his children took over the company. Its hard to tell how much Browning designed and how much the Army mandated on some of his designs. The same goes for Stoner and the AR15.

Don't get wrong, I think Browning was a genius. I just think Daniel Wesson gets overlooked for coming up with a lot of great ideas in somewhat of a vacuum. It was, after all, Smith & Wesson that patented the first self contained metalic cartridge. It was such a good design, that we still shoot it today. Lots of it. In fact, we shoot more 22 rimfire than all of the other commericial cartridges combined. That's good stuff.

i tried, but it looks like i cant edit once votes are in i didnt think of him as im not a big fan of s&W, so i never realy looked into their history. partiality on my part. never heard of the lever action pistol though, ill have to look that up!!

We are going to have to find a way to put Tales of the Gun on our site. I TiVo'd the series when the history channel ran a marathon. Good stuff. Yep, Smith and Wesson's first repeating handgun efforts were through their first company, Volcanic Arms. The Volcanic Arms repeating pistol used a tubular magazine and a lever to move the rounds up and into the chamber just like the early Henry rifle. The rounds were self contained lead mini balls with powder in the hollow of the bullet that was then sealed with a wax that held a primer. The system was delicate. It was also prone to having the rounds in the magazine discharging as they were inserted nose to primer. Smith & Wesson sold the Volcanic Arms company to Oliver Winchester, and then decided to pursue other gun designs. Oliver gave the designs over to his man Henry who thought it made it crappy pistol, but could be made to work for a dandy rifle. I think you know the rest. Daniel Wesson also partered with Harrington of Harrington and Richardson for a time. Harrinton and Richardson went on to build rifles for the US government and civilan market from 1871 until the mid 1980's. Daniel Wesson helped launch that company and most people don't know this, but H&R was the third largest builder of M1 Garands and the largest producer of M14's for the US government. Unfortunately, Bill Clinton and Janet Reno had a gay old time from 1994-1996 chop sawing about 750,000 M14's into oblivion.

Yep, Daniel Wesson and later his son and grandson were all heavy contributors to our firearms heritage. If only John Browning had taken time to train a son to follow in his footsteps. How can a mormon not have sons to follow in his footsteps?

That would be sweet I wonder if the History channel would allow us to have the shows on this site? It would be interesting to see all of them I used to watch the show when it was on I haven't seen it in a while. Great idea though!

I voted Kalashnikov. How can you forget about the father of the AK series of weapons. What it's been around 60 years and still going strong. Go to any corner of the world and you can find an AK or a conflict that they are involved in. I'd call that a huge influence on history.

David, Very interesting addition. I hadn't thought of Klashnikov, but you are right. I forget which country even has an AK on their FLAG! Also, look beyond just the AK, but really the fact that the AK has pretty much made everyone switch to an assault-type rifle for their armies. You could argue that this all started with the WWII German Sturmgewehr, but that might've just died off since after the war the whole Western world was developing rifles like the M-14, FN-FAL, G-3/HK-91, etc, etc. It was the Russian deployment of the AK that made everyone switch.

Good post, and out of the box too.

couldn't vote, would have been Sam Colt

Thanks Glenn, here you go. The country that has the AK on it's flag is Mozambique.




And the mother of all modern assault rifles


STG44 7.92X33 MM Kurz