My Johnson 1941 LMG To Keep my Johnson 1941 Rifle Company

**samnev** · 08-24-2012, 12:57 AM

by Bill Grist

Very nice Johnston LMG....Looks like a good time is beeing had...BILL

Bill, not as nice as most of the specimen's you have posted. Yes we had a great time with Bob Faris that day. We shot his Lewis Gun, MG42, AVS36, Vickers my Johnson LMG, 1919A4, Colt 1921/28 Colt Thompson and MG 34 as well as numerous other bolt, straight pulls, semi's and subguns. One I particularly like was his Owen SMG.
I really miss Bob.

**mauser9** · 08-24-2012, 07:00 AM

Awesome gun and love that background of arizona. Plan to visit next year. Can't wait to see Tombstone

**samnev** · 08-24-2012, 03:33 PM

Mauser9,
Arizona is not all burned over desert like most think. It's beautiful country in the central highlands. Long summers, short mild winters. If you come here you might not leave. That's what happened tome 20 years ago.

**RayG** · 08-26-2012, 02:55 AM

Always was my favorite LMG since I was a kid and that's a long long time ago. Love the looks of it. Congrats samnev, Ray

**samnev** · 08-26-2012, 06:53 PM

by RayG

Always was my favorite LMG since I was a kid and that's a long long time ago. Love the looks of it. Congrats samnev, Ray

Ray,
it was also one of my favorite LMG since I started collecting but it recoils so hard on full auto I like my Ingles Mk I*Bren much better as a shooter. It's a very soft recoiling LMG that you can shoot all day in comfort. Thanks for the congrats it took me a long time to find the Johnson LMG.
Sam

**lithgow** · 08-26-2012, 09:42 PM

The lack of a decent LMG in the US arsenal at the start of WW2 and the failure to adopt one after entering the war strikes me as the greatest failure of US arms procurement ever-sticking a wooden butt stock on an M1919 Browning and telling the troops to drag that around the jungle/streets/beachhead etc is all but beyond belief-it would have been a simple matter to have a ZB/Bren variant made in 30-06 (Inglis were making a 7.92 x 57mm Bren for the Nationalist Chinese forces)-that would have been a world beater, curing the only real fault with the Bren, the need to load the magazines carefully with the rimmed .303 round to avoid jams.

**samnev** · 08-27-2012, 04:36 PM

by lithgow

The lack of a decent LMG in the US arsenal at the start of WW2 and the failure to adopt one after entering the war strikes me as the greatest failure of US arms procurement ever-sticking a wooden butt stock on an M1919 Browning and telling the troops to drag that around the jungle/streets/beachhead etc is all but beyond belief-it would have been a simple matter to have a ZB/Bren variant made in 30-06 (Inglis were making a 7.92 x 57mm Bren for the Nationalist Chinese forces)-that would have been a world beater, curing the only real fault with the Bren, the need to load the magazines carefully with the rimmed .303 round to avoid jams.

I agree to a point. The BAR (mine is a 1919A2) is not a bad automatic rifle and is certainly not in the class of the BrenGun but it served well for a long time despite the 20 round mag and the lack of a quick change barrel. It was rugged, accurate and dependable. That said and owning both I always take out my Ingles Mk I* Bren to shoot while my BAR has sat in my safe unfired for 7 years. IMO the Bren was the finest magazine fed LMG in the WW II and post war period.

As for the 1919A6, it was never intended to be a LMG but to give our troops an MG that was a belt fed and more portable than the standard 1919A4. But you are right I would not have liked humping it anywhere very long. My A6 has a metal GI butt stock. I wasn't aware they used wooden ones. I shoot mine off of a modified MG 42 AA tripod and the butt stock addition makes it very nice to shoot.

I truly wonder if the US Ordnance would have been capable of converting the the Bren to 30-06 after the fiasco of trying to convert the MG42 to 30-06.