Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Collecting guns that evade browning patents?

Greetings –

I just impulse purchased a Remington Model 51 pocket pistol in 380. I learned that many of its unique design elements were the result of John Peterson working around the patents held by John Browning and Colt. For example, apparently the unique clip system that holds the grip panels on was the result of necessity – Browning held the patent for screw mounted grip panels.

In this case, Peterson seems to have been successful. It's a unique, handy and functional pistol. That's in contrast to the Winchester model 1911 "Widowmaker" shotgun I once owned. I think we all know the story about how Browning tried to sell the Auto 5 to Winchester but it ended up at FN after Winchester refused to pay royalties. The 1911 was an interesting bad design and I owned it for a while just because the story was so fun. But eventually I needed space in the safe so I went down the road.

However, this Remington has me thinking. If I wanted a collection of firearms where the driving force behind significant features was avoidance of Browning patents, what would I include?

The Winchester 1911 – I've never seen a really nice engraved Winchester 1911. But I bet they exist. Not a lot of variations here.
The Remington model 51 – two different calibers (380 and 32) and a couple of different minor variations based on slide serrations, etc. I'm confident there are nice engraved examples.

What else would I include? Are there other guns with a similar background/story? The Browning/Winchester/Remington/FN story is fun and fascinating, but I wonder if there's enough here for a collection or are there just a couple of guns with unique stories?

Thanks!

Mark

There are still the Winchester 88 and 100

My collection was not focused on this idea of avoidance of Browning patents, but I can understand that approach to collecting - anything is interesting if it is interesting to you.

I am keen on Dreyse 1907 pistols. They have been described as ways around Browning. but they do bring a lot of original, merit worthy features of their own.

Ithaca 37s and the prior Remington pumpguns it's copied from, and the Model 12, could be included, I'd think. Browning had nothing to do with those, IIRC.

The Hungarian FEG P9 is a direct copy of the Browning Hi-Power.

Wasn’t the Browning Hi-Power a design effort by John Browning to evade his own patents owned by Colt?