Читать книгу Gun Digest 2011 онлайн

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Their range session finished, the three World War I veterans were packed up to be taken home, given a good cleaning and put away. Most assuredly they will not be forgotten, nor will the generation of young men who carried them. Over nine decades have passed since peace was declared on that first Armistice Day, November 11th, 1918. Virtually all those who fought in the “War to End All Wars” are now gone. But these three revolvers and others like them remain as an unforgotten link to that time and those men.

THE LITTLE

BROWNIE THAT

CHALLENGED

THE WORLD:

The Mossberg Brownie (1919-1932)

BY JACK A. MYERS

HOW THE BROWNIE CAME TO BE

Before the world-wide sales success of its little Brownie pistol launched the O.F. Mossberg & Sons company to its well deserved world-wide recognition, Oscar F. Mossberg had already gained knowledge and experience in the field of gun manufacturing and sales.

Oscar was an industrious young Swede of 22 when he immigrated to America in 1866. And 53 years later, in 1919, he introduced his Brownie pistol, the first and only handgun his small company ever produced. That small company continues today and now holds the distinction of being America’s oldest surviving, family-owned, gunmaking company. In my opinion, the little Brownie is as much an example of the American gunmaker’s art as Sam Colt’s earliest revolver or Oliver Winchester’s first lever action rifle.