ArtR

Article in OutdoorLife

9 posts in this topic

Recently ran across this and did not see it listed as having been mentioned here before

https://www.outdoorlife.com/1941-johnson-automatic-service-rifle

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Thank You for posting good reading 

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Once again thanks for posting this. I try and read all the good articles on Johnson rifles.

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Nice catch, Art.....copied it on my printer for my files. Hadn't seen this one before.

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Hi All,

  This gun belongs to my son.  I took it John Snow, the gun editor for Outdoor Life for a new series of articles they were starting.  Outdoor life switched from a monthly to quarterly format and this issue was the first of the new format.  The article was the first in a series John was doing on unique guns.  I've done a great deal of research on this gun, including input from the Cody Museum, (Amazing gun collection.  If you get a chance to go try and talk them into seeing the collection that isn't on display), but the trail goes cold as with a lot of these guns.  It is SN 4882, no prefix.  My son has been toying with the idea of selling it to pay medical bills, if anyone might be interested, let me know and I'll see how serious he wants to get.

 

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Hi again Stinson

Back in Dec 2017 you asked about SN 4882 and Brian Alpert gave you the SN data.Did you ever get a chance to compare the original part serial numbers to the parts on your sons rifle? It would be interesting to know how they matched up.

ArtR

Per Brian   SN 4882: Received from Cranston Arms 1/19/42 Stock #2 Bbl #3541E Hammer block #2532 Hammer #7649 Bolt #2391 Locking cam #5873 Firing pin #A080 Extractor #2913 Magazine #A1272 Transferred to NPC 1/30/42

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Hi Art,

  I will check with him and find out.  As I remember I thought some of them did match but not all.  I'll verify and get back with you.

Brian

 

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ArtR,

Stock #2, #4, Bbl #3541E, 6151E, Hammer block #2532, B 6037, Hammer #7649, C 6738, Bolt #2391, 7459,  Locking cam #5873, E 3450,  Firing pin #A080, E 6690,  Extractor #2913, H1374,  Magazine #A1272, E 3514

  Any idea why the numbers would be all different than recorded.  It doesn't make sense that all the parts of the gun were replaced.  Maybe factory errors recording serial numbers?

 

Brian

 

 

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Hi Brian

While it is impossible to know for sure, postwar guns that were handled by several commercial firms may have experienced severe dismantling and reassembly before they were finally sold to consumers. My own Johnson only has two matching numbers....the receiver and the magazine.

As for factory errors recording serial numbers, I seriously doubt that. Considering that steel was a strategic material during the war, and that  the steel for the Johnson Rifles was the property of Dutch government, serializing the parts made perfect sense as a way to record and track the steel.

As I recently stated in another post regarding serial numbers: '...after having looked at  many production log pages for the 4 digit no prefix rifles, and considering the "detail" and the clarity of the handwriting for the many pages of log entry data... ... the entries in the logs do not reflect the hand of someone who is "tired" of laborious, hand written entries, or of someone who might have skipped an entry...'

 

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