Johnson rifle M1941

I helped two guys run a gun show table a couple weeks ago.

One guy is a heavy into S&W and Colt revolvers and the other is mostly old military stuff.

The military guy has one of these cool looking Johnson semi's and was teaching me a bit about its history in the Marines.

I gotta tell you the stock seems a bit of simple and rough design but the mechanics look really interesting.

Does anyone on the forum own one of these and should I consider investing in one of these?

Any knowledge would be appreciated as this gun brought a lot of interest at the show.

The stock is straight through so that the recoil is straight through. Form follows function.

late friend had one many years ago... got to fire it once...
I recall heavy recoil... much more than a garand... worked fine
but that is about all I recall... hope that helps a little

The marines seemed to like them from what I have read over the years. M1941 Johnson rifle - Wikipedia If the price is right, then buy it for an investment.

More reading: American Rifleman | The Model of 1941 Johnson Rifle in Marine Service

Melvin Johnson was quite a guy in the mechanical genius realm. There is a Johnson Machine Gun also. It had a side mount detachable 20 round banana magazine. But the gun could be loaded with a full mag, strippers into the mag or if necessary, one round at a time (a very unique feature!) The guns were light weight compared to a BAR and the balance allowed troope to shoot at strafing planes like shooting skeet! They are known to have shot down a few fighters in this manor.

He designed the guns to use Springfield rifle barrels to simplify procurement.

Both Johnson weapons, 1911's, and Thompson M1A1's were the common weapons of the 1ST Special Services Forces AKA "The Devils Bigrade" Their Johnsons were not from the USMC, but a shipment ordered for the Royal Dutch Marines (but their nation got occupied).

Ivan

Info the Johnson Machine Gun (the Johnny Gun) : M1941 Johnson machine gun - Wikipedia

Back around when the M1 Garand was adopted, there was quite a bit of rancor that the Johnson design was better and should have been adopted instead. But that didn't happen. The American Rifleman piece mentioned above has a lot of good information about it. I have seen several Johnsons for sale, but was not interested enough to pay the price. In the rare and unique semiauto military rifle category, I have a perfect Swede Ljungman AG42b, and that's all I need.

There is a place for it in a collection of WW2 U.S. military rifles if one is looking for as complete a collection as possible. Other than that, the usual cost of these makes it hard to justify one all by itself....for me anyway.

I have one. It was my dad's until he passed a year ago.

They have serious cool points. It's a good rifle overall, and the quick-change barrel is neat. There's some little parts that you could loose, and frankly the Garand was a better rifle IMO. The Johnson could have been a better rifle, especially if taken as a "system" together with the LMG as a SAW. Johnson had a prototype that used a modified BAR mag that was in the conventional vertical position. The Army built up a prototype belt-fed Johnson LMG after the war.

Most of what you hear about the Johnson is just parroting the same stories over and over again. There's a great Collector Grade publication, "Johnson Rifles and Machine Guns" that's got real detail and facts. It's about $50 on Amazon, and is an excellent source.

The rotary mag is neat. Sure, you could conceivably dent it and have problems, but I think it's less of a potential problem than folks yap about. The bayonet's a joke, and the worst part of the joke is the price original spikes fetch. I ran across the original bayonet for my rifle when I was going through my dad's stuff. If I didn't find it, there's no way I'd have bothered even buying a repro. It's that useless.

The rifles were used in combat on Gavutu by the para-Marines (who never jumped in combat), and later on Guadalcanal when that unit was transferred there. They seemed to have worked out well. At least as well as anything else would have.

Logistics is a real thing in warfare, and the Army's production of the M1 meant that Marines were going to be carrying the Garand, and the Johnson was on borrowed time. "worse" "better" or "just as good" doesn't matter. Logistics dictated the Garand was it. There were never any Johnsons that were ordered directly for the Marine Corps. All their Johnsons came from the Dutch contract. So really, it's not like the Marines had ordered production Johnsons and then had to buy M1's. They weren't invested in the Johnson in any real way. They were just scarfing up anything that would work at the start of the war.

After the war, Johnson rifles were dirt cheap. They were sporterized by the bunch. You can run across sporters still once in a while, but many of the sporters seem to have been either "unbubba'd" or stripped for parts. Parts used to be pretty easy to get, especially since the LMG used many of the same parts. Lately, parts are getting scarce.

The rifles themselves go for stupid money. If you want a pure investment, I'd look elsewhere. The $6000+ price tag means you have a small market to sell it to, and you aren't likely to turn it overnight. If you just want a Johnson, then buying sooner is better. It's not like they are going to get cheaper. I just think for six grand, you could do better with something else for investing. You can't do much better for a WWII semi-auto rifle for coolness though.

An odd fact about them is that all the parts are numbered but for some unknown reason they do not match. There is a record of the first 10,000 I think before the A prefix and it has the numbers for each gun recorded. I have one but have never fired it.

Simpsons gun shop in Galesburg, IL has one on display. It is documented as being carried by a trooper (sorry, forgot his name) in the Pacific theater.

They’re neat old rifles, but to echo others on this thread, it has considerably felt recoil. As cool as they are, I can’t justify purchasing one considering what they’re bringing these days.

I've read or seen on videos that were largely negative about the rifle in a combat role. IIRC, complaints involved the barrel length, which was criticized because it was long and slender and wasn't great for using the bayonet, which was an important consideration in fighting the Japanese. I seem to remember doing so could bend the barrel slightly, but that might be false memory. Some Marine units used them early in the war, when the Marines were largely armed with 03A3s, and a semi-automatic must have been attractive. The fact that they were replaced by the M1 says something. I don't think they were lamented.

I have a Model of 1941 Johnson that I purchased many years ago when they were still semi-affordable. I also have the original spike bayonet and leather scabbard.



Melvin Johnson's brainchild once was considered to become an official Army rifle, but the M1 Garand won out. The U.S. Marines did buy some for the Pacific Theater in WWII.

I devoted a chapter to the Johnson in my book 101 Classic Firearms. Its history is interesting, and its limited service with special Marine units during WWII made it a "must have" in my U.S. weaponry collection.

It had some advantages, but its vulnerable pot-belly magazine was susceptible to damage and jamming if mishandled against rocks or other solid objects.

It's an interesting relic, but available specimens are now bringing asking prices in the multiple thousands.

John

Ivan the Butcher said:

Melvin Johnson was quite a guy in the mechanical genius realm. There is a Johnson Machine Gun also. It had a side mount detachable 20 round banana magazine. But the gun could be loaded with a full mag, strippers into the mag or if necessary, one round at a time (a very unique feature!) The guns were light weight compared to a BAR and the balance allowed troope to shoot at strafing planes like shooting skeet! They are known to have shot down a few fighters in this manor.

He designed the guns to use Springfield rifle barrels to simplify procurement.

Both Johnson weapons, 1911's, and Thompson M1A1's were the common weapons of the 1ST Special Services Forces AKA "The Devils Bigrade" Their Johnsons were not from the USMC, but a shipment ordered for the Royal Dutch Marines (but their nation got occupied).

Ivan

Click to expand...

As I recall the 1SSF only used the Johnson LMG, which they had aquired by trading some explosives to the paramarines.
The USMC got the ex-Dutch 1941s after the fall of the Dutch East Indies.

I had one for a time. I had bought it in a local GunShop for $650. Sold it for $2000 later on. Gives you an idea of how long ago it was.
Now look at what they bring. But we could say that of most every Milsurp.

I used to shoot mine quite regularly. It was a fun gun to shoot. I didn't have an M1 at the time so there wasn't a side by side comparison to do.
It was just an expensive (for me) shooter.

I did do what I have since read was a somewhat common problem/complaint. When sighting, you had a tendency to pick up one of the front sight protective 'wings' instead of the front sight post itself.

I left the sight as orig and didn't twist the wings off w/a pliers as some have said was done.

The rotary mag worked fine. Charging with 5rd stripper clips or using single rounds was no problem.
Mine did have 'The Crack' in the butt stock right behind the recv'r. A very common condition on these. Something about the recoil, TD or maybe just heavy use.
TD is very simple if you have a loaded round.
I never had a bayonet for mine. Never gave it a though really. Not much of a collector mind. Just a shooter and the gun was neat and different.

Prices are crazy world for them and never seem to flatten out.
It's kind of a 'Buy it Now or it'll be More Tomorrow' thing.
Even the Winfield Arms sporterized versions bring big $$. People with thoughts of putting them back to some semblance of GI resemblance.

I'm glad I owned one. They're in the investment catagory IMO.

I have a sporterized one that I believe was done by Winfield Arms. Haven't shot it in years but it shot fine. I always thought the Johnson was a neat rifle, but if it was a choice between it and the Garand, I'd choose the Garand.

In the early 70s when I was a teenager my dad’s friend showed us this strange “Army rifle”. Turns out it was a big Johnson. My dad bought it from him later for $175. When he died in ‘08 that rifle did not have sentimental connections with my dad like other guns so I sold it for a ton of $$. I gave my wife $1,000 of it. The stock was refinished, as I recall. The gun looked pregnant like it was going to have a litter of derringers.

When I worked in Cranston, RI, my office was directly across the street from the Johnsn Automatics plant. I did a lot of electrical work in the building. You could go outside, and kick around in the sand, and find tons of spent 30-06 casings from test firing

That rotary magazine stock belly always brought to mind a pregnant guppy or perch. My understanding for the Paramarines getting the Johnson's was due the the easily removed barrels, which theoretically made a smaller package for jumping. Problem being, you now had an unassembled rifle when you hit the ground. Still cool piece of military history.