In 1930, the Karl Gustav firm improved the design with a folding carrying handle and with a quick change barrel system. Sweden bought the first BARs in 1920 from Colt, before the Belgian Arms Factory FN acquired the European rights for the production of this weapon. Sweden subsequently bought BARs from FN, and then in 1921 began production in Sweden at the Karl Gustav factory. The FN Herstal Belgian factory bought the European production rights of the BAR and produced the BAR for the Belgian army, and sold this LMG to Sweden and Poland, until these nations started producing it at home. In 1938 it was officially adopted by the American Army as a light machine gun of support for infantry squads, and was still used, albeit in modest quantities, also in the Vietnam War. It was distributed in small numbers to the American Expeditionary Force in France and was tested in action. It was designed by John Browning in 1917. Photo credit Armor Plate Press, Firearm Owner’s Association and Olive Drab.The BAR, (Browning Automatic Rifle) was an automatic rifle and / or a light machine gun used by the army of the United Atates of America during the 20th century, today we should call it a Support Automatic Weapon. Still, just knowing that the BAR is not dead and is not gone warms the cockles of everyone here. The military BAR M1918 (WW1 & 2), M1918A1 (1930s) & M1918A2 (WW2) are hefty selective fire weapons, originally design by John Moses Browning. Each comes with two 20-round magazines, and California, Massachusetts and New Jersey-compliant models are available as well. Otherwise they’re identical, with 24-inch barrels, are 48 inches long, and weigh every bit of 20 pounds. infantry for a mobile light machine gun from World War I through the Korean War. The Ohio Ordnance M1918-SLR is otherwise very similar to the BAR and has two models, one with an American Walnut buttstock and the other Bakelite. The highly reliable Browning Automatic Rifle filled the need of U.S. It has a more conventional hammer-fired closed-bolt mechanism. They are also semi-automatic, naturally, otherwise there probably wouldn’t be much if any market for them. These new guns have some modifications to the firing mechanism as it’s no longer legal to manufacture firearms that fire from an open bolt. Ohio Ordnance makes modern working replicas of the M1918 BAR, chambered in. And just like that, the BAR went quietly into the night. Civilian ownership was difficult and expensive (and still is to this day) of select-fire light machine guns. Mostly, though, they were bulletproof.Īfter military demand for these weapons dried up production dropped off. Some variants had thin barrels that were prone to problems. Its only major shortcoming is the standard-issue 20-round magazines. It’s striker-fired, fires from an open bolt, and uses a simple rising block locking system. The reason the BAR was so much more reliable was that it is a long-stroke gas piston-operated selective fire light machine gun chambered in. Although at the time the US military deemed it outdated and issued it to South Vietnamese and Montagnards, it was sought out by infantry and special forces alike, who found it to be much more reliable than early M16 rifles, especially in those conditions. The BAR continued to see heavy use during WWII and the Korean war and was an extremely valued rifle during the Vietnam war.

Belgium, Poland and Sweden all had their own BARs. They proved a major advantage over German arms and immediately after the war many countries began to adopt them, acquiring licenses to produce them at home, often with small changes and further improvements. However, at the time, Colt was too busy with their orders for Vickers machine guns for England that manufacturing was eventually passed on to Winchester and Marlin-Rockwell.Īt the end of WWI over 50,000 BARs were fielded another 50,000 had been produced. Designed by John Browning, the patent actually belonged to Colt. We mean newly-manufactured M1918 BARs, by Ohio Ordnance.ĭeveloped and manufactured late in WWI, the BAR went into production in 1918, if you can believe that. We don’t mean old surplussed M1918 Browning Automatic Rifles, nor do we mean the popular modern semi-automatic hunting rifle made by Browning, also called the BAR. You may not have known this, but you can buy a BAR.

Browning automatic rifle wwii