Johnson M1941 Semi-Automatic Rifle - Highly Prized By Gun Collectors

wouldn't this just take pride of place...must be worth a fortune..if you could find one that is...
Johnson M1941 Semi-Automatic Rifle - Highly Prized By Gun Collectors

 

There was one at a gun show in Manchester NH a couple of weeks ago.
Priced around $3K if memory serves..

 

serious money, had that been in u.k. it would have been a lot more...

 

That article, while brief, is a lot better than most. Most articles on the M1941 Johnson are pretty awful. So many of them sum up the history in one, maybe two paragraphs of wrong information. The usual tale is that both rifles competed head to head to be the first semiautomatic service rifle, and when the dust settled, the Garand had won and the Johnson faded into history. That's not exactly how it went. The Garand was adopted in January 1936, and the first Johnson model to test the basic operating theory didn't exist until later that summer and a working prototype wouldn't be made until January 1938. So there wasn't a Johnson rifle available for even the most informal test until two years after the Garand had been chosen. The simple fact this article makes that point clear puts it way ahead of most.

I bought a Johnson about three years ago and had to educate myself on them in a hurry. There is a book that came out around five or six years ago, co-written by Bruce Canfield and Ed Johnson. Ed Johnson is one of the sons of Melvin Johnson, the designer of the rifle. The Johnson family still has a fair amount of documentation and records, though there probably never was nothing like the paperwork you would have with a government-developed arm.

Not long after the Garand entered service, problems became evident. Some were from errors in setting up the production line, but some were design shortcomings, primarily in the gas system. The original gas system was a "gas trap" system that did not use a gas port drilled through the barrel to vent gas into the gas cylinder. Instead, it had a "false muzzle" (a cap) that caught the escaping gas of a fired round. This was the source of several problems, including collecting fouling, allowing a buildup of unburned powder which would suddenly ignite, being difficult to clean, loosening up, being an unstable base for the front sight, etc. Plus there were other small problems that had people wondering if the Army would stay with the Garand. The Army was committed, and fixes were in the works, but people were unconvinced.

Also, the USMC had not selected a semiauto rifle. They had given no indication they would choose one at all, although some thought they would eventually, including Marine reservist Melvin Johnson. The USMC was traditionally a small arms "customer" of Army Ordnance, adopting what they had chosen, but with questions surrounding the Garand at the time, there might be a change in that course this time. Besides, if the Garand didn't work out, or was delayed while it was perfected, Melvin Johnson thought it might be a good idea to have a backup plan, or, as he put it, to "have two strings for our bow". He never was convinced that the Garand's gas operation was the way to go and went ahead with his recoil operated design with the idea that either the Marines would adopt it or it could be approved as a Substitute Standard, much like the M1917 rifle of WWI. The Marine Corp encouraged his work on this rifle and a light machinegun that operated on a similar principle.

The Marine Raiders used a few, as did the USMC's 1st Parachute Regiment (ParaMarines). Around 750 M1941 Johnson rifles went to the Marines, and documentation is scarce because it happened...well, it might not have happened officially. That went something like this:
The Dutch gov't (in exile in London I believe) ordered some Johnson rifles for the defense of the Dutch East Indies. The Japanese got to the Dutch East Indies just before the rifles left the dock on the west coast, so they were stranded there.
Meanwhile, the ParaMarines were training up. They were to be armed with the Johnson LMG and the Reising M55 SMG. The idea was that half would get the LMG, half would get the SMG, and when they landed, the SMG gunners could cover the LMG gunners as they assembled their LMGs. In practice, the Johnson LMG was quicker into action than they expected and the Reising proved to be about worthless, so instead of an SMG they decided that arming those men with a rifle- preferably a semiauto rifle- would be better.
And since the commander had seen the Johnson rifle demonstrated and was impressed...
And since they already had the Johnson LMG, which was so similar in operation to the rifle...
And since they knew where there were some Johnson rifles on a dock...
They had some Johnson rifles transferred to the USMC Parachute Regiment. So while they had them, they were not made for the USMC and therefore were supposedly not marked "USMC" (although you see them out there marked that way...by someone).
This happened right about the time the Parachute Regiment was disbanded, and about the time the Corps was issuing the Garand. Those with Johnsons were told to ditch them, but some must have gotten lost on the way to disposing theirs because there are pictures of Johnson rifles and LMGs in several campaigns in the Pacific.

Which is "best"?
I'm going to preface the following by saying I'm a Garand fan. It's my favorite rifle. I've read all I could on the Garand, and can hardly read anything about the Garand without seeing a reference to the Johnson. Everybody has an opinion on them, and which one is better at what. I seriously doubt one in ten of those have ever seen a Johnson, so I'm not sure how they can decide, but I know I was curious. So when I had a chance to get my own to compare, I jumped on it. I take at least one Garand every range trip, and now take the Johnson also. I even used the Johnson in an IPSC 3-gun match once.

After having shot my Garands and my M1941 side by side for nearly three years now, I will say this:
If it were December 8th, 1941, and I was in line at the recruiter's office about to head off to either Europe or the Pacific, and by some miracle could be given the choice of whether I could take a Garand or a Johnson when I went out the back door...
I wouldn't care. I really wouldn't.
There are things I prefer on one, and things I prefer on the other, but overall I think they are two means to the same end. When I name a plus to one, I can do the same for the other. When I think of a negative to one, I do the same for the other. I like the Garand sight picture better, but the Johnson's sights hold zero better. The Johnson has that magazine that holds two more rounds and can be easily topped off at any time, but the Garand uses a normal bayonet. The Garand's trigger is clearly better feeling and less complicated, but the Johnson's ability to quickly remove the barrel to clean from the breech and lack of a gas system to clean would have been a huge blessing in the days of corrosive ammunition. The Johnson's barrel doesn't get hot as fast, and cools faster, but it's because it lacks the wood handguards.

They both shot the full power cartridge of the era. They were accurate, loaded fast, and shot fast. Both held more ammo than their predecessor. The Garand proved to be dependable and I have little doubt the Johnson would have done as well (and remember the Johnson didn't have the gov't armory refinement and upgrades).

It's pretty impressive we had one standard issue full-power semiauto battle rifle in WWII. Nobody else did. Some did it on a limited basis eventually, but we had one all the way through.
We not only had one, but we had two rifles that could have done it.

 

Try to find a Bayonet for the thing. I know a dealer in Houston who has a Johnson Bayo, and he aint letting it go at any price. This guy usually only deals in all things Mausers.

 

Oh there are lots of bayonets out there for them.
Just not many that weren't made in 2001, instead of 1941!

If he has a real one, it might be worth what he is asking (to somebody). It wasn't much of a bayonet so they got tossed along a trail, if they even got unpacked, so they are scarce and scabbards are scarcer.
I'm not much of a bayonet guy anyway, so can't tell much about IDing one, but the main identifier I know from current repros (like from Sarco) is the rivet on the spring clip. Originals had a rivet that was domed, but the repros are mostly flat. There are other differences and bigger Johnson guys than me can spot them right off, but that's the one I have seen.

It's not just bayonets, either. I don't know what it is about Johnsons, but there seems to be an inordinate amount of fakery on the rifles themselves. I mean, the rifles are unusual enough as it is, yet some people feel the need to "improve" them. And they do it so poorly, by doing odd things like adding the gen-yoo-ine crest of her majesty the queen of Hingelhoffer.
Why? Pretty much anyone with the means to buy such a thing either knows their business or is going to do 30 seconds of research before jumping in.

Sadly, a lot of these rifles are owned by people who didn't do it, so they actually think they have something. Since they didn't hack it up, and it came from grandpa, they think it must be original.

 

M1941 the bayonet for the M1 ..

http://www.muetstege.com/images/johnson/index.html slideshow of bayonet..

 

Great stuff here. Im pretty sure he has a real one. This Mauser dealer is also the one I got my Mauser Sniper variant rifle from some 12 or so years ago. He has some good conacts and gets rare stuff in, and hes the one who sold me his prized Mauser to-for $200 less of the price.

 

Nice. Thanks for posting that. Nice pictures.
I don't have much interest in bayonets, but would like to get one for this Johnson sometime. A repro would be fine. I'd just want it to have as an example to show people.

There were some prototype "sword type" bayonets for them also. It had a somewhat triangular shaped blade when viewed from the side, and was rather wicked looking. It used a special attach point on the forend and a support at the muzzle, with the forend point apparently taking most of the weight so it wouldn't affect function. The blade looks incredibly long, but it also looks like hardly more than half of it sticks past the muzzle due to the way it's mounted.

 

There must be some Johnson goodies floating around in Texas. There is a retired gentleman who makes a lot of repair parts and does restorations on them in TX- I can't think f the town/city right now. He also buys/sells/trades them and goes to some shows in TX and OK. For what is a fairly obscure rifle, he surprises me at how many pass through his hands. I went to shows for years without seeing more than a handful, but it seems like he will buy or sell at least one or two every time... plus the parts people come bringing him.

 

Hi Barry, I THINK I may know whom your talking about? This guy only goes to big shows so ive never seen him in any Corpus Christi show. Ill have to ask Mr Schmidt (the guy I got my German Sniper variant from) and see if he can let me know what shows the guy goes to? The last great show I went to was in San Antonio when I met BGen David Lee "Tex" Hill and also the Enola Gays Navigator. I got to talk with both for awhile and got nice signed pics too.

 

Joseph Scott is his name. He did the restoration work on mine where the barrel had been "sporterized".
I think he is a retired machinist. He makes a lot of replacement parts himself.

 

Name isnt familiar must have never done a show in Corpus Christi. I know most fo the dealers who always sold ther as wellaas in San Antonio.