Key facts
- Type
- Medium machine gun
- Place of origin
- United States
- In service
- 1919–present
- Used by
- See Users
- Designer
- John M. Browning
- Manufacturer
- Buffalo Arms Corporation Rock Island Arsenal Saginaw Steering Gear division of General Motors
- Produced
- 1919–1945
- Number span no built
- 438,971
- Variants
- A1; A2; A3; A4; A5; A6; M37; AN/M2
- Mass
- 31 lb (14 kg) (M1919A4)
- Length
- 40.734375 in (1,034.65 mm) (M1919A4) 53 in (1,346 mm) (M1919A6)
- Barrel length
- 24 in (610 mm)
- Cartridge
- .30-06 Springfield 7.62×51mm NATO .303 British 7.92×57mm Mauser 6.5×55mm 7.62×54mmR 8×63mm patron m/32 7.65×53mm Argentine 7.5×54mm French
- Action
- Recoil-operated / short-recoil operation, closed bolt
- Rate of fire
- 400–600 rounds/min , (1200–1500 rounds/min for AN/M2 variant)
- Muzzle velocity
- 2,800 ft/s (853 m/s)
- Effective firing range
- 1,500 yd (1,400 m)
- Maximum firing range
- 1,500 m (1,600 yd)
via Wikipedia infobox
~40 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The M1919 Browning is a .30 caliber medium machine gun that was widely used during the 20th century, especially during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The M1919 saw service as a light infantry, coaxial, mounted, aircraft, and anti-aircraft machine gun by the U.S. and many other countries.
The M1919 was an air-cooled development of the standard U.S. machine gun of World War I, the John M. Browning-designed water-cooled M1917. The emergence of general-purpose machine guns in the 1950s pushed the M1919 into secondary roles in many cases, especially after the arrival of the M60 in US Army service.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Browning M1919” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.