The Matthew S. Browning Collection was assembled by Matthew S. Browning’s grandson and namesake from 1928 to 1960 and gifted to the C.M. Russell Museum in 1976. The family’s collection holds a diverse range of Browning firearms, as well as an eclectic list of significant firearms that the family both displayed and shot.

Firearms, Technology, and the American West

Firearms, Technology, and the American West is an interpretive online exhibition of the Matthew S. Browning Collection of firearms that is displayed in the museum’s Ah Wah Cous Gallery. Featured in the exhibition are many examples of firearm design, technology, and function that impacted the lives of those on the frontier and elsewhere.

Introduction

From the 18th through the 19th century, the boundary that defined the American West shifted slowly westward as explorers, pioneers, and homesteaders responded to economic incentives, the opportunity for better living conditions, and the quest for knowledge. Each new wave of adventurers and migrants was aided by advancing technology in transportation, land cultivation, and firearms that drastically changed the landscape, population, and commercial activity of the region.

These upheavals, and the social changes they wrought, created new challenges and opportunities for a growing western populace and for eastern industrialists. The advancement and efficiency of firearms technology during this period became a catalyst for the industry; it opened the door for firearms to be used for self-defense, hunting, and sport shooting on a much larger scale than ever before.

Browning Designs

John M. Browning (1855–1926) is considered by many to be the greatest gun designer in history. Not only did he develop of range of firearms and cartridges, Browning invented entire firearms categories, filing 128 patents over 47 years. His designs reimagined some of the most sophisticated actions of the era, from the traditional lever action to the automatic machine gun.
Matthew S. Browning (1859–1923), John’s brother, played an integral role in the Browning Brothers business, managing their diverse operations. And, he too worked on firearm design, taking out thirty-four patents jointly with his brother.

Manufactured by noted names like Winchester, Colt, and Remington, Browning firearms became some of the most well-known guns of their time. And through these companies, John M. Browning was able to make a sizeable impact on warfare and the settlement of the American West.

 

Browning Model 1878 Single Shot Rifle
Browning Bros. (Ogden, Utah Territory)
.22 caliber
Serial number 369
Date: 1878
Guns from the Browning-Cowan Family
986-12-62

This Model was the first firearm John Moses Browning developed. He received his first patent October 7th, 1879 for this single shot, metallic cartridge firearm.This is number 369 of 600 Model 1878 Rifles made before Thomas Bennett of Winchester paid them $8,000 for a sample of the gun in the 1880’s.The Model 1878 would be modified to become the Winchester Model 1885 Single Shot Rifle. This gun marked the first time that Browning and Winchester would work together.

European Sporting Arms

Traditionally, sport hunting on European estates was a leisure activity reserved for the wealthy classes. Since the introduction of firearms in the fourteenth century, European nations have sought to limit the availability of firearms and restrict their access to the province of the moneyed classes and the military. For example, English game laws, first passed in 1671, allowed for the seizure of weapons from those who were not eligible to hunt—effectively limiting the privilege of the sport to wealthy landowners through much of the nineteenth century.

 

William Powell Cape Rifle
William Powell & Sons LTD (Birmingham, England)
.50 caliber
Serial Number A7373
Date early 1800s
986-12-33

American-Made Sporting Arms

Without European estates guarding access, American immigrants could roam the land freely—hunting to procure food, make a living, and enjoy sport. In the western territories especially, big-game animals and prized mammals, like the beaver, offered a tremendous natural resource that fueled economic activity, attracted adventurers and trophy hunters, and sustained growing populations.

Sportsmanship became increasingly modeled after the British aristocracy with the image of the gentleman hunter. Shooting sports and recreational marksmanship became popular social past-times and led to the formation of local shooting clubs and regional competitions. By the 1880s, sport hunting and riflery became popular pursuits of middle-class men and women. This democratization and expansion of hunting and gun ownership was achieved through the rapid development of new, affordable and dependable repeating firearms.

 

Sharps Model 1874 Rifle
Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Co. (Bridgeport, CT)
.44-90 bottleneck cartridge
Serial Number 58642C
Date: ca 1874
986-12-39

Early West (1730-1845)

Up until the 1830s, firearms were used sparingly in everyday life—handmade by individual artisans, guns were primarily luxury items or exercised for military combat. The typical firearm was a flintlock long arm, which fired a round musket ball with black powder. While most of these early muskets were imported from Europe, a growing demand at home necessitated the emergence of independent gunsmiths who, responding to the challenges posed by the American frontier, produced a new type of firearm—the Kentucky rifle.
By then, a number of successful Pennsylvania gunsmiths grew their operations and established “manufactories.” These forerunners of the industrial age harnessed water power (and later steam) to drive their machinery and produce firearms that catered to the growing number of frontier trading companies and emigrants heading west.

 

Davis Gray Flintlock Long rifle
Davis Gray (Lancaster, Pennsylvania)
.34 caliber
No Serial number
Date: 1700s
986-12-32Produced in America by German and Swiss emigrants, the Pennsylvania or Kentucky rifle was the first American designed firearm that took on the challenges of the frontier lifestyle in mind. They were carried west into Ohio and Kentucky as the western frontier expanded. The precision of the rifling in the barrel compared with a typical smooth bore musket made them more accurate at longer distances and allowed for a larger bullet. This gun was likely used as a squirrel rifle.