Читать книгу American & British 410 Shotguns - Ronald Gabriel - Страница 12

CHAPTER FIVE

THE BROWNING SUPERPOSED 410

Perhaps the most used and beloved of the modern American double 410s for small winged game and clay pigeon shooting was and remains the Browning Superposed. This gauge was first introduced by Browning in 1960 in the Lightning model, and upgraded in 1967 to the Superlight version if the customer so chose. The 410 represents the pinnacle of John Browning’s gunmaking genius, although he died long before he would see his Superposed produced for the American market [1].

Browning filed the original B25 action patents October 15, 1923, and September 29, 1924. The patents were granted March 30, 1926, numbers 1578638 and 39, a landmark in gunmaking history and the end of the era of the world’s greatest inventive gunmaker for the ages, John M. Browning (1855 to 1926) [2].

Browning received 128 different patents for 80 different firearms in almost 50 years, from smoothbores to rifles, and from sporting arms to military automatic weapons. His gun designs were and continue to be made by many American and European firms, including Browning, Winchester, Colt, Fabrique Nationale (FN), Remington, Savage, etc.

FN of Liege, a Belgian Company and one of the premier continental gunmakers of this century, produced the Superposed in 1930. Proofing took place at the Liege Proof House and the guns were hand-assembled and finished in the FN custom shop. In 1931, the company began marketing the 12-bore Superposed in America under the “Browning Arms Co.” name. Browning was never a production company, except in the late 1800s, when they made the 1885 single-shot rifle [3