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ORIGINAL: WomBeasel
The only johnson rifle I ever4 heard of was an autoloader made for the US military during WWII. I believe it was the gun used by the Devil's Brigade.
There's a note about them in the Blue Book that states they operated in New England and mostly produced semi autos in 30-06 and .270. So I guess they may have produced some bolts.
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How about some pics of that rifle??
The Johnson rifles of WWII fame were designed by Captain Melvin M. Johnson, USMC, but he did not MAKE them! Some were bought by the Dutch for use in Indonesia and some appear to have been issued to some U.S. Marine units foruse in the Pacific theater of operations. In addition to the rifle, there was a light machinegun version, and all of these were originally chambered in .30/'06. But it appears that some, "chambered for 7mm" ( 7X57mm??)were sold to some South American nations prior to US entry into WWII.
I believe a lot of the '06 version were dumped on the US surplus market after WWII, and were not too expensive at that time. However, they command a stiff price these days! I believe some were sold withnew .270 Win. barrels back then too. Not too difficult to do, as they had a relatively simple barrel-change feature.
Now, after WWII that same Melvin Johnson "designed" the "5.57mm MMJ" round by necking down the .30 carbine caseto .224. He rebarreled some M1 carbines to shoot it. A great beer-can load! But I am not aware of any BOLT ACTION rifles ever made by him, and certainly not in .250 Savage (a great little cartridge, BTW!!).
I would certainly like to know more about any good bolt-actions made in .250 Savage, regardless of who made them!
Johnson Rifles
