Thomas Crossley Johnson was an American firearms designer. The son of a President of the
Yale Safe and Iron Company
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
, Johnson was trained as an
industrial engineer
Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information a ...
and worked for several companies prior to employment with the
Winchester Repeating Arms Company
The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was a prominent American manufacturer of repeating firearms and ammunition. The firm was established in 1866 by Oliver Winchester and was located in New Haven, Connecticut. The firm went into receivership ...
in 1885. While working for Winchester, Johnson was responsible for some of Winchester's most memorable gun designs:
*
Model 1903, first commercially available
rimfire self-loading rifle
*
Model 1905, first commercially available
centerfire
Two rounds of .357 Magnum, a centerfire cartridge; notice the circular primer in the center
A centerfire cartridge is a firearm metallic cartridge whose primer is located at the center of the base of its casing (i.e. "case head"). Unlike rim ...
self-loading
A semi-automatic firearm, also called a self-loading or autoloading firearm (fully automatic and selective fire firearms are also variations on self-loading firearms), is a repeating firearm whose action mechanism ''automatically'' loads a follow ...
rifle
*
Model 1911
The M1911 (Colt 1911 or Colt Government) is a single-action, recoil-operated, semi-automatic pistol chambered for the .45 ACP cartridge. The pistol's formal U.S. military designation as of 1940 was ''Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, M1911'' for t ...
, self-loading shotgun
*
Model 12,
slide action
Pump action or slide action is a repeating firearm action that is operated manually by moving a sliding handguard on the gun's forestock. When shooting, the sliding forend is pulled rearward to eject any expended cartridge and typically to coc ...
shotgun
*
Model 21, double-barreled shotgun
* Model 51, "Imperial" bolt-action sporting rifle
*
Model 52 bolt-action smallbore match rifle
*
Model 54 bolt-action hunting rifle (which evolved into the renowned
Model 70).
From beginning employment with Winchester in November 1885 to his death in 1934, Johnson was named on 124 patents assigned to the company.
Sources
# Madis, George, ''The Winchester Book''. Houston: Art and Reference House 1971
# Williamson, Harold, ''Winchester, The Gun That Won the West''. Washington: Combat Forces Press 1952
External links
* https://centerofthewest.org/2017/03/03/t-c-johnsons-bolt-action-experiments
* https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2017/12/14/guns-t-c-johnson
{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, T. C.
1934 deaths
Firearm designers
1862 births