House of Browning

William Mason

1837-1913

William Mason was a quiet, retiring man whose work would produce some of the most iconic firearms in American history. He started his career as a pattern maker before becoming involved in the design and improvement of looms and weaving equipment.

In 1861 Mason joined Colt’s as a tool and gauge maker. His stay was brief and he soon left to work for Remington.

In 1862 Mason moved to Remington as superintendent of manufacturing machinery. While at Remington he invented a swing-out cylinder for a revolver. The patent was assigned to Remington, but never produced. The design incorporated the cylinder, arbor, and crane. It would later be integral to nearly every double-action revolver produced by Colt and Smith & Wesson. The later years of his association with Remington was as a subcontractor producing muskets for the Union Army during the Civil War. At the wars end the government revised their contracts and drove Mason’s manufacturing plant out of business.

By 1866 Mason returned to Colt’s as a master mechanic and designer. His renewed association would result, in collaboration with Charles Richards, in the Model P, also know as the 1873 Peacemaker Single Action Army. Mason’s first independent contribution to Colt was the Model 1877, dubbed the “lightning” by one of Colt’s distributors. The Lightning was a success despite its delicate and complicated action. It is regarded as one of the worst double-action designs ever produced. Later double-action revolvers produced by Colt would prove more reliable and feature the swing out cylinder designed by Mason while with Remington. Mason would also contribute to Colt’s shotgun and double rifle designs.

Thomas Bennett would recruit Mason in 1882 to work for Winchester as a master mechanic. His first task was to create several prototype revolvers avoiding Colt’s patents. Bennett then used the pistols to leverage Colt out of the rifle market. Mason then moved to the lever action rifle. Mason’s rifle designs were failures, often unproducible due to complexity and fragility. Mason excelled, however, in adapting prototype designs for production. He would refine nearly every Browning design for manufacture and improved or invented many of the tools and gauges that produced them. Among those tools was an automatic barrel drill that allowed Winchester to boast they were the first company able to drill the full length of their rifle and shotgun barrels.

Mason would retire from Colt’s in 1910. He would spend the winters in “the south”, presumably in Florida as was fashionable at that time.

US Patents: