Rank these firearms pioneers by their contribution to history

1. Browning
2. Everybody else

Browning
Henry
Grand
Meh

quote:

---

Mikhail Kalashnikov

---

Everyone else.

Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling
The designer of the first successful machine gun, although not the first automatic machine gun. It was, in effect, a gigantic revolver of six barrels operated by a hand crank. A bin of several hundred loose rounds (not belt-fed) was set on top and gravity fed the ammunition into the breech, enabling someone who knew nothing of firearms to lay a sheet of lead into an advancing army, at about 200 rounds a minute. To the Civil War soldiers accustomed to muzzle-loading single rounds at a time, this might well have been like seeing something out of Star Wars.It had its drawbacks, though, primarily that so much black powder churned up into a huge cloud around the weapon, and all the enemy artillery and snipers honed it on it.

John Cantius Garand
The designer of the M1 Garand, which the U. S. military used to great effect in WWII, Korea and even Vietnam. General George Patton famously called it, “the greatest battle implement ever devised.” It was the first successful semi-automatic rifle to be issued to the military of any country. It fired the 30-06 Springfield round, an extremely powerful piece of hardware, which had been the standard since 1906, when it was patented for the bolt-action Springfield.Soldiers entering combat were confident of themselves, because they had 8 rounds of serious firepower that they could fire as fast as they could pull the trigger. No movement was required to operate the action of the weapon, and the weapon weighed around 10 pounds: light enough to carry easily, yet heavy enough to manage recoil.

David Marshall Williams
Carbine” Williams went to prison in 1921 for selling moonshine, when the raid on his still resulted in an officer’s death. Williams swore that he was not guilty, and his trial resulted in a hung jury. However, he then confessed to 2nd degree murder, having fired at a sound without knowing if it was a man or an animal.He was sentenced to 20 to 30 years, but was pardoned after 8 years because, in the prison machine shop, he invented two brilliant principles for the military’s firearms. Most importantly, he invented the short-stroke piston for use in gas-operated small arms. His patented design has not been improved on since 1940, when he perfected it, and it was first used in the M1 Carbine. The U. S. military had been searching for a lighter alternative of the M1 Garand, but still with long-range capability and stopping power.Williams’s short-stroke gas piston was the key. He also invented the floating chamber, which greatly reduces recoil, and enabled the military to train its machine gunners with less expensive .22LR ammunition.

Gaston would probably be at or near the bottom of the list you posted, but he belongs on it.