M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle - Civilian Use

Civilian Use

With the cessation of hostilities, Colt Arms Co. received the Browning patents to produce the BAR that had been withheld from issue during the war. This allowed Colt to make the BAR available for commercial sale, including sale to civilian owners. The Colt Automatic Machine Rifle Model 1919, initially made up of overruns from the M1918 military production contract, was the first of several commercial Colt BARs that would follow. However, the high price of the weapon and its limited utility for most civilian owners resulted in few sales. Ad Topperwien, a famous trick shooter of the early 1920s, purchased one of the first Colt-produced BARs to perform aerial target shooting exhibitions. Occasional BAR sales were made to civilian owners through distributors such as the Ott-Heiskell Hardware Co. In 1931, the new Colt Monitor was made available to civilians during the Depression at $300 each, including spare parts kit, sling, cleaning accessories, and six magazines, but Colt records indicate no domestic sales occurred to individuals. After passage of the National Firearms Act of 1934, civilian BAR ownership was restricted even further. Importation of machine guns for U.S. civilian transfer was banned in 1968, and U.S. production of machine guns for civilian transfer was banned in 1986. However, some transferable civilian-owned BAR models exist in the United States, and occasionally come up for sale to qualified buyers. Some companies are manufacturing semi-automatic copies for sale to civilians.