Was there more than one Eric Johnson, barrel maker & noted small-bore shooter? I thought he lived in New Haven, CT and worked for Winchester as his day job. His shop records are in the ASSRA archives. IIRC, C.S. Landis mentions Eric Johnson & New Haven in his 1932 book on smallbore rifle shooting.
I shoot an Eric Johnson Ballard as my smallbore offhand rifle. It's a dandy.
Eric Johnson:
Eric Johnson is best remembered today for the .22 caliber target rifle barrels he made as well as for his shooting abilities with them. Eric was the 1926 National Gallery Champion and the 1929 National Small Bore Champion. Eric also wrote an interesting article about .22 rifles in the March 1st 1925 American Rifleman titled “The Peculiar “22”.
Eric Johnson grew up in Orebro, Sweden a short distance from Stockholm. At the urging of a close friend he moved to America in 1904 and joined that friend at Fyrberg & Son at Worcester, Massachusetts making cheap revolvers and break open shotguns. Sears Roebuck & Co. bought the company in 1905 and moved it to Meriden, Connecticut and renamed the company Meriden Firearms Company. By 1907 Eric was the assistant foreman in the barrel shop and by 1908 he was the foreman. Meriden was bought by New England Westinghouse Company in 1915 for the production of 900,000 Mosin-Nagant rifles for the Russian government. Next Johnson worked on Colt barrels for the BAR (Browning automatic rifle) and after WWI Thompson machine gun barrels. In May of 1923 Frank Hoffman offered Johnson a job as barrel maker for the Hoffman Arms Company (PS February, 1998). Eric Johnson took the job and brought his friend John Dubiel with him to Cleveland, Ohio.
When the Hoffman Arms Company was bought in 1925 and moved from Cleveland, Ohio to Ardmore, Oklahoma both Eric Johnson and John Dubiel moved with the company. Eric Johnson left Hoffmans in early 1928 before it went out of business. He moved to New Haven, Connecticut, got married and went to work for Winchester as a barrel- straightening specialist. He returned to Ardmore, Oklahoma on April 15th, 1932 as “Eric Johnson” advertising: “Barrels are fitted in any caliber & stocks made to order.” The stockmaker would have been John Dubiel. An announcement in July, 1932 American Rifleman reads the “Dubiel Arms Co. Dubiel & Johnson Proprietors”. This made a lot of sense, business wise, because John Dubiel’s name was well known as a maker of fine gunstocks at Hoffman’s as well as his having his name on the .280 Dubiel cartridge. The illustrated Eric Johnson rifle is marked with a die.
ERIC JOHNSON
ARDMORE, OKLA
I now understand why after over twenty years of collecting information this is the ONLY rifle I have ever encountered marked “Eric Johnson Ardmore, Okla”. There could be more out there marked this way; I would like to hear from anyone who has ever seen another one.
This partnership with Dubiel did not last long, Eric Johnson returned to his family in Connecticut April, 1933. He was first located at 168 Liberty Street Meriden, Connecticut. By December, 1933 he was at 169 Lombard St. New Haven, Conn. and by January, 1935 Hamden, Conn. He specialized in .22 caliber target barrels, beginning in 1933. I was told by his son Carl that Eric worked for the High-Standard company as a barrel maker and made his rifle barrels in his spare time. I am not sure how long he worked for High-Standard before he had enough business to go out on his own. The last barrel he made was for his own Ballard rifle which he made in 1965.
