Beschrijving

Oscar Frederick Mossberg (1866–1937) was born on 1 September 1866, in Sweden, near the village of Svanskog in Värmland, and emigrated to the United States in 1886. Mossberg went to work at the Iver Johnson Arms & Cycle Works in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. While at Iver Johnson, Mossberg supervised the manufacture of revolvers and shotguns while contributing some of his own patented designs, including a top strap latching mechanism for the Iver Johnson safety revolver. When Mossberg left Iver Johnson, he went on to manage the small factory of the C. S. Shattuck Arms Co. in nearby Hatfield, Massachusetts, which manufactured single- and double-barrel breechloading shotguns. From there, he went to work for J. Stevens Arms & Tool Co., where he designed a small four-shot novelty pistol which he patented in his name. Working out of an old barn behind his house, Mossberg and his sons made about 500 of these four-shot pistols between 1907 and 1909. In 1914, Mossberg left Stevens, moving to New Haven, Connecticut, in order to work for Marlin-Rockwell. In 1919, when Marlin-Rockwell went out of business (they primarily made machineguns, and World War I had just ended), the unemployed 53-year-old O.F. Mossberg and his two sons, Iver and Harold, started a new firearms company of their own, O. F. Mossberg & Sons. Renting a small loft on State Street in New Haven, the Mossbergs began work on a simple four-shot .22-caliber pocket pistol, the Brownie. Marketed largely to hunters and trappers for the humane killing of wounded or trapped animals, Mossberg produced approximately 37,000 Brownie pistols from 1920 to 1932

From the 1940s through the 1960s, Mossberg produced a HI line of .22 caliber target and sporting rifles.

After the end of World War II, Mossberg concentrated on producing sporting long guns for entry-level shooters.