Eugene Gustavus Reising (November 26, 1884 – February 21, 1967) was an American inventor who designed the M50 Reising submachine gun in 1938. Reising was a ranking competitive target shooter. An ordnance engineer, Reising was the recipient of more than 60 firearm patents. Following his work with

Harrington & Richardson H&R 1871, LLC, or more commonly known as Harrington & Richardson, is an American brand of firearms and a subsidiary of JJE Capital Holdings. H&R ceased production February 27, 2015. History The original H&R firm was in business for over a cent ...

, he designed semi-automatic rifles for Mossberg & Sons, Marlin, Savage, and Stevens.

Biography

Of Swedish ancestry from a family that came to Delaware in 1635, Reising was born at Port Jervis, New York. He was the son of a railroad engineer who died when Eugene Reising was an infant. Reising attended Lehigh University for three years, then worked as a cowboy in Texas and Mexico for a few years. On returning to the U.S. he went to work for Colt, testing and selling guns. He worked with John M. Browning on the development of the

Colt Model 1911 The M1911 (Colt 1911 or Colt Government) is a single-action, recoil-operated, semi-automatic pistol chambered for the .45 ACP cartridge. The pistol's formal U.S. military designation as of 1940 was ''Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, M1911'' for the ...

pistol. In 1911, Reising served in Company A of the

Connecticut National Guard The Connecticut Military Department is a state agency of the government of Connecticut. Its primary components are the Connecticut Army National Guard, the Connecticut Air National Guard, and four companies of the state militia. The Military Depa ...

, winning a championship in expert riflemanship and giving demonstrations of the rapid reloading of semi-automatic pistols. In the same year he demonstrated a 9.8-mm version of the Colt pistol which was adopted as the M1911 to authorities of three Balkan countries, but two years later he was fired from the company for using a Luger pistol at a target shooting competition. In October 1925, Reising was indicted for violating the

Sullivan Act The Sullivan Act was a gun control law in New York state that took effect in 1911. Chapter 195, enacted May 25, 1911, effective September 1, 1911. The NY state law requires licenses for New Yorkers to possess firearms small enough to be conceal ...

after supplying pistols and Maxim Silencers to a member of the Cowboy Tessler gang, a group who were captured after a string of robberies and a gun battle with police in New York. He pled guilty to unlawful possession of firearms and was sentenced to fifteen months' imprisonment on

Welfare Island Roosevelt Island is an island in New York City's East River, within the borough of Manhattan. It lies between Manhattan Island to the west, and the borough of Queens, on Long Island, to the east. Running from the equivalent of East 46th to 85 ...

. In 1938, Reising began work on a new submachine gun. He submitted his design to Harrington and Richardson, and in March 1941, they started manufacturing it as the Model 50. Approximately 100,000 of these were made, and many were used in World War II. His wife, Frances Rose Reising, died in Hartford on April 26, 1947. He remarried, to Alice V. Fohlin. Eugene Reising died in Worcester, Massachusetts on February 20, 1967.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Reising, Eugene 1884 births 1967 deaths 20th-century American inventors American male sport shooters American people of Swedish descent Connecticut National Guard personnel Firearm designers Weapons scientists and engineers