I write this with a heavy heart. Our friend Frank Brownell, just a few days shy of his 86th birthday, died Wednesday in Grinnell, Iowa. Many knew Frank, or of Frank. But they all knew his last name. It’s now synonymous with so many things. Of course, he also was the father of past NRA President Pete Brownell.
Although Frank never served on the NRA board, he was a leader when it came to NRA. Frank served as president of the NRA Foundation, and one of his favorite places in the world, rightly so, was the NRA Whittington Center. He loved it so much, he became a trustee. It’s a special place, as anyone who has been there knows, but he felt so strongly that he sponsored the Frank R. Brownell Museum of the Southwest. One of NRA’s three museums, it is located in the best place to shoot anyone will ever go. Period. Frank knew it, and he would tell anyone who would listen to meet him there. To shoot with him, to experience it for themselves. He would go on epic prairie dog hunts with my friend and American Rifleman contributor Bill Vanderpool. I always heard the stories, but I think I was too junior to attend. I’d like to think that once I was eligible, I was too busy.
For more than 60 years, he led Brownells and oversaw so much of the company’s growth. He was a great businessman, growing his family company successfully and responsibly—taking risks at times—but the Second Amendment and freedom were never far from his heart.
Frank was always an NRA guy. As a 17-year-old, in the February 1957 issue, he appeared on the cover of The American Rifleman. NRA was in his blood, through his Navy service, and through his service to the freedom and the shooting sports, he never faltered. In 2014, he was named the recipient of NRA Publications Pioneer Award. Rightly so.
He was a great and generous friend to NRA and its mission. He was successful in business, making his family name a household name, wherever gunsmiths and gun guys gathered.
As a young editor, I would occasionally need a tool that only came from Brownells. Any time I mentioned Frank’s company in an article, I would receive a handwritten note from Frank. Who does that? I’ll tell you who. Frank Brownell.
As a young editor, I also knew that any tool I needed would probably have to come from Brownells. The Brownells Gunsmithing Professional Screwdriver Set was (and is, as far as I am concerned) absolutely requisite for those who do not wish to butcher their or someone else’s guns. This may come as no surprise, but being an NRA assistant technical editor in 1992 was not a terribly lucrative vocation. I’m not sure it is now, either. But like Ralphie in “A Christmas Story,“ I mentioned that screwdriver set from Brownells to my father-in-law, a retired tool and die maker and machine repair man. That Christmas, when I was still engaged to his daughter, he and his wife had purchased the deluxe version of the Brownell set. And Joe told me, “If you want to do a good job, you have to have good tools. And these are good tools.“ I have added bits to it over the years, and I use it nearly every week.
If you’re a reader of the "Dope Bag," you will know there is not a byline. The reason for that is, long before I got to the magazine in 1991, if you told the truth about a gun’s issues, any hiccup encountered, some rambunctious gun company CEO might call the editor and demand your head. Better to be anonymous. Just the facts, ma’am. Frank read the magazine very closely. He sniffed out my writing style, my turns of phrase. He had sleuthed out pretty much every gun I had written up anonymously that year. No wonder his company was successful. He could see the big picture and the micro.
Always with a smile on his face and a love of freedom as part of his character, he built a legacy that my other Brownell family friend, Pete, continues to build upon. As we celebrate his life and express our deepest condolences to his family and friends, we should also remember that Frank was part of the NRA family. Our family. It has lost a great one. And he will be missed.
Mostly, I will miss his smile. And those notes. I kept them all. They will remind me of a man who rolled up his sleeves, built on a business started by his father and changed an industry. He was also my friend.
