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Typed Form No. 1 investigative report dated September 1, 1933, listing pistol and rifle serial numbers.
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Bureau of Investigation report, 1 September 1933: Ordnance Division traces Colt .45 pistols and Browning automatic rifles taken from the Barrow gang

Form No. 1 report by Dwight Brantley, Washington, D.C., listing by serial number the Colt .45 pistols and Browning automatic rifles the War Department says were stolen from Illinois and Oklahoma National Guard units.

Date
1933-09-01
Kind
case-file
Source
FBI Records: The Vault
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Rights
A record of the Federal Bureau of Investigation released under FOIA in the FBI Vault. A work of the United States government, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The stored image is a grayscale render of the Vault viewer's page scan.

Part 02 of the FBI Vault’s Bonnie and Clyde file, page 81 of the viewer. A Form No. 1 report by Dwight Brantley, made at Washington, D.C., on 1 September 1933, in the case titled Clyde Champion Barrow, National Motor Vehicle Theft Act. The form’s header reads file number 26-3243; the stamp on the page reads 26-4114-94, dated 5 September 1933.

The War Department’s Ordnance Division advised that Colt .45 pistols #237489, #505915 and #435167 and Browning automatic rifles #252152 and #251620 were United States property stolen from Company E, 129th Infantry, Illinois National Guard, Chicago, and that Browning automatic rifle #86221 was stolen from Company A, 180th Infantry, Oklahoma National Guard, Wagoner, Oklahoma. The Ordnance Division had no record of Colt .45 pistol #327794.

This is the page the section uses for the serial numbers. The report traces the weapons to their owners; it does not describe any shooting.

Object: Typed Bureau report on Form No. 1, one page
Maker: Dwight Brantley, Bureau of Investigation
Date: 1 September 1933
Provenance: Bureau file 26-4114, released in the FBI Vault
Appears in: FBI Vault, Bonnie and Clyde, Part 02, page 81

itemLetter from SAC F. J. Blake, Dallas, to the Director, 29 August 1933: Browning automatic rifles recovered from the Barrow gangDallas Special Agent in Charge F. J. Blake reports that four Browning automatic rifles recovered from members of the Barrow gang had in part been traced to Government armories, and suggests the Division ask the War Department to protect armories.itemLetter from J. Edgar Hoover to SAC Dallas, 8 September 1933: no Division recommendation to the War Department on armory theftsDirector Hoover answers the Dallas letter of 29 August, restating its suggestion that, since the Barrow brothers were armed with Browning automatic rifles stolen from National Guard units, the War Department be asked to protect armories, and says it would be inappropriate for the Division itself to make that recommendation.itemU.S. Rifle Model 1918 Browning Automatic .30, SN 12701 (Springfield Armory NHS, SPAR 3565)NPS museum catalog record for a Colt-made Model 1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, described as the "First production Model 1918 Browning Automatic Rifle off the Colt production line." It illustrates the rifle type traced from National Guard armories to the Barrow gang in 1933.