My new doublegun.........sort of
 

I just picked up a Browning Double Auto, "Tomorrow's Gun Today". A 1963 Belgian made"Twelvette" with an aluminum receiver in Dragon Black. A lively gun at 6 3/4 pounds with a 29.5" factory vent rib barrel with a Colonial thin wall choke someone had installed. Browning did not make a lot of the DA's and it is a bit of an oddball gun. The clerks at the gun store had trouble closing the action and no clue as how to remove the barrel. Thanks to Youtube I had it figured out. I am hoping it will be a nice shooter. If anyone has or had a Double Auto I'd like to hear your experiences.

http://www.randywakeman.com/Browning...ingsFinest.htm

Neat one Pete.

That's one of my favorite guns, I love the action and feel of it. hopefully you will enjoy it! Be careful not to turn the end screw, it will mess up the timing of the action.

Thanks, it's new to me, where is the end screw located?

it's the aluminum piece with the holes in it that the forend pin goes through, it turns to loosen and tighten the spring. if your barrel becomes loose that's the way to tighten it up, but use caution when doing so.

Very interesting and well made gun, about 20 years ago I had a twentyweight model , it was only 6 lbs. I thought it would be a great grouse gun but I had trouble getting used to the safety. I also shot a standard weight one with a channel rib at skeet and liked it. Have you tried the speed load feature out? Good luck with it.

It shoots great, missed the first target after fumbling the safety and ran the next 24 in skeet. Used the speed loader and the first couple of times the action did not fully close, then it worked fine. I figured it might have been gummy from sitting a long time. Nice gun, very happy with it.

There’s a guy down here that was a so called Browning collector and in his accumulation he had no less then fifty or sixty Double Auto’s . He had several that the recievers were I assume anodized in blue and red and brown and some other color/s .

i have seen a few of these guns have had one in my hands it handled nicely....just never owned one good luck with the new gun...charlie

When I shot international skeet in the Army one of the officers had one. I shot it a bit and liked it so much I searched for one but never found it before the Army got tired of me and let me go home. Nice handling gun.

I have one with the brown receiver and no vent rib. Using 1 1/8 oz. it kicks me like a mule. My friend had one and we shot it that same day at clays. His kicked me the same. My head still hurts from it and I have not shot it since.

I shot some 7/8 ounce loads at 1200 fps and they were comfortable I also shoot some 1 ounce loads at 1150 fps and the recoil was not too bad. I'll use 7/8 ounce on clays and 1 ounce on crows. I have shot 7/8 loads at clays for so long I think the recoil of 1 1/8 ounce is stiff out of any gun.

I read up on the gun before buying it and I knew the color of the aluminum receiver affected value. This was priced right and I bought to be a shooter. It really doesn't feel like an any other auto when I handle it. It's an odd enough gun to be interesting and fun to me.

Pete, great find. I have owned about six different Double Autos over the years. All shot really well and i liked them. Wish i had kept at least one. Seeing yours makes me want to buy anther. Yours is in really good condition. No worm holes in the buttplate and the particular rib on yours is fairly rare. Maybe I will go on the hunt:) Can't wait to see it.

Worm holes in the butt plate, I had forgotten about horn butt plates and the problem with the Powder Post Beetles. If you look closely at the butt plate in the picture I posted there is some damage. It looked kind of weird to me and I assumed it was plastic and damaged from the gun going in and out of gun racks but now I know. By '63 I read Browning had gone to plastic butt plates but some say they were still using up old stock. I bought to shoot it, the price was right, I saw the choke tube install as a plus. The gun was not used very much and overall it's very nice, if I really like it and use it a lot I can put another butt plate or have a pad put on it.

When I mentioned shooting 1 1/8 ounce in the Double Auto that is what I shoot at doves and I thought I may take it out. But I did not like the recoil so I never did. I think 1 ounce or less is probably ideal for the gun.

I believe I remember this being a design of Val Browning, and the auto feed feature he designed was adapted over to the A5, thus making the production cost even higher, which led to the A5 being so expensive to manufacture.

When I was a little boy, I'm not sure how old, my dad went to a neighbor's house, who was the same age as my dad, they had been in the war at the same time. Daddy asked David if he could see his Browning and David obliged. It was a Browning Double Auto, not sure if it was the 12 or 20. I thought that day it was the most beautiful gun I had ever seen, the family still owns the gun and know the value of the sentimentality. I've picked several up since then thinking of buying but I never have, but I still believe the streamlines of the shotgun and the gold inlay are as pretty as a useable gun can be. Congratulations!

Thank you. The Browning DA was only made in 12 ga. Not many were built, 67,000 or so. There were three models. A standard with a steel receiver that weighed around 7 3/4 lbs. The "Twelvette", which is what I have with an aluminum receiver at 6 3/4 lbs and the "Twentyweight" around 6 1/4 pounds. The aluminum receiver guns came in a variety of receiver colors with some being quite rare. It came with either a plain barrel, a solid channel rib or a vent rib in a variety of lengths and chokes. From what I see on gun for sale sites they did come with 1/2" increment barrel lengths 27.5, 29.5 etc. Perhaps people measure them differently.

I have not shot it very much yet but I found it handles and feels different than my Rem 1100's and Ithaca 51, it's not as nose heavy and lighter overall. I think it's a good gun that never caught on. If you want to shoot heavier loads I would go with the steel receiver model. If you like 7/8 and 1 ounce loads the lighter gun seems fine.

This guy did a great job explaining the history and the operation of the Browning DA.