Just bought a 20 ga A5 Browning
 

One of our club members had a virtually untouched 20 ga Browning A5 for sale this weekend. While I've been a sxs guy all my life I have always had a soft spot for Browning A5's. Just couldn't resist. Came with all chokes. I paid our club member $800 for it which I thought was a good deal. Immediately shot a round of skeet with it, 20 out of 25. In as much as my dad and uncles would turn over in their Graves knowing that I bought a semi automatic, I just had to have it. Love the sound of the action closing! Thank you Browning for making so many fine guns.

John Browning designed and a whole lot of fun to shoot. I own four Remington Model 11's. Nice pick up.

I love the A5s and always failed to understand complaints about the recoil, which resulted in so many of them having the beautiful horn butt plate cut off of the Belgium guns and an ugly White-Line pad being added. Except for the 12 magnum which one had no choice. The guns being steel are so much heavier than other semi-autos that in my opinion I don't even notice the recoil.

When I remember quail hunting on Eastern Shore in the 80s I kick myself for ever letting go of my Auto 5 20 gauge. Invector barrel and iron sight smoothbore slug barrel. That gun hit everything it pointed!! Allen, you got a very good buy, there!

That must be a later model made in Japan if it interchangeable chokes?

I have my dads 20 a5 he left to me. I was with him in 1975 when he bought it at the kittery trading post in maine. He always love his a5s he had a 12 ga mag. Too.

Allen
The 1st gun I purchased was a used A-5 light 20 in 1968. Great gun.
I still have it and still shoots great!
Shot a few rounds of skeet with it about a month ago.
Most people have an issue with the barrel movement.

I love Browning auto 5s. My first “real” gun was a Remington model 11 20 gauge. Still have it. When I could afford the Belgian Brownings I acquired one of each gauge. Good price on your’s. Mine are all 1963 models. All Auto 5s are great guns. Historical time piece. Enjoy!

As a kid I thought A-5’s were it and wanted one . In later life got a Lite 12 , Lite 20 , a couple 12 MAG’s and a 20 MAG all Belgium made . Also got into model 11’s a few years back and at one point had six three 20’s , two 12’s and a 16 . Truth be told I shot the 11’s a good bit more than the Brownings and actually thought the 11’s felt a bit better in my hands . But regardless I liked them both .

I shot skeet for a decade with a Remy Model 11 20. I loved that little gun and did well with it. Then I got sick and thought it was over and I sold it. I recovered but the little 20 is gone. You have to kind of get used to looking over the hump and the barrel movement is a bit of a handfull. Sometimes it seems as if the gun is trying to jump out of your hands. But I love those Browning Auto fives.

Hey Allen, at least it doesn't have a black polymer stock. Sounds like a good deal to me.

I have my fathers Browning A-5 20ga. 26" Improved cylinder as well. This is the early version with the round knob-long tang and reddish stock finish with the rust blued action. It was made in 1962(best era in my opinion). He bought me a later 1970's A-5 20 ga, when I was about 12. These Browning 20 gauges with the Imp. cylinder chokes were the perfect gun for all the coveys of Quail in southern Ohio we had back in the early 70's. The best part though was spending time with my father and brother in the fields with our great Brittany Jinx.

I have an auto five with a "skeet" choke tube screwed into it, and it is a Belgium gun. I have no idea what kind of a choke tube it is. No brand name on it.

THE Auto-5
 

I can't resist a really clean Belgian Auto-5 1960-1966. I guess it all started when my older brother got one for Christmas in 1964. I have my Dad's Light Twelve and will forever. Those WWII guys came back after being exposed to the semi-auto and full auto stuff and the side x sides just didn't do it anymore. I have several now, including the 3 shots and grades 2 and 3. They were made by the master and he did it well; just like everything else he did.

My father bought a new 12 gauge Auto 5 and did not like it. Dad said it was to heavy to carry in the field all day and he was staring into that "hump" every time he threw it up to his shoulder. He traded the Browning for a Remington 878 with a 28" modified choke and promptly had the barrel shortened. He never bought another shotgun. I never saw him miss a bird. That 878 rests in my gun safe, and will until I am gone. Unfortunately, there is no one else in the family that appreciates firearms that I can leave it to.

My dad had a 16 ga. A-5 with serial number 1912.I always thought that meant the date of manufacture when I was growing up. When my dad was in his mid 80's unfortunately, he sold it for $250 to a cousin of my wife. I was very pissed at both my dad and wife's cousin and tried to find out who ended up with the gun but never did. I ended up buying a 12 ga. A-5 that was made in 1927 about 5 years ago that was in great condition but later sold it to a coworker that wouldn't stop begging me to sell it to him.

My favorite squareback is a Model 11 Remington 20 gauge with a round top conversion and extended trigger assembly, probably made by Griffin and Howe or Abercrombie and Fitch. The stock was made to cover up the squareback, but I don't know why the trigger mechanism was moved back. I have seen one other like it, also a 20 gauge. No markings to identify the maker. Does anyone know what I have?

A lot of folks don't know that the round knob A5 20 gauge is the scarcest of the A5s. Browning did not start making 20s until 1958. In 1967,they went from the round knob to the square knob stock. So the round knob 20 was only made for 8 years. If you look on gunbroker or gunsinternational you will see 50 or 60 12s and sweet16s, but less than 10 20s and only one or two round knob 20s. Very hard to find.

Auto-5 12 gauge
 

This just popped up on GI. Although, it's been re-done, it has nice wood and it's a good looking pre-war gun. It looks like a grade II or a transition to the grade I. Browning may be able to provide a letter on it saying what exactly it is; grade II or grade I. If desired, Art can reestablish the missing engraving around the bolt release button and the zigzag border. Or just shoot it the way it is. Only $900 bucks. Toys...
X
https://www.gunsinternational.com/gu...n_id=103174312

I would have to check my Browning book for sure but I think the 20 gauge only had the rust blued actions from 1958 to 1963 and started Dulite bluing them after that. It took me years to find the rust blued version that was still new in the box. I should have never let this gun go but my brother wanted it to raffle in a quail unlimited banquet. If it had been choked imp. cylinder instead of full-I probably would have kept it.

I always wanted an A-5 but was too dumb to buy one at my employee's 25% discount when I worked in a major sporting goods store in the late 1960s - early 1970s. I saw one at a local gun show a few years ago that was the quintessential duck (blind) gun - a 12 ga. 28" MOD VR RKLT version with the original funky FN hard buttplate complete with gun cabinet worm holes, washed out wood and receiver and barrel gone to pewter color. It had a broken rib just forward of the rib stanchion so the guy had it on the table for $180.

I bought it on the spot and took it home and tried to figure out how to completely disassemble it (booklet says remove forend & barrel and you are done). Couldn't figure it out so I called Browning UT and when I finally got to talk to a live human, the guy said, "Are you handy with tools?". I said yeah, reasonably so. He told me what I needed was the reprint of their 1923 Shop Manual which gave complete dissasembly instructions. I got it and took the gun completely apart (all 70-some pieces of it!).

I was so mesmerized with the design and function of the completely inertial spring driven action (no gas pistons or cylinders!) that I started to buy them in different variations (Sweet 16s, 3" Mags, etc.) to shoot and hunt with. How JMB got the recoil train to function with split-second timing and leverage to produce the rate of fire and reloading really put the sap on my head! I wound up having a collection of 15 of them at one time, including graded guns.

The strangest thing is that in all those years of searching and buying I never bought a 20 ga. for whatever reason. Years after I sold off all of them but my original broken rib gun, I saw a really nice 1965 A-5 20 ga. 28" MOD VR RKLT come up at auction. I bought it and added an extra FN skeet VR barrel (pricey but who cares!?). It is a great shooting little gun and fills my niche of the 'missing' smallbore A-5s.

Pics are of the broken rib 12 that started it all.......

The original Auto-5 and it's clones are proof that John Browning was a genius.

As close as I ever got to an A5 (or ever will); my dad's gun, Savage 775a in 16ga...

https://i.imgur.com/JKc6xXql.jpg

I had a similar gun, a Model 11 20 gauge. I shot it at skeet for two decades and loved that gun. Then I got sick and sold it, but wonder of wonders, I recovered and now my beautiful little 20 is gone. I like Model 11s better than Afives, (my computers five key has died), but I like them too.

I've got a Model 11 20 gauge that's a two barrel set. A 32 inch solid rib full and a 28 inch solid rib imp cylinder. It's a dandy little gun.

"Long Range"
 

Destry, are your barrel(s) marked "Long Range"? A 32" 20 gauge is indeed a rare one. I had to look it up because I wasn't aware they made one. INTERESTING.

No it's not marked Long Range. I've actually never seen a Long Range marked gun that I thought was real, though I know they supposedly made them.

The "Long Range" boring was only offered in 12-gauge --

Attachment 135045

I sold a bona fide "Long Range" marked 12 ga. M11 32" SR to a fellow IWLA duck hunter a couple of years ago after he told me he had to have it. I gave him an original "Long Range" sheet as Dave showed earlier along with it. With a Lab named "'Tank" (short for Choptank) I couldn't resist.

All 20s (except magnums of course) are Light Twentys, even though the Light may be missing on the engraving of the gun. There is no such thing as a Standard 20. The barrels have the three holes drilled in the ring.