NEW BROWNING AUTO/A5

B

Brian Joyce

Active member
Anybody own one and gunned with it since it has come out ?

Just looking for feedback on this specific gun.....

Thanks
 
Go to "duckhuntingchat.com" and you will see a Shotgun category. I've seen several posts/threads on A5s. Seems to be several negative feedbacks on it, particularly the 3.5 inch version. Seems that the 3 inch version might be more dependable.
 
I bought mine last year, 3inch.
The gun is awesome! never misses a cycle - I have shot it in some bad weather, too
I have yet to clean it, ran well over 500 rounds through it.
For me, the 'hump back' has helped make me a better shot, too


I would not hesitate to own another.
Bruce
Erie, PA
 
Can't let this go by. My old Light 12 is on the cover of both volumes of Duck Hunter Diaries published so far; retired when I went to a 3-inch Belgian for steel shot . Then a BPS 10 when I decided Browning was not going to beef up the A-5 to a 10. (Before there was a 3.5 12). Finally a Rem 10 auto. To call that new thing an A-5 in my humble opinion disrespects the genius of John Moses Browning. Beretta 92s are nice pistols but they ain't 1911s. All the companies building 19911As these days seem to stick to the canon. Why would Browning call this thing an A-5? It's like Smith calling those poly things Bodyguards when they are not the best humpback belly gun on earth, the original Smith Bodyguard. Browning could have stretched an A-5 to 3.5 as easily as imitating a Benelli. End of rant.
 
I do not own a new one, but my hunting buddy does. He loves it and has never had one lick of problems with it. He has owned it since they first came out with it. It's a 3" gun. He never cleaned it as he was afraid to take it apart. He asked me if I would clean it for him, so I completely disassembled it. To my surprise you could call it a Brownelli. Just as simple as my Benelli M2 and much the same design. A whole lot simpler than my 2 originals. I'm just wish they would make the new one in a 20 gauge version as this is my favorite gauge to shoot ducks and geese with. I don't think you would be unhappy at all.


Mark
 
Why would Browning call this thing an A-5?
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I don't know why they decided to call these new ones A-5s, but the best thing they could do to place themselves in the hands of folks wanting a reliable auto is to use a name other than Browning.
 
I don't understand why they won't simply continue to make the A5. I guess guys think they need to shoot doves and eiders or geese with the same gun? If they made the same gun with a more durable finish so it could be used in the salt that would be the onlyu reason for me to upgrade. I will shoot my A5 Magnum and only buy another duck gun if I can find a fair priced, decent condition Model 12 Heavy. Short of that the A5 Magnum is all the daily duck gun I could ever ask for. It's 50 years old and will outlast me, or I'll buy another used one for a 3rd of what the new guns sell for.
 
I don't understand why they won't simply continue to make the A5. I guess guys think they need to shoot doves and eiders or geese with the same gun? If they made the same gun with a more durable finish so it could be used in the salt that would be the onlyu reason for me to upgrade. I will shoot my A5 Magnum and only buy another duck gun if I can find a fair priced, decent condition Model 12 Heavy. Short of that the A5 Magnum is all the daily duck gun I could ever ask for. It's 50 years old and will outlast me, or I'll buy another used one for a 3rd of what the new guns sell for.
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It is a complicated gun and expensive to produce would be my thought. They are beautiful, especially up close. Feel great to hold.
 
It was a little intimitating to disassemble the first time, and I had to buy some special tools. I guess most folks want to be able to puck out a pin and break the gun down in the field. I would not try that with my A5. Keeper screws, and roll pins... brass drifts, gunsmith screwdrivers. But after 50 years, I had the first part failure 2 years ago. $18 later I was back in business. Everything is easy with Youtube! Plenty of tutorials out there.
 
I currently shoot an A-5 mag, new for my dad in 1953. Picked up another one a few years ago. If I were to buy a new gun...I think it would be the new A-5. All the reviews I have read about it are stellar. I agree, why not just use the old design...hard to improve on that. Realities of production cost obviously is the answer. Too bad....one hell of a gun!!
 
Why would Browning call this thing an A-5?
Click to expand...

I don't know why they decided to call these new ones A-5s, but the best thing they could do to place themselves in the hands of folks wanting a reliable auto is to use a name other than Browning.
Click to expand...

I agree, I have owned two humpbacks, one belgium and one jap model, always a wonder if the second shot will fire or not.
no experience with the new one, hopefully it is better than the old ones.
I even took one of them to a gunsmith , he disassembled the thing and cleaned it real good, deburred some parts inside and told me to run a couple of boxes thru it. I did and it functioned 50%, then after that I took it on a hunt and it was a single shot. even with the lightest setting.
great guns when they work them old auto 5's
 
Looks like a decent gun. Why they called it a A5 is marketing... I have been working on guns a long time and have had few real A5's here. Mostly for a 50 year first cleaning...Takes a lickin and keeps on ticking...Took a 1886 Winchester in for cleaning last year, never taken apart, inside frame was still sharp as day one. They were made to last back then...
Call it a A5a, like 1911A1...MHO
 
I literally counted the failures to feed on my A-5 over twenty years or so. Three--all on paper hand loads. Then spent a night on a marsh and was so whipped after that I neglected to take it apart and clean the follower spring. Five or six years later it stopped feeding and the spring was solid rust. Fixed and used until steel shot, when I got a Belgian Magnum. Lost that during a divorce that coincided with downsized out of a job three years short of retirement. It was this century before I got another A-5 Belgian three inch for under three hundred bucks, a Model 12 Heavy Duck for three exactly and and Model 24 double for two hundred. Three classics for the price of one of these plastic things they sell now. They will still be going next century but I wont. So will the original A 5 and the round knob I bought for Quebec in case of baggage thieves. Only Jap Browning I have is a BPS 10 solid as a bank vault. Browning designed of course.
 
More on Browning. If realities of production are such a big deal why was Taurus able to make a 92 clone on old Beretta machinery much cheaper and just as good? Why do these plastic short recoil things cost north of a thousand bucks? All manufacturing bugs on the A 5 were worked out over a whole century! It's like everybody has caught the Winchester 64 flu. Make cheap crap and charge way more. Winchester pumps have been a joke since 64. My oldest 12 was made the year the stock market crashed; a nifty little 20-gauge. They allegedly fixed the Model 70 after the 64 debacle. Guess none of this matters. The real old companies don't exist anymore anyway. It's all investor companies and such. I have a Model 94 Certificate from long ago that was a lifetime guarantee--period. No weasel words. But planned obsolescence flooded out the real old America. All our old timers will eventually need some repair--I have a 311 Savage with a busted firing pin--but good local gunsmiths are gone with the wind and the local post office refuses to let me ship it to an out of state firm. I studied the YouTube fix, but my hands and eyes aren't up to it. So I've got a Brazilian and a Turkish double and a Model 24 for twin barrel work. Now all I need is monkey glands and a pint of Fountain of Youth water and a winning lottery ticket...
 
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