Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Replacing barrel on older Browning A-5 shotgun

Help! My dad has an older Belgium-made A-5 Light Twelve that he never uses. It has the original modified fixed-choked barrel. I'd like to shoot a little skeet/clays with it and maybe bird hunt some. Can you buy a new (or used) barrel with changeable chokes so I can do this? I want to keep the original barrel as-is.
Thanks,
Jed

I did that for a customer about a decade ago. I remember there was some changes to the barrel hood that needed to be done, but I'll be damned if I remember exactly what I did. But his A5 was an FN made in the 1920's and we were putting on a barrel made in the 1990's. with newer gun/barrel it will probably just drop right onto the gun.

What's wrong with using a modified choke for anything you listed?
Have you patterned the gun yet?
A modified choke in a A5 Light will do anything you want a non magnum gun to do. It would be expensive to get a barrel and a bunch of choke tubes only to end up using a modified choke 99% of the time.

This

Had my granddads A-5 30inch full fitted with a new Hastings barrel. Took a bit of fitting by the gunsmith. Shot well.

My old A5 wears a Jap VR bbl set up for winchokes.

Check these guys out, they keep plenty of A5 bbls:

http://www.barrelexchange.com/

I've only bought one barrel from them, but it was a smooth transaction.

I understand trying to get by with a modified choke but was thinking that a barrel with changeable chokes could then be a do-all gun for skeet, trap, birds and even allow me to try a little gobbler hunting for the first time.

Would it be best to get a new/used barrel set up for changeable chokes or can another barrel be bored and tapped for choke tubes?

Get the forcing cone opened up.

It will help with patterns and ease the transition for the shot down the barrel.

I use the same shotgun a Rem.870 12 ga.for dove,quail and turkeys.
Same gun for trap and skeet.

Saw a Japan A5 barrel with invector chokes in a pawn shop about a month ago. I think they wanted $150 for it. It was stuck in a barrel full of barrels. Bet they still have it. Let me know if you want their info, They might ship it.

Fldoghunter,
I absolutely would love to know if it was still there! Mine is a 2 3/4" 12 ga. Thanks in advance!

Most A5 barrels can be threaded for Thinwall choke tubes. I recently bought a barrel (for a customer) on Ebay for around $425, then I threaded his old barrel for tubes. He was happy.

Bill Jacobs