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What is your experience with it? Reliability, ejection & any other facet you can think of?


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Can't speak about the 12 gauge model but I bought a new model sweet 16 A5 about a year ago. It has become one of my favorites because of it's light weight. It has never failed to eject or feed anything including my reloaded shells. They seem to run pretty clean. Buddy has a 12 gauge and they are pretty light also, it pushes him around a bit.

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I have owned 2 (I still own 1) of the new A5's in 12ga 3.5" both have been excellent performers, never a failure to feed or eject but I dont shoot high volume, my guns have only been fired a couple hundred times....Good luck....Hb

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I really like mine. I have got it on Thanksgiving 2018 and used it the rest of that duck/goose season. Totally reliable with 2 3/4" light loads through 3.5" Hevi-shot.
This year it developed a failure to extract issue early in duck season. Called Browning. They asked that I send the gun to them. I expected a huge delay and in no time the gun was back to me. It has functioned flawlessly since I got it back. Apparently the bolt face was redesigned and they dropped in a new one. Since then the gun as seen a case of 3.5" steel and some light target loads since coming back.
The gun has been shot a lot (probably 3 cases of waterfowl loads in different variations plus a case or so of target loads) and I am very pleased.

Browning absolutely stands behind their product and would no hesitate to recommend it.


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Originally Posted by bartman
Can't speak about the 12 gauge model but I bought a new model sweet 16 A5 about a year ago. It has become one of my favorites because of it's light weight. It has never failed to eject or feed anything including my reloaded shells. They seem to run pretty clean. Buddy has a 12 gauge and they are pretty light also, it pushes him around a bit.


I fondled an A5 in 16 ga. a couple months ago.
It felt as light as my 20 ga. Montefeltro.
I can see one in my near future smile

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I’ll have to add my 2. This isn’t to bash browning, but I won’t ever own one.

For Christmas my girlfriend bought me a new a5 sweet 16. The kinematic inertia gun. The speed feed only worked 40% of the time. Out of 10 tries it would only work 4.....on top of that it was shaving plastic off the shells and leaving brass shavings around the chamber area. Back it went. Local shop ordered me another one. This one left no marks on the shells, but the speed feed still had issues. On top of that, the 2nd one also had a recoil pad that didn’t even cover the entire wood butt-pad. The fit was horrible. Noticeable from a fair distance. Just not acceptable on a 1600$ shotgun. This one went back as well.


Rather than try for a third, I settled on a Franchi affinity 12ga in bottomland and an 800$ gift card to the store.


The Franchi works btw.

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The early 3.5" guns had some issues in cycling loads. The above may explain that, I'm not sure.

I know several with the 3" 12 GA and they have been very happy. These are guys shooting about 2 cases of heavy duck/goose loads a season.

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I have been pretty lucky with Browning products, which is usually why I buy them. Checked the speed feed feature on the Sweet 16 today on a rabbit hunt and it always worked. When I first bought the gun I ran 100 rounds thru the gun at the trap range in pretty much non stop manner just to see if the thing would work right.and it never failed to feed,fire or extract. The rest of the time I have fired the gun has been when I took it hunting. I tend to walk much and shoot little so the guns weight was a big selling point. A-5's probably weren't conceived with the high round counts in mind that clay shooters put through their guns but for field use mine serves it's purpose very well.

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Originally Posted by bartman
Can't speak about the 12 gauge model but I bought a new model sweet 16 A5 about a year ago. It has become one of my favorites because of it's light weight. It has never failed to eject or feed anything including my reloaded shells. They seem to run pretty clean. Buddy has a 12 gauge and they are pretty light also, it pushes him around a bit.


Yep. Too much push for a waterfowl gun IMHO. A buddy that I hunt with has one. It does function well, but it doesn’t behave like my Beretta does.

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Love the nostalgia of the Browning A5 but there are countless better ways to go over that gun.


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Originally Posted by passport
Love the nostalgia of the Browning A5 but there are countless better ways to go over that gun.

I agree especially at that price point. Having said that I have handled them in gun shops and I like the fit of an A5.

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I love the old Belgian Auto Five guns. This new A5 kinda leaves me cold. But then I have a couple of Benelli's for my inertia guns and Beretta for a gas gun. Most fond of my old Belgian Twenty and Sweet Sixteen. Those are real A5's!


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I'm not to much on nostalgia. Had an old A5 and after several season of hunting with it traded it off. 16 gauge shotguns are prolly kinda dumb, 5 3/4 lb shotguns not so much when you walk a bunch. Shells are available at Walmart and checking the price of throwing 1 oz of #6 and 7 1/2, its cheaper with the 16 than high brass 20's. For rabbits, squirrel and doves it works just fine Currently looking at a Montefeltro 20 as the next purchase.

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I really like my A5, the 3” version. I am not a Browning fan, but it fit me better than any other auto I tried and I picked it up at a really good price. My SBE rarely leaves the safe now.


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Browning gives these shotgun's a 100,000 round guarantee so they must have confidence that they will hold up for the long haul 👍.....Hb

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First, few will ever come close to shooting 100,000. Second, since few will come close, essentially they are saying if it breaks we will fix it. In accordance with the disclaimers. Therefore, their 100,000 number is fairly meaningless as it applies to long term durability. I can pretty much guarantee, if you try to get to 100,000, you are going to be using the guarantee, and more than once.

It’s a SA and usually is a parts replacement that you end up buying yourself rather than sending It back and waiting; they know it going in when they make the guarantee.

Sounds impressive on paper.

Last edited by battue; 01/08/20.

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Originally Posted by battue
First, few will ever come close to shooting 100,000. Second, since few will come close, essentially they are saying if it breaks we will fix it. In accordance with the disclaimers. Therefore, their 100,000 number is fairly meaningless as it applies to long term durability. I can pretty much guarantee, if you try to get to 100,000, you are going to be using the guarantee, and more than once.


Uh huh.


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Originally Posted by battue
First, few will ever come close to shooting 100,000. Second, since few will come close, essentially they are saying if it breaks we will fix it. In accordance with the disclaimers. Therefore, their 100,000 number is fairly meaningless as it applies to long term durability. I can pretty much guarantee, if you try to get to 100,000, you are going to be using the guarantee, and more than once.

It’s a SA and usually is a parts replacement that you end up buying yourself rather than sending It back and waiting; they know it going in when they make the guarantee.

Sounds impressive on paper.
So what is your point? Your saying if the gun breaks Browning will fix it so they must be a POS?....and whats SA?....Hb

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