Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns Opinions on the new A5?

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

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 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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

Uh huh.

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

No, if I thought it was a POS I would call it that. First off the warranty is 100,000 or 5 years, which ever comes first. I could have said you were FOS, but didn’t do that either.

“100,000 ROUND GUARANTEE -- OR FIVE YEARS.
We are so confident in the A5, we are standing behind it with a 100,000 round or five year guarantee that this shotgun will work, come hell or high water.”

Only shoot it 500 times in 5 years? Goodby warranty.

So, the point is few are going to pound 20,000 per year out of the A5. Which means while they will stand behind it, 100,000 is little more than an advertising gimmick that sounds good more than anything else.

SA stands for semi-automatic, and I’ve yet to see any Semi-auto go 100,000 without more than one small part breaking more than once. Usually nothing major on the good ones, for the most part pins, springs, gas mechanisms and such. Parts that are usually easily replaced by the owner. Occurrences that are more conveniently taken care of without the hassle of boxing it up and sending it back, combined with the resulting wait. Who pays the shipping? Browning isn’t famous for quick repair times. Have it happen during hunting season and you won’t see it to finish out the season. Fix it yourself and relative inexpensively most often, and you will.

The warranty is fine, but reality is they know few will be using it.

I’ll call it that. An overpriced POS.....1600$ and I got 2 lemons back to back.......what’s the chances ?

and the old ones keep clunking along..........

Clunking is a very accurate description. For their time they were better than good. Today, the old A5 has been surpassed in many ways.

Even now, I’d take the original SuperX1 over the A5. The Beretta and Benelli has been beating it for maintenance, reliability and fitting accommodation for years. Really it's been decades.

With class...

Oh yes, I agree that very very few new A5 shotguns will ever see 100,000 rounds fired so the 5 year warranty is it 👍 ...And I am no gunsmith but it looks to me like all modern inertia guns use basically the same Bruno Cerovali action that Benelli bought back in 1967 so my lowely $595.00 Weatherby Element (Turkish ATA Arms) should run as inertia trouble free as My Benelli SBE 2, M2 and new model A5 just like the guns that shoot thousands of rounds at birds in South America where gas guns cant hang 😁...Hb

Been considering an A5 just because. Don’t know if that’ll happen as my 65 Auto 5 is a joy to whack Squirrels with. Just can’t leave it at home, ever. If I’m carrying an SA it’ll be either the Auto 5 as first choice & Remington 1100 as backup.

Quite a few Beretta gas guns used in Argentina. Just sayin.

My new A5 decision making process went kinda like this:

Scrolling through the Browning online catalog and saw one that kind of caught my attention, WOW.........that thing looks kinda racy!

Scrolled down a little further and found out it was a 16 gauge.............awww, I don't want one of those.

Scrolled down a little more...............dumb shotgun only weights 5 3/4 pounds..........maybe I outta think about this.

Beer math took over, a trip to Walmart and several gun shops indicated that yes, they still make shells for these things. Discovered the 1 oz loads in the 16 were cheaper than the high brass 20's. Purple shotgun shells are kinda goofy.

Okay, maybe I need to look at one of these things. Located a gun shop with one in stock and proceeded to said establishment.

Picked the gun up and thought maybe I have been doing things wrong for some time, the gun shop took all my money that day.

Went to the trap range to see if the thing would actually work 100 times in a row. I was the only one on the line and with the voice actuated system, used the speed feed and ran it 4 rounds of 25 non stop and it worked. The barrel was kinda hot when I got done, you couldn't touch it with your hand.

Found this website devoted to 16 gauge shotguns and saw pictures of this guy over there just killin it on wood ducks with the same model I had just bought with some sort of super lethal shotgun shells.

Bought a MEC 600 and components to ensure I didn't run out of shells...........the last time I reloaded shotgun shells was on mom's kitchen table sometime during the 1970's with a Lee Loader.

Loaded a batch and they all went boom, seemed to be a bit more vigorous than the store bought stuff.

Currently thinking about Bismuth next year for this gun and looking upon my 870 Magnum express and 10lb BPS 10 gauge with disdain.

Opening day on squirrels this year resulted in dead stuff. Hunting public land so .22's prohibited.

Went pheasant hunting with friends and laughed at them with their big heavy shotguns.

A5's are light and I am having problems with follow through on my swings on dove.

Currently trying to negotiate with Battue on how to pump him for information on how to hit moving targets with a shotgun.

The end.

1: You could sit under a tree and cherry pick the incomes. Little fun in that.

2: Find a Skeet field and practice down gun on stations 2-3-4-5-6.

3: Shoot some sporting and pick the stations with just about anything 35yards and under.

4: You tube some videos on shooting pull away. Or with a light gun, move, mount, shoot.

5: If you are close as you said, then come nice weather PM me.

6: Flat after flat of shells opens many doors.

Not if your favorite color is purple.

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Quite a few Beretta gas guns used in Argentina. Just sayin.
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Your right, they do run some 390's 👍....Hb