TR675
08-26-2014, 09:16 AM
I was thinking about getting a new shotgun for dove season, maybe some skeet and sporting clays, and heard that Browning just recently came out with a new auto, the "A5" or something. So there I go traipsing down to the local fun store to have a looksee, and boy did I go nuts buying this hunk of junk. I really came away disappointed.
When I got there I asked if they had any Browning automatic shotguns, and they pointed me to a selection. These were pretty traditional looking, wood stocks and the like. They told me that they were "lightly used", and now I can see why. Well, it looked nice, so I ended up walking out with this one, and feeling pretty good about myself, although that would all change when I got it home...
2534
First of all, paging Bill Rhiel! Browning could really stand some advice in the materials they used for this thing! It's made out of big, heavy chunks of steel, not aluminum and polymer, so it weighs a ton. There is a lot of room for improvement. The finish is subpar too - it's just some kind of primitive bluing treatment over plain steel. It's pretty, but apparently you've got to keep it oiled to keep it from rusting - this is not acceptable in my book; you would think they could at least have melonited it. The wood looks nice, I guess, but it won't stand up to getting knocked around in a duck boat. Should be polymer for durability. 2/10 for execution.
Maintenance - because this was a lightly used gun, I had to look up the instruction manual on the internet. Would you believe that you can barely field strip the thing? You take the barrel off, sure, and the massive recoil spring slides off of the magazine tube, and that's about it. You've got to use a bunch of screwdrivers to disassemble it to get the bolt out, even, and there's a whole bunch of screws. I didn't even try. And don't get me started on putting it back together...that giant recoil spring is hard to compress unless you're Andre the Giant or something. 1/10 for ease of maintenance.
2535
Which brings us to the design itself - what kind of nonsense is this? There's no gas piston, no inertia driven system - I had to look this up, apparently it's a long recoil action! Seems way too complicated to me. That entire barrel recoils along with the bolt; I can only imagine what that does to the felt recoil. And there's no buttpad. So I have to give this 0/10 for the design.
Guys, this shotgun is no dang good. I can only hope to god that the Browning company fired the guy who dreamed up this thing.
But I guess this will teach me a lesson about trusting gun store employees. These guys can't know much about guns anyway, their entire store is full of dusty, rusty old muskets, old revolvers and even older milsurp bolt action rifles - there were hardly any Modern Sporting Rifles in there at all. Who wants that stuff? They were even selling a Chauchau! I know what that is after seeing it on the History Channel, it was the worst light machine gun ever and these guys would just sell one to some poor sucker. For shame. I don't know how they stay in business.
Not sure what I'm going to do now, maybe I'll take this hunk of junk down to the next gun show and see if I can trade it in for an 870 Express or something. In any event, at least you guys have been warned - stay away from those Browning auto's.
When I got there I asked if they had any Browning automatic shotguns, and they pointed me to a selection. These were pretty traditional looking, wood stocks and the like. They told me that they were "lightly used", and now I can see why. Well, it looked nice, so I ended up walking out with this one, and feeling pretty good about myself, although that would all change when I got it home...
2534
First of all, paging Bill Rhiel! Browning could really stand some advice in the materials they used for this thing! It's made out of big, heavy chunks of steel, not aluminum and polymer, so it weighs a ton. There is a lot of room for improvement. The finish is subpar too - it's just some kind of primitive bluing treatment over plain steel. It's pretty, but apparently you've got to keep it oiled to keep it from rusting - this is not acceptable in my book; you would think they could at least have melonited it. The wood looks nice, I guess, but it won't stand up to getting knocked around in a duck boat. Should be polymer for durability. 2/10 for execution.
Maintenance - because this was a lightly used gun, I had to look up the instruction manual on the internet. Would you believe that you can barely field strip the thing? You take the barrel off, sure, and the massive recoil spring slides off of the magazine tube, and that's about it. You've got to use a bunch of screwdrivers to disassemble it to get the bolt out, even, and there's a whole bunch of screws. I didn't even try. And don't get me started on putting it back together...that giant recoil spring is hard to compress unless you're Andre the Giant or something. 1/10 for ease of maintenance.
2535
Which brings us to the design itself - what kind of nonsense is this? There's no gas piston, no inertia driven system - I had to look this up, apparently it's a long recoil action! Seems way too complicated to me. That entire barrel recoils along with the bolt; I can only imagine what that does to the felt recoil. And there's no buttpad. So I have to give this 0/10 for the design.
Guys, this shotgun is no dang good. I can only hope to god that the Browning company fired the guy who dreamed up this thing.
But I guess this will teach me a lesson about trusting gun store employees. These guys can't know much about guns anyway, their entire store is full of dusty, rusty old muskets, old revolvers and even older milsurp bolt action rifles - there were hardly any Modern Sporting Rifles in there at all. Who wants that stuff? They were even selling a Chauchau! I know what that is after seeing it on the History Channel, it was the worst light machine gun ever and these guys would just sell one to some poor sucker. For shame. I don't know how they stay in business.
Not sure what I'm going to do now, maybe I'll take this hunk of junk down to the next gun show and see if I can trade it in for an 870 Express or something. In any event, at least you guys have been warned - stay away from those Browning auto's.