Shot a Browning Auto5

Recoil wasn't light for me, worse than a 12 ga 870 firing the same round.

A5's have been an old favorite of mine for years. Granddad's (both sides) shot them. They do have a deserved repution for kicking like a coliced mule.

If you felt the recoil was 'light', odds are the round you were shooting was light and contributed to the failure of function on the auto loader. Generally a good cleaning and a quality shell will make it humm along fine.

Good luck

If it's a magnum model you will have to swap the friction rings around, and possibly buy a new lighter spring if you want to reliably cycle target loads.

Recoil is generally considered heavy with the recoil-operated shotguns. My Franchi 48ALs with alloy receivers pop you pretty good... great guns though.

Man there seems to be lots of myths and opinions on the A5 regarding recoil. The weight with proper set up always made an A5 pretty soft on recoil to me. Here is an interesting write up on the A5 by Randy Wakefield that I found right on point about the A5. Maybe it will help you Dakota...

http://www.chuckhawks.com/confessions_A5_owner.htm

I have A5s in Light 20 and Light 12, never found recoil an issue and think these are wonderful guns. Some people think they are funny-looking, but some people are funny-looking too but you still like them. These guns are bull-stout, have no gas-system issues and yes, you can reverse the friction ring if necessary. I bought my first one after noticing hunters who could afford anything but were still shooting well-worn A5s.

I love my Auto Five. I have the Light Twelve model and it gets shot more than my more expensive over/unders. I'm mainly a trap/skeet/sporting clays shooter and this particular one I have has a barrel with a polychoke on it. I also switched out the original wood stock set with a Bell & Carlson carbelite stock set. The reason I did this was due to the wood foreend cracking on me after numerous rounds had been fired through it. With the black synthetic stockset and the polychoke it's not exactly pretty but I think I can safely say I will never have to worry about buying another stockset for this shotgun again. This is a very versatile shotgun for clay games because I don't have to carry around a choke tube wrench and multiple chokes. If I have to change the choke all I got to do is turn the adjustment collar on the polychoke. I have the friction rings set up for the 1 1/8oz target/field loads since that's what I use in trap/skeet/sporting clays. Since this is an old shotgun, one thing I won't do is shoot steel shot through it. I'm not sure the barrel steel is hard enough for it. The Auto Five may no longer be manufactured but it still deserves some respect. I challenge anyone to tell me another semi shotgun that was manufactured and sold for 100 years before the company chose to discontinue it.

If your a5 is kicking hard you either have improperly installed friction rings or a worn recoil spring

This link will show you how to set up the friction rings for a Browning Auto-5

It shows both the 2 3/4 inch version and 3 inch magnum guns. You can also download the owners manuals here:
A-5 Light owner's manual
A-5 Magnum owner's manual

If you need replacement parts they are still available. I recently ordered a new bronze friction piece and friction spring for mine.

If your a5 is kicking hard you either have improperly installed friction rings or a worn recoil spring

Click to expand...

If the felt recoil is harsh, it is because the gun does not fit quite right

Or maybe it's because they kick hard compared to gas guns.

But they certainly kick less sharply than my fixed-breech guns.