Redone Browning A5 Slug Gun.

[W.R.Buchanan]

I have been wanting to build something different for 3 gun shoots and to take to Front Sight Shotgun Classes, and also to shoot some pigs with.

If you watched "Wild Boar Fever". on the Outdoor Channel you'd see them shooting running boar in Europe with Bolt Action Rifles with Red Dot sights mounted. No reason why a Semi Auto Shotgun or Pump Shotgun with a Red Dot mounted won't work as well or better. I know slugs will easily knock down anything, and with a Rifled Barrel the gun becomes a .73 caliber Rifle. I've got some slugs, believe me.

I wanted an older Semi Auto Shotgun for this as I didn't want to spend a Bazillion Dollars doing it so my first choice was the older A5 I had bought many years ago to turn into a Riot Gun. It was a 1950 model and the pre 1963 guns do not have the two piece Cartridge Lifter so they are much slower to reload, and that wasn't going to be acceptable.

I managed to trade the gun in a left handed manner for a 1963 A5 Light 12. The post 1963 guns have the Two Piece Lifter and the "Speed Feed Function" that automatically loads a round into the chamber as soon as you push it into the mag tube when the bolt is locked open. This could work!

It was somewhat lacking in the cosmetic department so after I retrieved it from Jail, I took it all apart and began refinishing it. Everything was done in house.

This included re bluing the receiver with cold blue and completely refinishing the wood and installing a Serious Recoil Pad, and Sling Swivels.

Took a week of nights to get everything done and it is back together and ready to shoot. I learned alot about these guns and they are really quite remarkable pieces of machinery. Believe me when I say,, They are "Machinery!"

I am looking at a few more mods including enlarging the bolt handle, mounting a Red Dot Sight on the Rifled Barrel, (it also has a Browning Smoothbore Slug Barrel with open sights) and a Mag Tube Extension that I will probably have to make as well.

With those mods there is no reason why this gun shouldn't be competitive. It will run like any other Semi Auto Shotgun. Probably won't load as fast as a Benelli, but I don't have that much money in this one.

I've got $350 in this gun!

Randy

[Jet Setter]

Nicely done. Looks great.

[Tarmy]

Curious...with a slug, how close do you need to be to a pig feel good about a good shot?

[Cody805]

Very cool!

[1911man]

I am looking to do the same with a 20 ga. A5

[isntzen]

Nice work Randy. Quite a handsome old school swine getter.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Tarmy: Once I get the Rifled barrel dialed in 100 yards will be relatively easy.

I can hit a head box shot with my M500 just about every single time Standing at 50 yards. see pic. and a center mass shot is easy and should be very doable at 100.

Off any kind of rest 100 yard shots into a pie plate kill zone of a pig should be very doable. But I've got to get good enough to make Running Shots as well. The kill zone on a Russian Boar is about 18" in diameter as those pigs are huge. The slugs have way more knock down power than a .308 rifle which is the gun of choice in Europe.

Lightfield Slugs are supposed to be under 2" at 100 yards from a Rifled gun like a Savage 212, what they will do in my gun remains to be seen, but even 4" would be acceptable.

As far as Follow up shots go, I think the A5 is way ahead of the curve on that one.

I've got some slugs from Sabot Technologies that are a non discarding type of slug which are essentially a plastic bullet with a Lead Nose Piece. That nose end can easily be made out of brass for CA use.

Mounted the Sling last nite too. The gun carries nice.

Randy

[dogrunner]

That A/5 will work well for you! Years ago I was hunting an area that had been mandated shotgun only........deer with dogs and occasionally a local long-snouted porker.......most folks used the old buckshot standby and while it generally worked sometimes it failed dramatically.....plus, for real reliability you had to limit your range to around 40 yards...

I was not satisfied with the arrangement and I picked up a browning smoothbore slug bbl......worked quite well with both buck and slugs ..... the latter to about a hundred. I still wanted more and bought one of Hastings rifled tubes............hulluva an improvement in both accuracy and range.....with premium sabots it would easily reach 150.........now in Florida, thats normally quite a long shot in pine and palmetto flatwoods but after a couple of one shot kills I noticed a couple of friends stated using similar set ups.

Really, kinda difficult to think of anything a good slug gun can't do in.......the caveat tho is that you ARE limited to slugs only as those rifled tubes are utterly useless with buck.

And incidentally, the Browning split carrier speed loader IS quicker than any others I've seen.....I truly don't think the Italian creations have anything on them whatsoever.

[W.R.Buchanan]

[QUOTE=dogrunner;22753764
And incidentally, the Browning split carrier speed loader IS quicker than any others I've seen.....I truly don't think the Italian creations have anything on them whatsoever.[/QUOTE]

I agree and I handled a bunch of slug guns at the SHOT Show a couple of months ago. I have also shot a Benelli M4 and whereas they are nice guns they are more than $1000 more than what I've got in this one, and they are more complicated to run as well. I don't like the shell trip on the Benelli's

I also handled a Beretta 1301 which is the Combat Version of their A300 series. 18" bbl. Looked good and handled good, but Smoothbore only which knocked them out of the running before I heard the price. $1400!

The Mossberg 930 with Rifle Sights could be a workable solution but once again Smoothbore only.

I know that Hastings makes Rifled Slug barrels for alot of different shotguns but they aren't cheap either. They start at $450 and it's not like there is a bunch of used ones on Ebay for a new B1301 I paid $175 for my Hastings A5 Barrel and $150 for the Browning Slug Barrel. Both are perfect.

Not alot of options for the .73 caliber Semi Auto Rifle. Some bolt guns and single shots, but when it comes to rifled shotgun barrels the pickin's are slim.

Randy.

[W.R.Buchanan]

So I finally got to shoot my gun in a Tactical Shotgun Class at Front Sight on Monday and Tues of this week. Got back Tues night after a 6 hour drive.

This gun was an excellent choice for Combat Training !!!

This was my 4th shotgun class so I had a pretty good idea of how to run a pump shotgun and what was going to be expected. There were very few manipulations that were different from the M500 Pump Gun.

First: I can either port load the first round or load it into the magazine which automatically feeds it directly into the chamber. The latter is called the "Speed Feed" feature, and it is much faster than Port Loading.

We did a Port Loading drill where you start with an empty gun, load and shoot one target, and then load and shoot one more, then load and finish with a loaded gun.

I was routinely the first shot fired and in some cases I was done before anyone got their second shot off! Not bragging here, the gun is just that much faster to run.

More of the same with the "Select Slug Drill" where the gun is loaded with buckshot and a longer shot presents itself. Stuff a round into the mag, cycle the bolt and waste the round in the chamber then fire at 35 or 50 yards. No slugs inside 35 yards as they do sometimes come back at you off steel targets. Since there is already a round in the mag and one in the chamber the gun doesn't speed feed and you must run the bolt manually. The speed Feed only works with an empty gun.

I fired right at 300 rounds thru the gun with no operational malfunctions. I did have some problems unloading the last round a few times as they would hang up half out of the mag tube. This was sussed down to Walmart Winchester Universal shells that had a flared crimp. No smooth taper on the front like Federals the flare is actually about .030+ all the way around the front of the shell!

I had problems with the Walmart Winchester ammo last time in my M500 and had to Butt Stroke the gun several times to eject stuck hulls. No problem with Walmart Federals so that's what we use now. Same price $21.74/100.

Had a great time and the gun performed better than expected. I would say if you don't want to spend a grand + on a Beretta or Benelli a late model A5 (After 1963) would be a good choice for 3 Gun or Tactical Class work.

The instructors were very supportive of the gun and the Range Master is a A5 enthusiast so he showed me some tricks to make the gun run faster.

All in all it was a very productive Class and we will be going back for more soon.

I have to tell everyone,,, If you haven't learned how to use a shotgun in simulated combat training,,, you are missing out BIG TIME!

It is just too much fun! IN fact it is way more fun than either the Pistol or Rifle Classes. LOL!!!

Randy