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It was late September, but temperatures at Redstone Ranch outside Dilley, Texas, were still in the triple digits. Still, the heat didn’t deter the diehard dove hunters who flock to the area each year, ahem, and I was one of them. As I stood with my back against a mesquite thicket and loaded my rifle, I could see that the mercury wasn’t the only thing that was hot in South Texas at that time. The birds were flying back and forth across the milo fields in great numbers. If I didn’t kill my limit, it wasn’t for lack of game.
I have always enjoyed dove hunting, but I was especially looking forward to my trip to Redstone because I would have the opportunity to test out Browning’s new 20 gauge A5 semi-automatic. The smaller sibling of Browning’s popular 12 and 16 gauge A5, it offers everything you could want in a semi-automatic sub-caliber upland gun. It is lightweight, well balanced, and the fit and finish is excellent. With a Winchester dove load in the barrel and a few more in the magazine tube, I pulled my hat down low to protect me from the evening sun and headed out to bag my share of birds.
The first pigeons flew over us so fast that I didn’t even raise my gun. Slowly I shook off the rust of eight months without wing shooting and started hitting a few passing pigeons.
The dogs were back in the shaded kennel because it was so warm for the afternoon hunt. That meant I had to find every bird I killed myself, with help from Kali Parmley, editor of GUN DOG, and Shaundi Cambell of Browning. The heat and tall grass slowed the search—this was snake country, and nothing ruins a hunt faster than the staccato growl of an invisible rattlesnake.
As the sun went down and changed from glowing white to deep red, the birds came faster and at times I could barely feed the A5 20 gauge. But little by little my game bag filled up and as the sun went down and the temperature dropped, I had reached a limit of birds.
The wait for an A5 in 20 caliber is over
After we returned to the cabin, Shaundi told me that ever since Browning introduced the original A5 in 2012, there had been questions about when the 20-gauge version would be released.
Browning shocked the shooting world four years later by releasing a 16-gauge version, a move that largely revived interest in 16-gauge rifles. But Browning fans relentlessly wanted a new 20-gauge rifle, and after just over a decade, their wish was granted.
The new A5 is mechanically similar to the 12 and 16 gauge versions. That said, it is very different from the original Auto-5 design developed by John Browning himself and patented in 1899. John Browning’s original design was a long, recoil-operated design where the barrel and bolt moved rearward. The barrel then moved forward back into position, followed by the bolt pulling a cartridge from the carrier. The new A5s use Browning’s Kinematic Drive system, which uses recoil energy in a slightly different way. When the gun is fired, a spring in the bolt is compressed, and when this stored energy is released, the four lugs on the front of the bolt unlock and the gun is made ready to fire. A recoil spring in the stock applies pressure to the bolt, driving it forward and backward to take another cartridge from the carrier and push it back into position. The lugs then snap into position and the weapon is ready to fire again.
The system is wonderfully simple. There are no gas ports to clean, and routine maintenance on A5 shotguns is simple and straightforward. The A5 20-Gauge’s inertia mechanism offers other advantages, too. First, the system works best on lighter rifles, which means the A5 20-Gauge can be built lighter than competing gas-operated rifles. The A5 20-Gauge, with its aluminum alloy body, weighs about 5 3⁄4 pounds. That’s ideal for an upland rifle that you’ll be carrying more than shooting. It weighs about a quarter pound less than a Benelli M2 and a full pound lighter than most steel-cased 20-gauge over-and-unders. If you don’t think a pound of gun weight has a significant impact on your performance as a hunter, you haven’t climbed many mountains in search of huns and chukars or walked miles through milo fields in search of pheasants.
Another benefit of the Kinematic Drive system is that there is no gas system in the forend, so the forend of the A5 is slim and narrow. I found the A5 to be a very well balanced gun that fits snugly in the hands, as it is not heavy at the stock or forend. It is quick to shoulder and swings smoothly. Pick one up and I think you will agree that the design architecture of the 20 gauge A5 translates into a well-handling shotgun for upland hunting.
A design feature that is a hallmark of the A5 family is the “hump” design. More than just a distinctive look, the hump profile extends the sight plane by several inches and guides the eye along the Browning’s flat rib. Traditionally, American field shotguns had flat ribs and shot 50/50 patterns; Browning has adopted this ethos when building the A5.
Other notable Browning-specific features that found their way into this gun include: Invector DS choke tubes, an Inflex II recoil brake, nickel-Teflon coating on the slide, slide handle and carrier, extended Vector Pro overrun cones, TurnKey magazine plugs, and Browning’s Speed Load Plus feature that automatically loads the first loaded cartridge into the magazine tube when the slide is pulled back. As a bird hunter, I especially like this feature because I can simply load cartridges into the magazine tube after emptying the gun while watching for late-rising birds or, in the case of our dove hunt in Texas, birds whistling past the shooter as he pauses to reload.
The 20-gauge A5 will initially be available in a Hunter version with a black anodized aluminum receiver and 18 LPI checkered Turkish walnut stock. It will weigh just under 5 3⁄4 pounds and measure about 47 1⁄4 inches long with a 26-inch barrel. The standard trigger length is 14 1⁄4 inches and spacers will likely be included, as with other A5 shotguns. MSRP will be about $2,000.
Shooting with the Browning A5 in 20 caliber at the shooting range
During a late afternoon lull, when Texas temperatures were starting to drop but birds weren’t yet flying, I had a chance to test the A5 20-gauge at Redstone’s skeet shooting range. The range includes overhead, approach and hard-cross targets. I didn’t break a skeet with every trigger pull, but the varied target presentations gave me a good idea of what the A5 20-gauge can offer bird hunters in the field. Most importantly, the gun is exceptionally well balanced. Linger on a soaring pheasant or soaring chukar and the bird can quickly get out of range. Skeet shooters can get by with a gun that doesn’t quickly head to the shoulder and target, but upland hunters (who very often walk all day for a shot or two on public land) don’t have that luxury. I also like the A5’s long sight line and flat shooting characteristics.
A 20-gauge rifle weighing less than six pounds can be a burden, especially with magnum field loads, but that’s not the case with Browning. I attribute that to the Inflex II padding, which delivers on Browning’s promise of lower recoil. I also like that the Inflex padding has a generously rounded heel; it’s hard to hit fast-flying birds with a poorly handled gun, but it’s impossible when the heel of the recoil plate catches in your shooting vest with every shot.
The Browning’s safety, located behind the trigger guard, and the magazine release button, which is in front of the trigger guard, are both large enough to operate blind and with gloves on. The magazine tube release button on the front of the trigger guard (as opposed to the side) deviates from the standard inertia-actuated design architecture, but I’ve come to prefer it.
During the hundreds of rounds fired on the range that day, a few problems occurred with loading cartridges, but each time they could be traced back to dry guns and fixed with a thin layer of lubrication on the moving parts. Each time, the problem was solved by simply taking the gun apart, wiping it down, and applying a thin layer of lubrication. The Browning is easy to take apart, does not require O-rings that can easily be lost or damaged, and the trigger drops freely for cleaning.
I would rate the A5 20 gauge among the best semi-automatic highland rifles available today. Fit and finish are characteristically good, and there are no rough edges to the design of the rifle. It is light enough to carry all day, but not too taxing to shoot, and reliability is excellent. The 20 gauge humpback rifle is back and a worthy successor to the original design.
Browning A5 Hunter in 20 caliber
Action: Inertia operated
Track width: 20
Barrel: 26 inches (tested), 28 inches
Weight: 5 pounds, 12 ounces.
Chamber: 3 inches.
Finish: Black anodized housing, high gloss blued barrel
Choke: Invector-DS (IC, M, F)
Security: Crossbar
Stock: Turkish walnut class I
MSRP: $1,979
Website: browningusa.com
