Browning A5 16 gauge

[nagantguy]

I got a good deal on a nice old Belgian A5 16 gauge , not sure of exact date but 5 digit serial number . Not collectors grade but a good working specimen to go between my 12 and 20; anyhow I think I know why I got the great deal the trigger breaks at about 12 pounds and seems to move slightly to the right at the end of the pull. It's so hard I thought the safety was on the first time I tried it.
Anyone ever run into this before or have a fix for a terrible trigger on such a beast?

[country gent]

I would give it a good cleaning and inspection. It might be dirt and crud build up that's restricting stiffening movement. Maybe not actually in the trigger but around springs

[nagantguy]

I kinda thought that but it fired and the action worked smooth but I will detail clean in the morning

[Minerat]

Get your self a can or 2 of Crud Cutter and go at it with the barrel off and the action open and pointing down over a container of some type so it does not get into the stock. Friend of mine gave me his dads sweet 16 A5 to clean, I don't think it had ever been cleaned. He hunted quail in TX with this gun and it still functioned after 40 years. It did not have a trigger pull problem but was very hard to get the bolt to lock back from all of the crud. I spent a week spraying and working the action every morning and evening and finally got it freed up and pulled the action out and finished cleaning and oiling. (Not sure I would do that again it was an adventure in its self).

I used The NRA Guide to Rifles and Shotguns as a reference for the take down. My books have whit covers and on page 10 is info on the A5 and pp 121 (Rem Mod 11) for the detailed tear down. You can get the trigger group out without having to totally disassemble the action. Just be sure you have a good set of gun smithing screwdrivers so you don't mess up the screws.

[Texas by God]

The A5 disassembly/reassembly is not for the faint of heart. I would remove the wood and barrel/ recoil spring and friction ring parts- then spray the snot out of every crevice I could get the spray straw into of Berryman's B12 Carb cleaner. Wear gloves & glasses, you don't want this stuff in your eyes! Dissolves old crud like magic. Check your trigger again, hopefully dirt & dried oil gunk was the culprit. I took down my 1958 Light Twelve for grins; found 1/4" of compacted crud (and a feather!) inside. It was still working. After trying to reassemble unsuccessfully 3 times, I bought a book! It still wasn't easy. They are my favorite auto shotgun; good luck with yours!

[Drm50]

Many A-5s have never been apart because people are afraid they can't get them back together. I
would guess your gun is a pre cross bolt safety model with that low SN. I have worked on a lot of
A-5s. Besides dirt, a foreign object will cause all kind of problems. Other than the main spring and
Friction Rings they are fairly trouble free. I have not run into your problem with A-5, but have with
a Savage of the A-5 design. This gun was well used and from screw heads it had been apart more
than once. The trigger housing was abused where someone had burred up every hole on it driving
the pins out, or in. Burrs were causing trigger to bind. Unless rusty the pins in A-5 will push out
a hammer is not needed. If reassembled correctly, like all the other guns with milled parts, no
hammer is needed. When people hammer on these they don't have parts in right or not lined up
and they try to force, hammer, and pry them back together. Most of the time using house hold
tools that damage screws and pins. If I were you I would remove trigger group and degunk it as
a assembly, then inspect for visible damage. Another thing that causes problems is the buffer
spring that runs back into stock, gets so impacted with crud that it's not allowing full recoil stroke.

[nagantguy]

So from what I can tell a 5 digit serial with no letter prefix or suffixes in this range is from 1928-30 so a gummed up works may well be the problem I didn't get to it today because we got hit with Green lightning and a tornado last night. Lost some siding and a huge cotton wood tree. The nearest corn field is a half mile down the road down wind and my yard is full of corn stalks today

[skeettx]

And I would think that it has 16-65mm chamber markings
and 2 9/16 barrel markings





Good reading
http://www.16ga.com/forum/viewtopic....ighlight=dates

[HodakaGA]

YouTube is your friend.

Remington 11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAPY...ature=youtu.be

A5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?annota...&v=ILjILhMOAsc

[KenH]

Those are GREAT videos - make working on the old A5 look easy! Here's a neat video of the A5 in action showing internal workings as it's fired. https://youtu.be/5MfLYgTe6NI

[izzyjoe]

Great score, i would break it down and see what's wrong with the trigger group. Browning still makes a few parts for them, it think midway sells a few. I have always wanted a sweet sixteen, but never had the money when they popped up.

[nagantguy]

So an update for you kind folk willing to read my post and offer some advice. I took the shotgun apart and the trigger group was dirty but not filthy there was some crud and pine needles in there.nothing appeared broken. Deep cleaned and lubed and put back together,and the trigger pull is still about 12-14 pounds.

[rondog]

My dad had an old A5 12g and a Sweet Sixteen. I hauled that 12 a LOT of miles, what a beast! But he never let me put my grubby teenage fingers on his 16, he loved that shotgun. My brothers have them now, I got the 700 .30-06.

[Treetop]

nagantguy, use the search function on this forum, some of the sharpest A-5 guys on the Web frequent this site:

http://www.shotgunworld.com/bbs/view...5500a8acee269c

Treetop