Browning A5 recoil versus Benelli SBE

[skeet]

Shooting an A-5 is an experience. I literally wore one out way back yonder in time. Didn't think they kicked too bad till I got an 1100. I continued to shoot the B gun and then after rebuilding it for the 3rd time I traded it on a nice M-12 Trap with Hydrocoil stock that I wore out(the Hydrocoil stock) in 2 seasons of ducking. It was a great gun to shoot diving ducks with from a booby blind. Stick it on their feet and ya can't miss. The a-5 does have a lot more recoil than other autos just because of the unique action. An easy gun to hit with though in my opinion.

Now to the Federal Wardens thing. As you may know i was a guide for waterfowlers in Md for a long time(33 yrs). I met wardens professionally at least once a week for 3 months of the year and also for a month in Sept while taking hunters doving or shooting them with my friends. We hunted doves 4-5 days a week and we all grew sunflowers on our farms. We got to meet the Federal wardens quite a bit. On one GREAT dove hunting day we got checked by the wardens and were found to be completely legal. We had so many birds in a field of sunflowers they thought we were baiting. In 12 acres of sunflowers we had more than 20,000 doves according to their estimates. When they checked me i was just getting done. Knowing the warden somewhat i offered him my gun...which after a little coaxing he accepted and he shot a limit of doves in very short order...as did his partner. We went up to the farm house ...got out the soft drinks and iced watermelon and had a little party. Those guys were really decent and I always got along with them. They even made suggestions to us to make our hunting even more lawful. We listened. One later bercame the Head federal man for the Mid Atlantic and He was easy to work with. They knew us to be law abiding hunters and treated us with respect...

However some of their colleagues were nasty abrasive and just looked for a way to charge you with little nit picking charges. I was at home one day when I had a large amount of snow geese get into the corn field. Chased most of the canadas out(snows aren't civilised ya know). Well my daughter and I got in the truck and rode out into the field and chased the snows out.30,000 snow geese make a lot of noise ya know. Before I got out of the field and back to the house this guy in an unmarked car came up in front of me(on my own land) and jumped out of his car with drawn gun and told me to get out of the truck. He accused us of shooting into the geese(illegal) to chase them out. I was somewhat annoyed to have a gun stuck in my face and told the warden in no uncertain terms that if he didn't put it away I was gonna shove it down his throat so far they would have to extract it through his other end. Asked him what the H he thought he was doing. I also thought he was gonna shoot me because I was Pi$$ed Badly so. After i got calmed down just a little I let him look in the truck(no guns)..got his name and called his supervisor,,,a man I had lent a gun to in years past to shoot doves. The idiot got transferred to Loosianna. He mighta got killed down there. I had dealings with Willie Parker and others and most of the Feds were not fun to deal with. I know of one who arrested his own brother for shooting geese over bait. They found 11 grains of corn in the field. I doubt they were baiting but they bagged 'em up for it anyway. Good and bad in all of 'em but the state guys were usually easier to deal with and more reasonable

[fabsroman]

Brithunter,

I still stand behind my comparison. After shooting the Benelli earlier, and then picking up the A-5 to shoot it, I was extremely surprised by the recoil. Now, if memory serves me correctly, I did knock down 2 birds with 2 shots out of it, but my jaw was left a little hurting. Now, to make things somewhat fair, I do have a mercury recoil reducer in the stock of my SBE, and also in my Beretta Teknys. I am also a smaller guy than most at 5'8" and 142 lbs right now (i.e., did a lot of cycling over the summer to drop 15+ lbs.).

Maybe you are the kind of guy that just doesn't feel recoil, but I'm not. I can notice the slightest difference in recoil from guns, and so can my back. On the other hand, maybe if you shot my Benelli all day and then picked up my dad's A-5, you too might notice the difference in recoil. What other auto shotguns have you shot?

I know you have shot a ton of rifles, and some pretty big ones at that too. Maybe the recoil from a 12 gauge just doesn't compare.

[popplecop]

Fabs, Just funning you about non tox. I shoot 2 recoil operated shotguns at times, 1 a Rem. 11-48 16 ga. and the other a Browning Sweet 16. The Rem. seems to have less felt recoil than the Browning, yet I shoot them equally well. Neither have recoil pads and never will. I'll say one thing as I get older I am more aware of recoil though.

[Brithunter]

Hi All,

Well Fabs although I am about the same height as you at about 5'8"-5'9" but I outweigh you by a considerable amount as I weigh 220lbs, heck I weighed about teh same as you before I left school at just over 16 years old, those days I had a 29" waist. As for recoil I bruise easliy it seems as often I come home from the range with a bruise even from shooting .308 or .303. I do have a rifle in .458 Win mag as well which I do shoto occasionally. Prone it's not so much fun.

As for auto shotguns I have shot a few, a friend had a winchester 1400 then his girfriend got a Breda which is similar to the Berretta 303, have also shot the Franchi Spas which I thought was awful. Finally have shot several remington 1100's as I was interested and took part in Practical Shotgun quite a few years ago I used a Mossberg Slugster with 24" barrel and rifle sights.

Now the Browning A-5 and the old Franchi Hunter have always interested me but until now I have never acquired one, hey it's only taken 32 years! So I have not had very much experieince with semi auto shotguns.

[fabsroman]

When I got out of high school 18 years ago, I weighed 125 pounds and had a 29" waist. Now, I weight 142 pounds and have a 30" waist, but that is after 3,000+ miles on the bicycle this past year. Before that, I was 158 pounds with a 32" waist. When I saw 158 on the scale, that was enough to get me back on the bike.

[Brithunter]

Yeah Fabs I need to lose some and get fitter have a cycle but find it is painfull on the knees, you see I had arthritus in both of them. So I have to make do with a bit of gardening and walking.

[fabsroman]

Use smaller gears on the bike and it won't hurt your knees as much. Walking and jogging beat up the knees, but cycling doesn't because there isn't any impact. Trust me, my left knee gives me problems sometimes, and cycling has been much better on it than walking or running.

[Brithunter]

Actually I don't find walking a problem, never did much jogging tried to years ago but I was never any good at running even at school, could walk for miles. Hiked quite a bit with the Scouts and Army Cadets in my teens. Now cycling should be good here as it's fairly flat being on the edge of the fens however the darne d wind never seems to stop. This morning after a sharp frost it's now rainign with wind, the rain is nearly horizontal I guess it's coming in at about 30 degrees from the floor anf from West South West and is forecast to get up to around 30mph today. Not good cycling weather.

My cycle is a alloy framed "Mountain" type with 18 gears and a front puncture which needs to be fixed had it some years now and have had trouble with the downshift on hills. It don;t want to but as there are no hills close that should no longer be a problem. Only been here just over two years.

[fabsroman]

There should be a little barrel near the rear derailleur. Play with that to get the shifting just right. That barrel adjusts the indexed shifting to make the bike shift right. Try turning it one way first, If that fixes the problem, good. If the problem gets worse, just turn it the opposite way. I can post a pic of what the barrel looks like if you don't know what I am talking about.

[Brithunter]

Hi Fabs,

It's the front triple spocket which is the problem not the rear I will probably have the boys at Cycle Hut take a look at it, might even get them to fit a new front tube and give the whole thing the once over, need new batteries in teh front light as well. Sort of winter service.

Anyway for now I can just pump up the front yre and use ti as it take several days to go down.

This morning it's quite bright virtually no wind so in a little while I will heading to the range. Got some 6mm rem loads to test and I think I will take the Browning A-5 and see if we cannot get the trap out Will also try a decide what choke it has in the barrel (Fixed).

Will report back later as one shot is not really enough to base anything on.

[fabsroman]

Looking forward to the follow up report.

Don't know if I mentioned this above, but my uncle at 6'1" and around 230 shoots an A-5 as his main shotgun, and his jaw always ends up swollen the first day of dove season. At first, I though he was a pansy, but after those 2 rounds out of my dad's A-5, I think I would be in the same shape if I had to spend an entire day shooting it.

[skeet]

Well I shot the heck out of an A-5 for years. Literally put a quarter of a million shells through one and never got beat up all that bad. I was about 6 ft and 170 at the time. But as I said the A-5 was nowhere near as pleasant to shoot as a Rem 1100. Must say one of the nastiest shotguns i ever shot was a Mossberg 835. Just pounded ya with them 3 1/2 inch shells..especially lead shells. I also had a Mercury 10 ga double way back there. It was about a 12 lb gun and it still wasn't much fun to shoot. Doubled once on me and it went down the road in a hurry. That hurt!!

[Brithunter]

Hi All,

Well I went to the range but it seems that some members used up all the clays and didn't tell anyone so no clay shooting. I will have to wait until the next time which will most likely be in two weeks now due to having to cut back on trips because of the horrendus fule prices now.

[gun_nut2]

I have never expierenced any discomfort shooting my A 5's, but am not very recoil sensative. I guess it has something to do with being 6'5" and 270 pounds.