1910 16 Gauge A5

Discussion in 'Browning Auto A-5' started by Mark Thalman, Jul 5, 2017.

  1. Mark Thalman

    Mark Thalman Copper BB

    Hello All,
    New member here, although I've been enjoying all the info shared here about A5's. Especially Rudolph's good stuff. I'm a casual collector/shooter who likes to find older A5's with good bones. In other words, not pristine and mostly needing a little (or a lot) of work to shine again. I like the older rust blued guns the best, as the Browning rust bluing is amazingly resilient and has a nice luster you just can't duplicate these days. I like the short chambered guns for no especially good reason, just like loading for them. Most of my A5's are from the 30's through early 50's with a few exceptions. I found this old A5 last winter online at a shop in Kentucky. The seller only knew that the owner was in his 90's when he passed away and the grandson sold it to the shop. It was in pretty bad shape...the stock and fore arm were both badly cracked, and the stock looked like someone had wrapped barbed wire around it. It was covered in light rust, the bore was pitted near the chamber and the action hardly worked with all the grime and gunk. It has a numbers matching barrel and fore end, and no numbers on the stock. Looks like maybe a second year world market 16 ga, but that's sort of a guess from looking at the S/V numbers reference. I think this was a special order stock from FN, although I haven't seen this type anywhere, and it did have the first gen butt plate. Checkering goes all the way to the tang on top and bottom. There are a couple of interesting differences on this 16. The top tang is shorter by an inch than any of my other 16's, even the short chambered guns, so good luck finding another stock. The front sight sits up higher than any other of my 16's, and it does have a lot of drop in the stock. I sent the barrel to Mike Orlen, and he took out the forcing cone and got rid of a lot of the pitting. Also opened the choke to light mod. Sent the receiver to Art's who cleaned the action, and polished the lifter, bolt and mag tube. Most of the rust came off with 0000 steel wool. I finished the stocks with tung oil. So, It's far from perfect, but is passable for a gun that survived two world wars, and who know how many bubba's.
    http://imgur.com/LOYbj5H
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    http://imgur.com/YQPXLEo
    http://imgur.com/12rqxnI
    http://imgur.com/Wt9pRfF
    Last edited: Jul 5, 2017
    Rudolph31 likes this.
  2. Rudolph31

    Rudolph31 .30-06

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    Easier to enjoy this way, Mark. Nice find; welcome to the site.
    Rob poston and SHOOTER13 like this.
  3. SHOOTER13

    SHOOTER13 Guest

    Very Nice Mark...!!

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