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The Browning A5 High Grade Hunter 4+1 12-gauge is part of its beloved short-recoil operated autoloader A5 shotgun series. The modern Browning A5s share beneficial branding and name recognition with their original A5 – that’s short for Automatic 1905 - namesake from a century earlier designed by none other than John Browning himself. But the new A5s are the result of repeated tweaks and upgrades to make them very, very different. And the A5 High Grade Hunter is a step up from the regular A5 Hunter by having a beautiful gloss finish and waterfowls (pheasants on one side and mallards on the other) in marshes engraved on the receiver. The top has a flat 1/4” width vent rib topped by an ivory mid-bead and a red fiber optic front bead sight.

There are two 12-gauge variants. You can get 26” or 28” barreled guns with 3” chambers. Both have a 14 1/4” length of pull, 1 3/4” drop at comb and a 2” drop at heel. The first is 47 5/8” overall and weighs 6 pounds 11 ounces. The 28” is 2” longer and weighs two ounces more.

The Grade 2.5 Turkish walnut is finely grained, has an impressive 22 LPI (lines per inch) cut checkering on the forend and stock. The checkering sits in stylized pennants that are more trapezoidal than anything else. The result is effective, comfortable and reassuring. The primary metal components have superb bluing. The barrel has a lengthened Vector Pro forcing cone between the bore and chrome-plated chamber and interchangeable Invector-DS chokes. These chokes (the DS stands for Double Seal) have a gas and grit-sealing brass band at their base.

Invector-DS chokes are the longest chokes of Browning’s offerings. They thread into the muzzle front instead of at the back like the short Standard Invector and medium-length Invector-Plus tubes. The longer the tube, the longer the taper, and thus the less shot deformation and greater accuracy. The DS tubes are lighter and thinner and require less barrel reinforcement. The A5 High Grade Hunter comes with three tubes (Full, Modified, Improved Cylinder), but there a total of seven choices in flush and extended styles. A cool detail is that Browning has engraved which chokes their guns are compatible with on the barrels and the receiver’s monoblocks.

The result of all this hard development and years of experience is what Browning calls the planet’s “most reliable, fastest cycling, best performing and softest shooting recoil-operated” autoloader shotgun. Browning backs its reliability claims with a compelling 100,000 round or five-year guarantee.

The new A5 range’s visual signature is its characteristic raised rear lightweight aluminum alloy receiver that everyone calls a humpback, just like in the original ones. The humpback’s long sight line makes for easy sighting. But one of the many upgrades in this modern gun is the versatile, all-weather, recoil-operated Kinematic Drive System.

A5s have tube magazines and handle various ammunition down to one-ounce loads without requiring adjustments. Cleverly designed vents evacuate gases from the barrel and keep parts cleaner and operating more smoothly than they might otherwise.

A5 bolts are hard chrome plated. The rest of the bolt carrier group is nickel Teflon coated for a durable protective coating.

A5s feature an oversized bolt latch in front of the trigger guard, right where you want it. The trigger guard is also oversized so you can operate the gun while wearing gloves. And within is a gold-plated trigger.

A5s use a Speed Unload feature to easily empty any shells all at once. The butt stock is a straight stock design with .25” and .5” stock spacers for length of pull adjustments that can be combined for a total .75” length of pull adjustment. In back is an Inflex recoil pad. Browning uses them with quite a few models. They’re well-known for being highly absorbent and for directing what’s left of felt recoil forces down instead of straight back.

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