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The Browning A5 Sweet Sixteen 4+1 16-gauge joins Browning’s 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 that was designed by none other than John Browning himself. But the new A5s have been thoroughly modernized.

The Sweet Sixteen has two variants: one sports a 26” barrel and the other has a 28” barrel. Both have 2 3/4” chambers, a 14 ¼” length of pull, 1 ¾” drop at comb and a 2” drop at heel. The first is 47 1/4” overall and weighs 5 pounds 12 ounces. The 28” is 2” longer and weighs another ounce. Compared to the more common 12-gauge, this one benefits from the 16-gauge engineering to land 15 ounces lighter!

The Sweet Sixteen’s wood is a nice dark Grade 1 walnut with 18 LPI cut checkering on both forend and stock. The checkering sits in stylized trapezoidal pennants. The primary metal components have superb glossy 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. These are the upper end of the choke tube sets Browning offers. They are the longest chokes and 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 Sweet Sixteen comes with three flush 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 the 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 raised rear lightweight aluminum alloy receiver everyone calls a humpback, just like in the original ones. The long humpback sight line makes for easy sighting and leads to an ivory mid-bead and a red fiber optic front bead sight on a 1/4" width vent rib. 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 adjustments. Cleverly designed vent outlets evacuate gases from the barrel and keep parts cleaner and operating more smoothly than they might otherwise. Moreover, all A5s use a Speed Unload feature to easily empty any shells all at once.

The TurnKey magazine plug blocks the tube magazine for safety when you don’t want anyone else disturbing with it. The gun also ships both with a free locking device for safe storage and a tough impact resistant thermoplastic ABS polymer case.

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 and underneath the famed Browning gold Buck Mark.

The straight butt stock comes with .25” and .5” stock spacers for length of pull adjustments you can combine for a total .75” length of pull adjustment. It’s a simple and weight saving way to have an adjustable length of pull. 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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