16ga.com ~ View topic - Too neat for words - 1913 Grade 3 Auto-5

Member Joined: 25 Jul 2006 Posts: 781

I'm heading off to the Vintagers tomorrow with a heavy heart, I'll be handing off two great guns to folks who will hand carry them back to their respective owners. I had them way too long but there always seemed to be one more thing to do with them and way too much trial and error with some of the mechanical work....I'll miss both guns but the 16 ga is the one this BBS might want to see.

This is Dave M's 1913 Grade 3 16 ga Auto-5. It was made for the European market while Remington had exclusive rights to Brownings Patents in North America. Later Grade 3's had game scenes on them, but most of those are pretty cartoonish, this is much prettier.

The wood is all original and has absolutely nuts striping in it. The factory horn FN buttplate is still on it. The stock swivel was gone and the proper style eluded me, I pulled one off one of my guns to replace it. The forend was slightly cracked, Acraglas to the rescue... The checkering was shot and the wood full of oil. 3 trips through wonko's Brew and checkering punky wood took up a lot of time. There are 90 years of marks that still show through the finish, but the wood now glows and is protected.

It must have killed a lot of game as the blue is mostly worn off. But it appears strong enough on the trigger guard that I suspect that the reciever had a coin finish originally. Now it's all patina. The engraving is worn but shows no signs of buffing with anything stronger than the palm of a hand. I cleaned off all the surface oxidation and left the patina intact. It's a credit to the owners of this gun theat there was NO evidence of pitting. This gun worked hard and was taken care of.

There were problems inside....the breech block was cracked and part of the locking block latch was broken away. I couold see that it was not the original locking block, everything else looked original. Like a lot of guns from this era it had a model 11 spring in it, I swapped it out for a new Browning spring which fit better in the forend. Dave donated a beater he had for the internal parts and I learned how to hand fit them into this reciever and barrel extension. I gained a better appreciation of the effort to do final fitting of (machine made) parts by hand. I filed/assembled/test and repeat till I figured it out.

When I took it out to the range this week my son threw a dozen targets for me....it absolutely devoured the targets and threw the empties about 10 feet. The choke is tighter than J Lo's jeans.

Dave, thanks for the opportunity work on this gun. Feed it a steady diet of your beautiful roll crimped shells with 1 oz at about 1200 fps and it will do it's part.

Kind regards,

Jeff

Thanks for sharing Jeff Smile

When I read Jeff's post out loud, I thought I started hearing a sound like crying. I searched for the sound, and found it was coming from the gun safe. When I opened it all the Brownings were crying. Crying or Very sad

I figured it out, after a minute or two. Embarassed

They had heard me say "the Browning has to go back to is owner". So I told the grils that no one was going anywhere. And, I had to assure the grils that I would take them out shooting real soon. Very Happy

All are happy again. Very Happy

They also said that Jeff's girl sure was a good looker. To bad it had to leave.

Member Joined: 31 Aug 2007 Posts: 238 Location: Lodi, CA

Great story Jeff! Love to hear about old guns being made right and ready to shoot again.

Outstanding save on a wonderful gun. That wood is just gorgeous.

Guest

Now there's a gun I'd love to own!

Awesome!

Not much of an auto fan, but I think that gun could turn me into one Very Happy

. What a beaut!

Joined: 18 Feb 2007 Posts: 56 Location: wny

BRAVO!!!! and thank you for sharing

Drool arrrrgghhll,,d d drrroooool, slobber.

Nice gun. Laughing

Joined: 17 Dec 2005 Posts: 47

Beautiful restoration work Jeff, thanks for sharing the pics of this lovely old timer. One hopes the owner will take it hunting this fall.

JERRY

Member Joined: 25 Jul 2006 Posts: 781

The owner is one of us and will shoot it a bunch.

Jeff