If you’re a dedicated and avid hunter, you need gear that can hold up to abuse. Duck hunters are a particular group of people who, for lack of better words, beat the crap out of their gear. Regardless of what it is. Gear gets wet, muddy, left out in the sun, things get stepped on, dropped, thrown in the bed of the truck, you name it. While duck hunting can be one of the most gear-intensive pursuits, it really only takes a handful of key items to get the job done. Calls, hide, decoys, and a good gun. At the end of the day, though, it all really comes down to just one of these, a good gun. You could be just starting out or a seasoned waterfowl veteran, and regardless of the amount of fancy gear or decoys you’re packing with you, if you don’t have a trustworthy shotgun, you’re not going to have a good hunt.
For the past five years, I’ve been packing the Browning A5 with me. If you’ve wondered how the A5 holds up season after season, this one’s for you. After five years of mud, snow, travel, and countless volleys, here’s an honest look at why the A5 keeps finding its way into my blind.
A5 Stalker
Specs – The A5 Stalker
- Gauge: 12ga
- Chamber: 3”
- Barrel Length: 26”
- Weight: 7lbs
- Cycle System: Inertia
- Choke System: Invector DS
- MSRP: $1799
Key Features:
- Handles well
- Durable factory coating on receiver and barrel
- Humpback design provides longer sighting plane
- Reliable inertia operation
- Adjustable to user (length of pull, cast, drop)
The Rundown
When I originally decided to pick up the Browning A5, the Stalker variant was my immediate choice. Mainly because I am a big fan of black guns. The first semi-auto I hunted with growing up was jet black (my father’s gun), and I guess it’s a trait I’ve come to love in the shotguns I shoot. My Browning is chambered in 3” and has a 26” barrel, which is also my preferred combo for a semi-auto. Regardless of whatever small amount of muzzle velocity I’m losing when shooting a 26” compared to a 28”, a 26” barrel is what I’ve felt suits me best. Especially when it comes to being able to swing quickly with that shorter barrel. A 28” barrel could help balance a gun out better but when it comes to the latest A5’s, they’re already balanced pretty well.
It cycles fast, has modest recoil, and has held up through a lot of really crappy hunting conditions. Its iconic look, solidified in history by John Browning’s original Auto-5, also provides more than just a “look”. The humpback design we all know and love helps aid your swing on birds by extending the natural line of sight down the gun, which provides faster target acquisition. On a normal 26” barrel, your natural sight plane would essentially only incorporate from the start of the rib to the front of the gun. On an A5, though, since the humpback design melds the plane of the receiver and the rib together, your sight plane extends from the back of the receiver all the way through the front of the gun.
In the field, the gun handles incredibly well in both waterfowl and upland hunting scenarios. The only issue I’ve ever encountered is that if you’re going to close your action slowly or quietly, you need to make sure the bolt is completely locked in. At the end of the day, though, they aren’t designed to be loaded quietly or slowly; these guns have an incredibly fast action and are made to run loud and proud. In the very literal sense, the A5 Stalker feels as if it were designed to be ridden hard and put up wet. Like many waterfowl hunters out there, I’m not always on top of cleaning my gun after every use. Regularly cleaning your gun, like any equipment, helps it run smoothly. But through all of the abuse, mud, ice, and water this gun’s been seen, I’ve been incredibly surprised at how minimal the maintenance has needed to be. Not a single element of these guns needs to be babied from the action itself to the coating on the barrel. Every time I’ve shouldered it, regardless of how frozen or muddy the conditions, it’s always done its job.
In The Field
I’ve been fortunate in my hunting career to travel to some incredible places with this gun. Right around the time that I picked up my A5, a handful of friends and I started joining some hunting buddies for a yearly trip out to the western side of Washington to target the state’s abundance of wigeon and, of course, sea ducks. Sea ducks are truly incredible animals. If you think a mallard duck surviving freezing temperatures on some river in Kansas is hard, you really outta give it up to these ocean-dwelling birds. They live in incredibly harsh conditions, and while not every day hunting on the coast is plagued by waves and wind, one particular element makes this a dangerous place for any shotgun. Salt water.
If you weren’t already aware, salt water eats metal like there’s no tomorrow. Something I had overlooked during my first trip out to Washington a handful of years ago. Unless you plan on swimming, salt spray is about the worst of the ocean that your shotgun will see. It had been two days of hunting–and not cleaning my gun–until it finally dawned on me that I should probably run it through a quick rinse. A realization that made my heart jump at the thought of huge rust spots on my new gun. Thankfully, though, the coating on the A5’s receiver and barrel is incredibly durable. I did receive some minor flecks of rust on the sling points, but overall, my barrel, inside and out, was completely unharmed. Along with zero damage to the receiver or any of the internal components. While I still don’t regularly clean my gun during most of the season, I do opt for a good rinse down after spending time out on the salt now.
In addition to beating off corrosion out in the salt, the A5 has proved its dependability time and time again in the wet and bitter cold. Two years ago, I was finally able to hunt in Nebraska, chasing cornfed, late-season mallards. A trip that quickly turned into “I hope I can keep all my fingers after this” situation. As a nasty cold front moved in a few days before my arrival at camp, temperatures plummeted into the negatives. I’m not talking about -10 or -15 degrees, I’m talking about -25 and -35 with the wind chill. It was a brutal few days of hunting. But as we always do as duck hunters, we persevered. In those ice and snow-covered days, we were able to shoot a handful of limits amongst the group. Days that had trucks, equipment, and blind heaters failing left and right. Even in the extreme cold, A5 never missed a beat.
There are plenty of guns out there that will at least cycle once before locking up in that kind of cold and turning into nothing more than a boat paddle. But the A5 never reached that point. It cycled again and again throughout the entirety of the days we hunted, as we sat through bone-numbing cold, trying to pick away green heads to finish out our limits. Something a few of my buddies couldn’t say about their own guns. No amount of frost, snow, or negative degree weather was getting between that gun and sending steel down range at fat, Nebraskaland mallards.
My Recommendation
The A5 is an exceptionally reliable and iconic shotgun platform, regardless of the configuration it comes in. For me, the A5 Stalker variant takes the cake, though. It fulfills its duty time and time again, regardless of where you’re hunting or how you’re hunting. The handsome humpback design paired with a fast and dependable action is what has made it my top choice of shotguns over the past five years. There hasn’t been a hunting situation I’ve encountered yet that’s left me wanting more. Many folks find a gun that just feels right when they pick it up. A gun that, when you shoulder it, swings smoothly, aims true, and always hits its mark. For me, that’s the Browning A5. Compared to lesser or entry-level shotguns on the market, it does come in at a slightly higher price tag. But with a reliable action, improved sight plane, and extremely durable build, it’s hard to point you in a different direction if you’re thinking about pulling the trigger on a new gun this year.
Outside of technical performance, I have made some of my favorite hunting memories thus far with this gun. Just this year I was finally able to convince my wife–begrugingly–to sit in the duck blind with me on some family property early this season. After years of hearing hunting stories, she finally made her way into one and bagged herself her first duck with my A5. To top everything off, I was also fortunate enough to harvest my first duck band during a whiteout blizzard hunt out west. Some truly amazing moments that are underlined by the reliability of a single gun.
