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Best 16 gauge semi-auto?

  • Thread starter Deleted member 67409
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C. Stockwell said:
The book American Gunmaker describes how many patents Winchester bought from JMB. It was something like for every thirty patents he designed, one gun went into production. Winchester didn't burn his patents, they just sat on the intellectual property rights. Winchester only paid lump sum for the patent rights, which annoyed JMB when it came to the Auto-5. JMB wanted royalties to ensure Winchester produced the gun. Winchester refused, so JMB went to Remington. While JMB was in Remington's offices, the President of Remington dropped dead. So JMB went to FN and the rest is history.

JMB liked to take the train from Ogden to New Haven with all his prototypes once a year to showcase his new designs. If he had to send something ASAP, he would mail a prototype to Winchester.
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You beat me to it lol
 
BobR51 said:
I have the 12 gauge A5 with the deer slayer barrel and choke system barrel as well. I believe it's called invector choke.
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I have a Light 12 made in 1969. She's perfect. It came with the deluxe vent rib full choke barrel. Since her purchase I went on eBay and spent WAY too much money on a matching vent rib IC choke barrel for Rabbit hunting and also a very good condition buck special barrel with iron sights. It's literally the perfect new england hunting setup (minis waterfowl cuz no steel). The slug barrel.....when it delivered i took it straight to the range to check zero.......dead on at 50 yards didn't even have to adjust the sights. Kills deer dead out to 75 yards. I've taken a ton of snow shoe hare with the ic choke barrel too........throws a BIG but even density pattern with Remy extended range loads. She's practically the perfect hare hunting gun. Fast to point and swing..... Awesome trigger.......fast second and third.... Oh hell......even fourth shot when needed. 😂 ah the stories I have about that gun. Once it took me 5 shots out of that Browning to catch up to a running hare in heavy brush. 5th one put her down finally. My guide came in the brush to see what was going on and on his thick Maine accent says "only one? Jeezus Christmas with all that shootin I thought thered be whole pile ah rabbits up heah"!
 
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I have a 16 ga. A5 that my father-in-law gave me. He got it in Germany during WWII. It uses shorter shells. Maybe 2 11/16?. Browning can modify it to use 2 3/4 but I don't want to mess with it.
 
Other than the Browning, it's doubtful you'll find many 16s in semiauto. There are pumps, O/Us and SXS doubles, many from Europe, and some of the American companies have brought out 16 gauge models like the Remington 870 in recent years. The best ones are the old ones, and one of the hidden gems is the Winchester Model 12 in 16 gauge, which was built on the 20 gauge frame. Another classic is the Ithaca Model 37, which was built in large numbers back in the day. It's light and quick to the shoulder, a great upland gun. The 16 gauge crowd has its own website, and a ton of useful information, not to mention some beautiful (and pricey) examples:

16 ga.

The definitive destination for the 16ga shotgun enthusiast.
www.16ga.com
 
My first shotgun was a Savage "Browning A 5 " in 1977, it had the Cutts Compensator on it. I used it for pheasants and peasants... sadly i don't even remember where or why that gun went... Paul
 
M60 said:
My older Sweet 16 is a very nice shotgun. What makes it even nicer is both its like new condition and the additional, very rare, buck barrel. I know, I know. No applause please.
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I have similar. My father was very smart when he saw the used mint Belgian SS for $150 many years ago.
Im glad he bought it. I bought my Jap one brand new with a buck barrel and a bird barrel in 86 for $500 in the box.
 
C. Stockwell said:
The book American Gunmaker describes how many patents Winchester bought from JMB. It was something like for every thirty patents he designed, one gun went into production. Winchester didn't burn his patents, they just sat on the intellectual property rights. Winchester only paid lump sum for the patent rights, which annoyed JMB when it came to the Auto-5. JMB wanted royalties to ensure Winchester produced the gun. Winchester refused, so JMB went to Remington. While JMB was in Remington's offices, the President of Remington dropped dead. So JMB went to FN and the rest is history.

JMB liked to take the train from Ogden to New Haven with all his prototypes once a year to showcase his new designs. If he had to send something ASAP, he would mail a prototype to Winchester.
Click to expand...

An interesting footnote on the A5. JMB's designs weren't always ideal from a production perspective, so Winchester designer-engineers often tweaked them before the patents were filed. T.C. Johnson improved the A5 patents considerably, with a view to making it extremely difficult for a competing design not to infringe the patents. When JMB walked out the door with the A5 design, Johnson was forced to design an autoloading shotgun for Winchester that didn't infringe the JMB patents he'd worked on. The result was the clunky, unreliable 1911.
 
Woodstock said:
Other than the Browning, it's doubtful you'll find many 16s in semiauto. There are pumps, O/Us and SXS doubles, many from Europe, and some of the American companies have brought out 16 gauge models like the Remington 870 in recent years. The best ones are the old ones, and one of the hidden gems is the Winchester Model 12 in 16 gauge, which was built on the 20 gauge frame. Another classic is the Ithaca Model 37, which was built in large numbers back in the day. It's light and quick to the shoulder, a great upland gun. The 16 gauge crowd has its own website, and a ton of useful information, not to mention some beautiful (and pricey) examples:

16 ga.

The definitive destination for the 16ga shotgun enthusiast.
www.16ga.com
Click to expand...
I have Ithaca and Win model 12 pumps in 16 gauge I hunt with them alot.

I just aquired a mint ‘57 16gauge deerslayer that will be a nice deer gun.
 
JNewell said:
An interesting footnote on the A5. JMB's designs weren't always ideal from a production perspective, so Winchester designer-engineers often tweaked them before the patents were filed. T.C. Johnson improved the A5 patents considerably, with a view to making it extremely difficult for a competing design not to infringe the patents. When JMB walked out the door with the A5 design, Johnson was forced to design an autoloading shotgun for Winchester that didn't infringe the JMB patents he'd worked on. The result was the clunky, unreliable 1911.
Click to expand...

Yeah, JMB typically did workbench prototypes that Winchester or Colt would refine into production models. I know that once he moved to FN, he had an in-factory workshop.
 

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