A Versatile Shotgun with Basic “Humpback” Traces

I was among the first writers to hunt with the new-at-the time Browning A5 when the company reintroduced that classic “humpback” design in 2012. As a small platoon of other media members and I tromped through a planted pheasant field in South Dakota, burning through 12 gauge loads, I was struck by how nicely the shotgun handled and pointed.

Everything I liked about the 12-gauge version of the A5 shotgun back then, I now love in the 20-gauge iteration of the A5, which Browning introduced this year. 

We had the chance to range test the 20 gauge A5 Hunter in our review of the best shotguns this summer, and then I spent time duck hunting with it during early teal season. Overall, I found this light semi auto to be a great do-it-all hunting gun that’s easy to carry and shoot well. But that’s not to say it’s flawless. Here’s everything you want to know about the Browning A5 20 gauge.

• Gauge: 20
• Action: Semi-auto, inertia-driven
• Capacity: 4 +1
• Chamber: 3 inches
• Weight: 5.52 pounds (measured)
• Trigger weight: 2.53 pounds (measured)
• Barrel Length: 26 inches (tested), 28 inches
• Overall Length: 47.25 inches
• LOP: 14.25 inches
• Sight: Ivory mid bead, red bar
• Barrel Finish: Gloss blued
• Stock Finish: Turkish Walnut, Grade I 
• Made in Portugal
• Price: $1,980

Key Features

• Humpback-style receiver
• Cushy Inflex II Recoil Pad
• Includes: Invector DS chokes (F, M, IC), and hard case

Review Highlights

• Shot 50% patterns with IC choke at 40 yards 
• Produced reliable 60/40 patterns
• Great handling and natural pointing
• Large, effective cross-bolt safety
• Experienced some malfunctions in the duck marsh

A Throwback Semi-Auto

Many of today’s semi-automatic shotguns are all synthetic and cerakote. There are obvious durability advantages for these materials but, to my eye, blued steel and walnut look a lot better. So I’ll admit I was predisposed to liking A5 Hunter’s appearance. The shotgun’s Turkish walnut is nice, but not so fancy that you’d feel bad accidentally putting a few scratches in it. Complete with its proud humpback-style receiver, this shotgun should strike a note of nostalgia for any old-school duck hunter. 

But the looks and receiver profile are where the similarities between the old Auto-5 and the new A5 end. The old Auto-5 (which was designed by John Browning and went out of production in 1999) was a long-recoil-operated action in which the barrel and bolt recoiled together and re-cocked the hammer. The old Auto-5s were manufactured in Belgium and then Japan.

The new A5s are made in Portugal and have inertia-operated actions — though Browning calls its system a “kinematic drive” — that rely on a rotating bolt head (similar in concept to the Benelli actions). The pros of this type of action are that it makes for light, svelte, and clean-running guns. The cons are that these actions sometimes have trouble cycling light target loads and can have issues gumming up in nasty hunting conditions or when dirty. 

So is the new A5 simply a nostalgia play? Not exactly. Browning says that the benefit of the humpback receiver style is that it creates a longer sight plane, which makes for faster target acquisition and more accurate shooting. 

Whether you choose to believe in the longer sight plane advantage is up to you, but anecdotally, our testers did shoot the A5 20-gauge pretty damn well so maybe there is something to it. 

Patterning the Browning A5 20 Gauge

The test gun we received came with only an IC choke, so that’s what I did my patterning work with (normally I’d run a modified choke). I shot five patterns from 40 yards with HEVI-Shot’s Hevi-Bismuth load: 3-inch, 1 ⅛ oz, No. 6 at 1400 fps. I consider this to be an ideal hunting load for upland birds and small ducks. 

The A5 put an average of 145 pellets inside a 30-inch diameter circle from 40 yards. This resulted in a pattern percentage of about 50 (meaning half of the pellets in the load ended up in the 30-inch scoring circle). That’s really solid, considering I was shooting an IC choke. With a M choke we’d of course see even denser patterns at this range. 

In my testing, the A5 shot 60/40 patterns, meaning 60 percent of the pellets hit above the point of aim and 40 percent hit below. In my opinion, this is perfect for a hunting shotgun. 

The takeaway is that the A5 printed good and consistent patterns. If you were planning on killing game birds at 40 yards and beyond, I’d definitely screw in the modified choke. 

Range Testing the A5 Hunter 20 Gauge

We tested the A5 with the other new shotguns of the year at the Brownells home range outside of Grinnell, Iowa. This year the test team included shooting editor John B. Snow, executive editor Natalie Krebs, freelance writer and competitive three-gunner Matt Foster, and yours truly. We burned up thousands of rounds on the skeet field and Crazy Quail station and then we panel scored each gun.

We were pleased to find that the A5 Hunter ran target loads without any issues. This is a hunting gun through and through, but most of us like to shoot skeet or sporting clays with our hunting shotguns. It’s nice to know that the A5 will handle whatever loads you feed it. 

With the shotgun’s speed-load feature, we were able to run it like lightning. The design automatically loads a shell when the bolt is locked back and you insert a cartridge into the magazine tube. This allows you to get an extra round downrange quickly, or top off the gun by loading a single round followed by stuffing the magazine two shells at a time (a technique our shooting editor John Snow had practiced for multi-gun competitions). 

“While shooting Crazy Quail, I was able to push the gun (and my shooting abilities) to the limit, getting five rounds on target and then reloading again with three more shells before all the targets were thrown,” Snow writes in the Shotgun Test. “No other shotgun in the test could equal its rate of fire.”

Both Snow and I found the gun to mount, point, and swing well. Though the other two test shooters had trouble getting used to the humpback shooting experience. Everyone loved the large and snappy cross-bolt safety at the rear of the trigger guard. 

The main flaw we found with the shotgun was that its fit and finish didn’t quite match its high-end price tag. The configuration of the checkering panels on the fore-end is a bit odd looking. There was a noticeable gap between the rib and receiver, and the bolt release button was undersized and slightly canted. These are small quibbles but we agreed that a semi-auto shotgun that costs $1,980 should be nearly perfect. 

Hunting with the A5 Hunter 20 Gauge

Patterning and range testing a shotgun is fine and all, but the real mark of a field gun is how well it runs and shoots when hunting. So I took the A5 out for Minnesota’s early teal season in September. I mostly hunt teal in the small potholes and sloughs of western Minnesota where you’ve got to hike into your spot. The super-light A5 was a real joy to carry while trudging into those hidden honey holes. For reference, it’s about 2 pounds lighter than my go-to duck gun, a 12-gauge SBE III. 

Shooting early season teal can be challenging, in part because those little suckers are fast and shifty, but also because a lot of duck hunters are rusty in early September. Relatively speaking, I shot the A5 well, folding close-range ducks in the decoys and also dropping birds on some longer crossing shots. I expected that I would feel the sting of those duck loads fired through such a light platform but, happily, I didn’t notice uncomfortable recoil at all while hunting. I think that was the result of the gun fitting me well and the cushy Inflex II recoil pad. 

Because of its light weight and nice handling I think the A5 20 gauge would be a great choice as a hardworking pheasant or grouse gun as well. 

The hunting action was great during the first two days of the season with steady flights of birds buzzing our decoys. I was able to shoot limits of blue-wings both days with the A5. However, on the second day of hunting, I began to experience some malfunctions. The gun would chamber a shell, but not fire it — seemingly because the bolt head was not rotating all the way into battery. This problem cost me a handful of shots at decoying ducks.

To be fair to the gun, I had not cleaned it after the shotgun test where it had fired an untold number of rounds. I was able to eventually get it running and finish out my limit. When I field stripped the gun back at camp, the action was seriously dirty. After a thorough cleaning and some lube it was back to running reliably. 

One other hitch I found with the A5 was unloading it. Hitting the carrier release tab didn’t reliably drop the shell out of the magazine. I searched around online for this issue and found several A5 shooters acknowledging the same problem. I circumvented this issue by simply pressing the shell latch to release shells out of the magazine, which I’d argue is a better and safer way to unload a shotgun, compared to cycling them through the chamber. But the issue did seem to baffle and frustrate other shooters.

Final Thoughts on the A5 Hunter 20 Gauge

The A5 Hunter 20 gauge is wonderful to carry in the field and I shot it well, so that earned it some extra points in my book — it can be a challenge to find a light little gun that you can hit with. I appreciated the A5 Hunter’s traditional looks, despite its small fit-and-finish issues, which some hunters will care about more than others. I’d caution any A5 owners to keep their gun clean for reliable functionality.  

Overall, I think the A5 20 gauge is a solid choice for an all-around hunting gun in a light, sleek platform that doesn’t feel whippy — and looks good too.