Dog of the Week

DaddyRabbit said:

Absolute idiots and their power tools.

Click to expand...

I agree with you DannyRabbit..........

Hey guys, I'm not so sure that this is a "sweet". The barrel and buttstock appear to be, but they could have easily been replaced. What stands out in the photo is the trigger and safety.....should be gold plated, but appears blued. It's possible that it was worn off by extensive use, but usually there are some traces left behind. IMO the best way to verify/identify an unmarked (stealth/ghost) sweet sixteen is to check for the milling of the inner walls of the receiver..... just inside of the loading/carrier region. Metal should be removed, if it's flat then it's a standard sixteen. There isn't a photo showing us this view. The gun would have to be inverted to see it.

I guess what I am saying is, this gun could have started out as a "parts only" gun because of the mangled receiver, and later converted into a functioning gun by adding the appropriate parts to make a sale. And in this case, it may appear to be something that it is not. If anyone is interested in the gun I would investigate first. Also if the gun is a '47 then the gun, barrel, buttstock, etc., would have matching serial #'s. Just my .02 cents.

Happy holidays to everyone.....A5-HUNTER

Well, as much as we hate it, it was surely one functional shotgun to the owner to mount the scope on it. It wasn't done recently that's for sure. I think it has character. I wouldn't call the person that made the gun practical for their use and idiot, I would call them our ancestors because that's what they were. They were people who bought shotgun shells for a nickel each and made every one count. They were people that were taken advantage of by the wealthy "idiots" whom made gentlemens' agreements with a handshake and caused tax seizures of property by not paying the property taxes that they agreed to for use of the land for hunting pleasure. My ancestors used their land for survival. Excuse the rant, but people back then weren't interested in the collectability of an Auto-5. They wanted a gun that would shoot EVERY time they pulled the trigger because it meant meat for the family. The reason I collect Auto-5 shotguns is because of their heritage................and mine.

chasu,

I agree that our ancestors were generally a practical and capable group when compared to these times, but many of them did stupid things. This is one of them, and not because it the gun may have been a Sweet, and not because they reduced it's value and not just because they did a poor job of it.

It's stupid because it's a bad idea, it does not work well. The A5 has a barrel that is not locked inplace on the reciever, it floats free. It will not remain parallel to any scope that is mounted to the reciever, therefore it will not be consistently accurate.

Browning knew this and that is why they mounted the rear iron sites on the slug barrels, not the reciever.

It's also stupid because they did a horrid job of mounting it. The mounts are in the thinnest part of the reciever and they overtightened them pulling the metal up with the screws. they tried to make up for this by drilling lots of mounting holes. (If you cant tie good knots tie lots of them)

This gun was trashed for no good reason by a hack with a drill and a scope. All of my very practical ancestors would have rolled thier eyes and walked away knowing that the village idiot was playing at being a gunsmith.

Jeff

Well, I did say "we hate it" I never said that I liked it.

Plus, I would never do anything like that to any of my guns, but I can see that people do buy gadgets of all sorts and put them on their guns. We all know there's a bunch out there even today that don't make much sense, but people are still doing it.

A lot of what we call stupid today is what the consensus could have very well been that many years ago. That's like saying that my "practical ancestors" would have worn a hardhat on a construction site a hundred years ago. Sorry, but as much sense as it makes today..........They didn't even have them back then.

I hate the fact that someone drilled holes in that Auto 5 Sixteen, but I won't loose any sleep over it or call them stupid because they tried something that may have seemed to work, as I'm sure as well that they figured it was not such a good idea, because it's not still on the shotgun. The ideas we have, but never try will never see success..........Right?

I won't buy it or one like it. No biggie. My ancestors were "crafty" and I, as well as yourselves, I'm sure, have gained a wealthy portion of their wisdom by learning from their mistakes. We know, we've all made our own share of them.