doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Thoughts on Browning Superposed

I like mine. The only O/U I have ever owned.

I have owned and sold 2 superposeds. Both guns were 12 gauge RKLT guns. The build quality on both was excellent and I liked shooting them, but one was not quite what I wanted in an upland game gun (too heavy) and the second was duplicative of what I already had in the safe and used to fund some other gun I had to have at the time.

I knew I'd get another superposed one day and just purchased a minty 50's-era 20 gauge gun with 28" barrels form a member of this board. The scaled frame looks great and "proportional" to the gun. The gun swings nicely and at 6lbs 5 oz should be nice to carry int he field. The quality is everything I remember it to be. I am very pleased with it.

Ken

Browning Superposed guns were and are "good guns for the money" and their pointing characteristic tend to be more "forgiving" than those of "low receiver" O/Us.

There are problems, however. These guns tend to wear and shoot loose comparatively quickly and they tend to be heavy, due in large part to the fact that their robustness is based less on their design than on the mass and the quality of their raw materials. Don Zutz's excellent analyses deal with these flaws.

Superposed guns also have deserved reputations as being "kickers". Part of this problem may have been due to the guns' "high" receiver and another part very likely has to do with the guns' relatively tight bores and short, steep forcing cones. I have seen trapshooters come off the line with bruised shoulders and bleeding faces after shooting these guns. (Of course, it may not have helped that these same shooters very often "hotrodded" their loads!")

A subject near and dear to my heart. My comments are based on my ownership of a number of used Grade 1 models.
As a retired "working man', I have found this model very attractive and within financial reach. I tart up nearly all of my shotguns with a recoil pad for increased LOP, and the BIG Bradley white front sight, often with Lyman white mid bead. It works for me.
I hungered for a Superposed as a young married man in the 1960s, and a number eventually came my way. Actually using these Supers gave me the same rush and inner warmth as riding my 1955 Matchless 500 single. It was a heart and headbone thing. The Super and Matchless were machine made industrial products, both being somewhat dated designs with a heavy dollop of period craftmanship.
Too bad Neds Schwin'g Superposed book is a bit shallow technically, focusing rather on engraving, flashy versions, and charts. Painfully obvious that some of Schwing's pictured higher grades examples have grotesque charicatures of birds and animals, not quite "flying turnips' but close. Page 94 shows an interesting picture of the 1948 Christmas dinner at the Browning St.Louis plant - with the diners sitting on bundled up cardboard gun shipping boxes.
My South Carolina mentor observed that the Superposed soon faded from the hands of serious southeastern US skeet competitors because it was too light, and because the forearm was too difficult to remove to clean and dry after the frequent afternoon downpours.
My double dated 1948/1949 12GA, 30" Super, with the stamped "CANADA" mark under the lower chamber, and my 1951 Trap, are my favourites. The 1948/49 Super was seriously overchoked, until I molested/opened both chokes (from the muzzle end) to Imp Cyl and Full, and is now simply a RADAR Gun in my hands.
These Grade 1 Superposeds are a lot of value for the money, and very useful when the barrels are modified (opened up) for modern one-piece wad ammunition.
All comments/opinions apply to my Grade 1 guns and are offered FWIW.

They are very well made and a good value. I'm not a big 12g Super follower as they seem pretty heavy for a game gun on average, but I did like the 20g 2 bbl set I had.

Love them. Have owned one I bought new for over 50 years. I particularly like the pre-war guns with 2 triggers. I currently have 4 of the 5 different triggers that have been produced (lack only the non-selective single trigger model).
The receiver is a little bulkier than later designs, but is much easier to reload because it opens to a wider degree than most modern designs. A lightning in 12 ga will weight about 7 1/4 lbs, which I think is ok. A pre war gun in the same configuration seems to be about 1/4 lb less.

I do not think they tend to wear more quickly than other designs, but I am not a serious target shooter. They are not expensive to correct if they wear excessively. They are not in the current pattern of serious skeet or trap guns, but make a very nice gun for casual sporting clays.

I think prices are up a little in the last couple of years, but you can still find a very nice lightning 12 from the 50's for around $1200, maybe less. A 20 will be twice that price.

A Browning Superposed was Ernest Hemingway's "go to gun" when he was here in Idaho in the late 1930s and through the 1940s. Many photographs of him with the gun.I have owned and shot them for over 50 years and have a unique fondness for them.

"they are durable and they are cheap"

The 12 gauge Field may be cheap but purchase a Midas Grade or any 20 and the price is comparable to any fine gun. Not many people have seen the Exhibition Superposed of the 1960's and 1970's. As fine a double ever made anywhere and anytime.
The 20 gauge Superlights actually started at 5# 10oz in the 26&1/2"(65cm) (there were a few 28" made) but when Browning began making them again in 1980's the weight had gone to around 6#'s. 12 gauge Superlights were 6# 8oz and probably the best of all of them for upland work. You jsu can't find all steel o/u's in that weight range today. To get that light the manufacturers have resorted to aluminum alloys. I retain one 20 Superlight because it is so light, a 12 Magnum and a Lightening Trap. All the rest are gone. The 12 Magnum 30" F/F with Kent TM #1 is deadly on pass shooting geese but try to find Kent TM.-Dick

Dick: I agree with you the graded Superposed guns are expensive guns obviously because of collector interest. I still believe Grade I superposed are a bargain and can be had for 3/8 ths the price of a similar graded and coveted Winchester Model 21. And I think a super is just about as good of a gun. I think a real weakness in the super is the safety/selector switch. I have had the damn thing get caught in the middle when the birds go out and am standing with a dead gun. This IMO is a flaw in the gun and I have had the gun I hunt with 'locked' to fire bottom barrel first. Also collectors are more interested in round knob, long tang guns. I think this is a mistake preferring the newer flat knob, long tangs with the flat ribs and heavier duty solder and superior mechanical trigger.

I've had a gaggle of Broadway Traps 30 & 32's They fit me and I shoot them well. I've had one ejector failure which is pretty amazing considering the rounds I put through them. The chokes tend to be mighty tight for SC's but I love em!!!