Browning Gold 20 ...
- Thread starter Waterfowler
- Start date
Mount Sweetness
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Southern Ontario
Try $900 with the English stock, see what happens.
They are a great semi.
They are a great semi.
Sounds like everyone is pretty spot on. A couple of the local shops have 12 gauge golds for around $650. Add $75 for the Invector choke system, add $75 because it is a 20 gauge and add another $100 for the English stock. $900 is the very top end for a Browning gold in good the very good condition. I aways felt that these guns were undervalued but with all the new semis out on the market and the poor reputation about reliability the Gold series has attached to it because of the of the 3" magnum situation, Browning Golds is a hard sell especially in a small market such as Canada. The Golds at the local shop with Invector chokes and in 12 guage in very good condition for $650 have been sitting in their inventory for over half a year now.
browninggold
CGN Regular
- Location
- Essex County, Ontario
Every Gold ever made will have the Invector chokes. Some of the very early 20g guns had Invector, while the 12’s and most of 20’s had the Invector Plus. Also it was the first run of 3.5” guns that had reliability problems, giving the Gold an unwarranted bad reputation
?? The first runs were very close in tolerance and had to be kept super cleaned and lubed until they worked in or had to be polished
Not a big deal IMO for one of the best made 12ga semi's out there and those that like to kick them IMO have no clue what really the original issue was and how quickly it was addressed by browning nor how good of a firearm they are. Or they complain that they will not cycle light target loads well considering they were never designed to do such why would they. That being said most have no issues with 1 1/8 oz and some will even do 1oz with ZERO issues
I have four GOLDS two 12ga 3 1/2 and two 10ga all were early runs and never an issue as long as I kept them clean which I do anyway
I have not seen any 3 1/2 that were hard sells down this way
Cheers
I guess you are one of the few people out east that knows how to use the internet because General Guns have a 3.5 Gold for sale at $799 for the past several months now. And I never said that it was a bad gun, in fact quite the opposite, I am just saying it has a bad rep. BTW the one General Guns is selling does NOT have the Invector Choke system.
browninggold
CGN Regular
- Location
- Essex County, Ontario
I would suggest doing a bit more homework on Golds, no Golds made for the North American market ever had fixed chokes, they all have a form of the Invector system. As the for the one at General Gun, I live about 5min from there and can assure you it has the Invector Plus chokes, and nowhere in the ad does it even mention anything regarding chokes, which one should not assume means it doesn’t have chokes
Falconflyer
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
With the 10ga the owners not keeping them clean nothing else since they are a unique design to the 10ga only a twin to the old proven winchester super x1
With the 12ga 3" nothing other than as I said before their tolerances were very tight and one had to clean them after EVERY use and keep them lubed. They jammed with cheap target loads or 1 oz but they were not designed for that but try to tell that to a new owner
The 3 1/2 had issues with the first batches but redesigned the gun in the second year and no more problems
Not my words
The 3 ½-inch Gold was the very first 3 ½-inch gas semiauto. Browning engineers assumed that all they had to do was stretch the 3-inch Gold a little until it was a 3 ½. They didn't take into account the stress of shooting 3 ½-inch loads and the speed at which the bolt, carrier and other parts moved, all of which have to work in sync for a semiauto to function. As a result, the first 3 ½-inch Golds didn't cycle as they should all the time.
Browning went back to the drawing board and redesigned the insides of the Gold to make it 3 ½-inch-friendly, but it took a year and by then the damage was done. Once the public gets the idea a gun isn't good it's very hard to convince them otherwise. As I said, the 3-inch versions were always good, and the 3 ½s became good, but the Gold was never as well accepted after
Falconflyer
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Thanks for the info.
I've got a couple of semi's in the gun rack but outside of a goose blind I have little use for them and almost all of my shooting is with break action guns. I did have an acquaintance a few years ago who had a 12/3 inch Gold that he was trying to use for sporting clays and the gun gave him nothing but grief to the point where he sold it after a year or so. He kept it clean and tried many different types of ammo but it just never did feed properly and I know that he had it at more than one gunsmith trying to fix the issue and never got any satisfaction. It may have just been a one off problem for all I know as I've heard they're pretty good guns.
I've got a couple of semi's in the gun rack but outside of a goose blind I have little use for them and almost all of my shooting is with break action guns. I did have an acquaintance a few years ago who had a 12/3 inch Gold that he was trying to use for sporting clays and the gun gave him nothing but grief to the point where he sold it after a year or so. He kept it clean and tried many different types of ammo but it just never did feed properly and I know that he had it at more than one gunsmith trying to fix the issue and never got any satisfaction. It may have just been a one off problem for all I know as I've heard they're pretty good guns.
