Rare Superposed conbo????

Falconflyer

Falconflyer

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A buddy of mine dropped by the other day with a Superposed that he's had for a few years.

It's a 12 gauge dated 1959 and is a two barrel set with serial numbers matching the receiver, also the barrels are stamped 1 and 2. One barrel is 28 inch full and Mod while the other barrel is 26 inch skeet and skeet. The gun is in really nice condition and has seen little use. It's in a nice Browning two barrel leather covered combo case but I'm not sure if the case is original to the gun or not.

It just seems like an odd combo to me, one set of barrels for field use along with a skeet set. Would this have been special order from the factory or did Browning sell combo's like this? I'm thinking it might be kind of rare but maybe not.
 
back in the day it was a common combo to have i have seen 3 bbl sets as well
in the 60's at our local trap and skeet club the superposed was really the only o/u other than a rem 32 of a kreigoff 32
skeet and field guns share the same basic stock dimensions flat shooting low stock specs
 
Like Struff says, such combo's weren't overly uncommon back in the 60's and early 70's. I'm sure combo's were special order back then but Browning were pretty good in delivering special orders in a timely fashion.
Years ago I had a Superposed 12/20 ga combo---the 12ga for long range shooting and the 20 ga for upland birds. A handy combo so long as you didn't get the 12 and 20 ga shells mixed up.
 
One of the Pointer Grade Superposed I owned 30+ years ago was a 2 barrel set in a Browning faux-fur lined hard case; 1 was 30", the other was a single 32" barrel, that gun had a Trap type stock set. My other 2 Pointers both had the common RKST field dimensioned stocks. Traded for a cased Joseph Lang Imperial 12 bore sidelock.
 
Thanks for the input guys, so it sounds like they were pretty common.
I'm not a Browning aficionado although I've owned several Supers over the years and I'm a big fan of Broadway trap guns, I've had 4 or 5 of them to date. The most unique feature of this gun is the fact that it's seen so little use, it's certainly not new but it sure hasn't been shot much and that's getting kinda rare with Supers these days.
I'm used to seeing multi barrel combo's but this just seemed like an odd combo to me, oh well, you learn something new every day.
 
Well Falconflyer, I agree that you recently viewed an unusual two barrel set. My imagination leads me to the original owner being both a casual skeet shooter ( not totally addicted to skeet or it would have been a 3 or 4 barrel set) and a hunter. When I started skeet shooting back in 1970 something, there were quite a few multi barrel Superposed guns in action. I often admired 3 barrel 20, 28, and .410 sets. The gun of choice back then for 12 gauge events was the Remington 1100. Over the years, I have had approx 12 or 15 Superposed shotguns . I loved them all. Unfortunately at the moment, I am down to only the one Broadway you sent my way a couple of years ago. I use it regularly for Sporting Clay events. Last season it broke a 74 on a 75 bird event. Competitors were anxious to have a look at that 60 year old fixed choke shotgun. I would love to find another like that one.
 
Pete G said:
Well Falconflyer, I agree that you recently viewed an unusual two barrel set. My imagination leads me to the original owner being both a casual skeet shooter ( not totally addicted to skeet or it would have been a 3 or 4 barrel set) and a hunter. When I started skeet shooting back in 1970 something, there were quite a few multi barrel Superposed guns in action. I often admired 3 barrel 20, 28, and .410 sets. The gun of choice back then for 12 gauge events was the Remington 1100. Over the years, I have had approx 12 or 15 Superposed shotguns . I loved them all. Unfortunately at the moment, I am down to only the one Broadway you sent my way a couple of years ago. I use it regularly for Sporting Clay events. Last season it broke a 74 on a 75 bird event. Competitors were anxious to have a look at that 60 year old fixed choke shotgun. I would love to find another like that one.
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Hi Pete!
Great to hear from you, that’s an impressive score. Remind me again why I sold that gun??? lol.
That was a long tang 32 inch full and full as I recall, those are great guns! Did you open the chokes any or leave them tight?

I let my last full and full broadway go to a friend and replaced it with an old Mx8 that I purchased as a project gun and although Im over the moon happy with how it handles it’s not better than a broadway. The friend I sold it too is smitten with it as a doubles trap gun.
 
Falconflyer, your memory is spot on with respect to that Broadway. Barrels are 32 inch, It does have the long tang and the barrels were marked full and full. My intention was to use the gun for Sporting Clays and to open the chokes to something like mod and mod. The first thing I did though was to take the gun to the pattern board. I could tell from the patterns that it was already shooting very close to modified . Subsequent careful measurements of bores and chokes proved both barrels to be choked at .022...........Pretty much exactly what I was planning to have done !

There is something else unusual about that Broadway . It has the Round Knob . Everything that I have ever read or seen suggests that all Broadways were manufactured with the Square Knob. I was pretty tickled that it had a Round Knob.

Yet another oddity is the stock dimension. We all expect a Broadway to have trap stock dimensions. I was a little worried about that when I bought the gun, thinking that my POI might be a little higher than I like for Sporting Clays. Well once again, I was very lucky and very happy. With drop at comb of approx 1 1/2 inches and drop at heel of approx 2 1/2 inches, the dimensions were very close to a field stock set up. Again, just about perfect for me to use for Sporting Clays. I did have to increase LOP to 14 3/4 inches, but that was it.

Browning did produce quite a few "special order" Superposed guns. My guess is that the original owner must have either ordered the Round Knob & Field Stock or had changes done at some point. The same original owner may have opened the chokes as well. Falconflyer , you must have been at least owner number 2, I am at least owner number 3. It would be wonderful to have the complete history on this one.

Falconflyer, we have managed to make quite a detour from your original post . Hope mods do not mind and that some site members find the details to be of interest.
 
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I recall that you mentioned possibly opening up the chokes to mod and mod for sporting clays, sounds like someone beat you to it. I think I only shot that gun for a couple rounds of trap to make sure everything worked before putting it up for sale and I probably missed too many targets to notice it was inkballing targets like a tightly choked gun should. Glad that worked out in your favour. I’ve often thought of having a fixed mod and mod gun for sporting clays. My Mx8 is fixed full and full and the thought has crossed my mind……
I thought the round knob was interesting too, the other broadways I’ve had were square. Maybe that round knob is rare or custom ordered like you say. I honestly can’t remember where I picked up that gun so its history is perhaps lost. At any rate Im glad it found such a great owner in you!
Ps, don’t worry about the thread hijack, Im glad to hear from you.
 
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