Celebrating the B25: John M Browning Collection

According to the 2020 Game Shooting Census, carried out by GunsOnPegs in association with Lycetts, Browning are the second most popular brand of shotgun among game shots in the UK - around 20% of game shots use a Browning for the majority of their game shooting. This is perhaps testament to the reliability and competitive pricing of their guns, and over a century’s history of making guns. The John M. Browning celebrates that history.

Founded in the 1800s by American John Moses Browning, the son of a Mormon patriarch (with no fewer than three wives!), the early years of the company focussed on firearms like pistols and rifles for military uses. In a complex story that you can read, should you wish, on the John M. Browning Collection website, he developed a relationship with Belgian arms manufacturers Fabrique National d’Herstal which resulted in him granting them permission to use his name as a trademark.

 

At the end of WW1, among Browning’s projects was a hunting shotgun with over-and-under barrels in the prototype stage. His vision was for a mechanically produced over-under-shotgun at a competitive price. This would become the B25, but John would not see his vision come to market - he died in 1926 while still perfecting the design. His son, Val Allen Browning, a similarly skilled gunmaker, would see the project to fruition. Eventually, almost 400,000 were produced at the FN works in Belgium over a 45 year period, more than half of which ended up in the North American market.

 

Today the John M. Browning Collection celebrates the heritage of the B25, with a range of game, sporting and trap guns carrying the B25 name. Where some Brownings are now built in Japan, these are entirely made at the company’s workshops in Liege. B25s are all built by the gunsmiths of Herstal in Browning’s custom shop, using techniques that would have been familiar to Browning, with every barrel maker, engraver, stock maker, polisher, checkerer and finisher taking at least 10 years to train. Being custom-made, here’s quite a number of guns in the range, so we’ll focus on the game guns - and even here, there’s a near-bewildering number of choices to make and options to consider.

 

 

There are four “grades” of B25 in a game set-up. These begin, obviously, at Grade B. This is described as being the “naked” version, sans bells and whistles. That being said, the wood looks fantastic, with hand chequering, and you can choose from three different styles of engraving. For the ‘entry level’ version this is a beautiful looking gun.

 

 

The grades continue through C and D, each with their own choice of engraving designs. Grades B and C are somewhat less extravagant in their design. By the time you’re at Grade D you’re into territory where the frame is hand tooled and the wood and woodworking are more elaborate.

The top tier of game B25s eschew the alphabet system altogether, Grade Contre Platines is a Ronseal name, translating, to Grade Side Plates. But true to form, you’ve a choice of engraving styles again, including two different foliate designs and a gamescene. Here we’re talking top grade wood for the stock and fore end. The former’s teardrops give an elegance to the stock, while the latter has a cunning three-piece design. The whole caboodle is delivered in a hand-made leather case.

 

 

Just in case you weren’t already overwhelmed with choice, there’s a further set of options to choose from: six variants of stock grip shape; five forend shapes; five types of butt, rib height, barrel length… it is enough to make a chap quite giddy. I’d imagine that the process of going through the fractals of the customisable elements and making one’s choices is both agonising and extremely rewarding.

 

For more information on the John M Browning Collection, or to find a stockist, check out the collection’s mini-site.

 

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