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Old October 25, 2010, 04:08 PM   #4
Scorch
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Join Date: February 13, 2006
Location: Washington state
Posts: 15,248
Quote:
According to what I've read on this thread, Fabrique National ceased production of A-5's in Europe in 1940, and did not resume production of them in Belgium until sometime after 1950, and maybe it was as late as 1952 or 1953.
This much I know:

Invasion of Belgium by the German army on May 10, 1940 and the surrender by King Leopold on May 28, 1940. The German army seized the production facilities and converted them to military arms production. FN civilian arms production was interrupted.

The USA immediately embargoed all trade with the occupied territories, but diplomatic work continued until the declaration of war on the USA by Germany and Italy on December 11, 1941.

Several years later, on May 5, 1945, German troops in the Netherlands (includes Belgium) officially surrender to Prince Bernard of Holland, Germany officially surrenders on May 7, 1945.

All of these goings-on interrupted wartime firearms production from FN. I am not sure when production of civilian arms resumed, but from what I have read it was in 1949, and importation of sporting firearms under the Browning label resumed in late 1952. Wartime shotguns sold as Browning A5s were essentially identical to Remington Model 11s except for engraving, checkering, and magazine cutoff. Browning A5 shotguns were made by Remington from1941 until 1947 when Remington ceased production of the Model 11.

There are many Browning-patent Automatic 5-shot shotguns made by FN (FN did not call them Auto-5s, they were the Model 1905 IIRC) in circulation, both from before after the wars (WW1 and WW2) because of the large American troops presence and international travel and trade during that time. I own two, one is a 20 gauge FN-marked shotgun made in 1951, the other is an aluminum-receiver FN-marked 12 gauge made in 1965. Neither are "Brownings", they are FNs. The majority of FN's Auto-5 production was branded as FN, not Browning, so there are a lot of shotguns marked as such that were imported to the USA from overseas used. So the forum member who has a 1949 FN Auto-5 most likely does not have a Browning, he has an FN shotgun.

While the Browning Auto-5 and Remington Model 11 shotguns are very similar, they are different dimensionally, so very few parts interchange without extensive fitting.
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Last edited by Scorch; October 25, 2010 at 04:15 PM.
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