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The Browning Superposed is America’s over/under. Like so many of John Browning’s designs, there was nothing like it on the market when it appeared in 1931, when the country was in the throes of the Great Depression. To the delight of American hunters and shooters, Browning created the mass-produced, affordable O/U at a time when the only O/U guns were high-end British Bosses, Purdeys, and Holland and Hollands.
The Superposed is more than a piece of shotgunning history. In its Lightning and Superlight configurations, John Browning’s O/U still makes a great upland bird gun as it nears its 100th birthday. The heavier 3-inch magnum guns have have to be babied with bismuth, but they can drop ducks as well as any modern gun. If you’re a trapshooter looking for a distinctive, old-school gun, the Broadway trap Superposed with ⅝”-wide vent rib is worth seeking out. In any configuration, the Superposed is durable, reliable, well-made and good-looking.
Browning Superposed Key Facts
- Action: Boxlock O/U
- Produced: 1931-1976
- Designers: John and Val Browning
- Gauges:12-, 20-, 28-gauge and .410 bore
- Notable Variants: Lightning, Superlight, Broadway trap, Pigeon, Pointer, Diana and Midas grade
Browning Superposed History
As the Twenties roared, John Browning saw the possibility for a new shotgun. Americans had money in the post World War I economy. They moved to the suburbs and the cities. They bought things. Their new cars took them outdoors, to the field, to the marsh, and to the range where they shot trap and the new, popular game of Skeet. The times were right for an aspirational shotgun. Browning believed American shooters, who had plenty of side-by-sides to choose from, would see the advantage of a break-action gun with a narrow sighting plane. He also believed that repeating shotguns might someday be restricted to protect game populations, leaving only break-actions in the field. In 1922, he began working on his O/U.
The road to the Superposed’s birth wasn’t smooth. It would survive the death of its inventor, a global depression and a world war. At sixty-seven, Browning, a notorious workaholic, was trying to slow down. Although he handed the Superposed project off to his son Val after he had made some prototypes, he couldn’t leave the gun alone. In 1926 he traveled to Belgium – his 61st Atlantic crossing – to help Val work on the Superposed at the FN factory. Browning died of a sudden heart attack in the factory, leaving Val to finish the gun alone.
The design Val Browning inherited had a tall frame to make room for a locking bolt that fit into two lugs on the bottom of the barrels. The Superposed would not be as light, low-profile, and trim as a British O/U, but it would be extremely durable. John Browning also designed a fore-end that slid forward rather than pivot off when it was unlatched, so that it remained on the barrel when the gun was taken apart.
The elder Browning believed Americans would prefer one trigger, but it was left to Val to create a reliable single trigger mechanism. The first Superposeds had traditional double triggers. Val then invented double-single triggers for subsequent models. Pull one trigger, and it would shoot the first barrel, then the second on the following pull. The other trigger fired the barrels in the opposite order. Eventually Val hit upon an inertia block that toggled under recoil allowing the trigger to trip the hammer for the second barrel — a design that proved highly reliable.
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Introduced Amid the Great Depression
The good times of the 1920s came to abrupt halt on “Black Tuesday,” October 29, 1929, when the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began. And, like that, the market for aspirational shotguns dried up. Browning introduced the Superposed in 1931, and they kept the gun alive through the Depression by cutting prices. Originally the Grade I Superposed listed for $107.50. By 1935, you could buy one for $69.75. The aggressive pricing strategy worked. Superposed sales doubled and the gun was a success. It was a desirable gun, too. When Ernest Hemingway won a tony live pigeon shoot in the south of France in 1935, the first prize was a Browning Superposed that he treasured. Browning added the lighter Lightning model in 1937. Engraved Pigeon, Diana, and Midas grades were offered, too.
Price-cutting kept the Superposed afloat, but low prices couldn’t stop the Germans from conquering Belgium in 1940. The Germans occupied the factory and used it for the production of small arms, especially Browning’s 9mm P35 Hi-Power. After liberation, the Germans damaged the factory with V-1 rocket attacks. Superposed production resumed in the rebuilt factory in 1948. The 20-gauge version debuted in 1949.
Trap, skeet, magnum and smallbore 28-gauge and .410 models appeared in the 1950s, the decade that marked the true heyday of the Superposed. Post-war Americans were the affluent, aspirational consumers Browning imagined when he conceived of the gun in the 20s. World War II had killed off the American double gun industry. The Superposed had its segment of the market practically to itself. A Superposed, even a plain Grade I, became the aspirational gun regular people saved for at mid-century. And, just because they had the market cornered didn’t mean Browning cut corners. The guns from the 1950s were beautifully fit and finished.
The Beginning of the End
The early 60s started well for the Superposed. The gun’s popularity ran high, leading, in part, to the infamous salt wood disaster. In need of wood for Superposeds, Browning bought into a system invented by Morton Salt that reduced the time it took to dry a walnut blank. Stacks of wood were covered with salt to leach out moisture. And, it worked — for the blanks at the top. It was a different story at the bottom, where the moisture pulled out of the blanks seeped into the wood below them. Guns made from those bottom blanks became “salt wood” Brownings that rusted where the salted wood met metal. Salt wood affected many Superposed guns made from 1966 to 1972, although 1967-69 were the worst years. Browning replaced customer’s damaged guns, at no small cost to the company.
Much worse than salt wood, though, was the rising cost of labor in Belgium, which pushed the prices of Superposeds higher even as shooters came to accept Japanese-made competitors like the Winchester 101. Browning kept the Superposed in the line while auditioning a pair of lower-priced replacements.
One was the Liege, a simplified Superposed made by FN, but with a conventional fore-end latch, coarser checkering and sparse engraving. The other was a Japanese-made Superposed copy, again, simplified. Someone at Browning HQ doodled the name “Citori” in a meeting. It sounded vaguely Japanese and became the name of the Miroku-made O/U. The Liege only lasted a couple of years. “Citori” became a household name among shooters. The Superposed went out of production in 1976, then was revived briefly during a limited production run between 1983 and 1986. It survives today as a high-end custom order.
The Browning Superposed on the Used Market
With more than 200,000 Superposeds made, there are plenty to be found on the used market. The 12-gauge Grade I, especially, is not particularly expensive and you’ll find them for about $1,500. It will be heavy, and it won’t have chrome-lined chambers so you will have to clean the barrels every time you shoot it to prevent chamber rust.
Then there’s the “RKLT” version, which stands for “Round Knob, Long Tang,” and it refers to the Prince of Wales-style grip and long lower tang that is the most the desirable configuration. There were short-tang and full-pistol grip guns made, too, and there’s nothing wrong with them as shooters.
A 20-gauge Superposed will run you $2,500 or so, depending on the grade. A 12-gauge Superlight sells for about $3,500, a 20-gauge Superlight for upwards of $5k. The 28s and .410s and the higher grade-guns run much steeper. The high grades were originally the Pigeon, Diana and Midas (shown in the photo above). Browning switched to numbered grades I-VI for a while, then Browning went back to the Pigeon, Diana, and Midas designations, plus “Pointer” grades snuck in there at some point. The Blue Book of Gun Values is a good resource for straightening out models and grades. Ned Schwing’s book “Browning Superposed: John M. Browning’s Last Legacy,” is the last word on the Superposed. Unfortunately, it’s out of print — used copies start around $250.
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Final Thoughts on the Browning Superposed
Browning spent most of his career increasing firepower, with lever-actions, pump-actions, semi- and fully-automatic actions. That his last gun would be a two-shot break action seems like a conscious step backward. Yet Browning, a thoughtful and self-aware man, once said to one of his sons: “ . . . this progress we brag about is just a crazy, blind racing past the things we are looking for – and haven’t got the sense to recognize. And, in the matter of guns, that makes me crazier than most.”
With Browning’s last design, the Superposed, he slowed down enough to give shotgunners exactly what they were looking for.