Browning's New 825 Sporting Over Under Shotgun

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The Citori over-under shotgun first appeared on the scene back in 1973. It has become one of America’s favorite shotguns, and the new Citori 825 Sporting has a lot of fine features. Before I get to them, let’s take a quick look at the Citori’s heritage.

A Bit of History

John Moses Browning of Ogden, Utah, was the holder of 128 patents covering 80 different firearms, with the Superposed shotgun his final effort. When he died of a heart attack in 1926, the design of the gun was far from complete, and the task of bringing it to production fell on the shoulders of his son Val Browning. It took five years of effort to finalize all details, and during that time he made a number of improvements to his father’s design. Finally in production at Fabrique Nationale in Herstal, Belgium, the Superposed was introduced to the United States market in 1931.

While Val Browning had hand-built 20-gauge and 16-gauge prototypes, the Superposed was initially offered only in 12 gauge. A ventilated rib added $20 to the price, and while double triggers were standard, the Twin Single Trigger, as well as nonselective and auto-selective single triggers, was soon offered at additional cost. Numerous variations, including 20 gauge, 28 gauge, and .410 Bore, eventually became available, with a Superposed Express Rifle in .270 Winchester and .30-06 Springfield one of the more interesting. One of the more unusual design features of the Superposed is a forearm that slides forward when unlatched and remains on the barrels when the gun is taken down. Due to constant increases in production cost at the FN factory during the 1960s, handwriting on the wall indicated the days of the grand, old Superposed were numbered. With the introduction of the Browning Citori built by the Japanese firm of Miroku in 1973, John Browning’s gun took a back seat in sales, and the standard-production version was discontinued in 1986.

Whereas the Browning Superposed had very little competition for many years, the Citori faced stiff competition from a number of over-under shotguns that were already in a mad race for the American shotgunner’s dollars when it was introduced in 1973. Best of the bunch in my experience was the Model 3200 built by Remington at the Ilion, New York, factory. Other stack-barrel shotguns on the market at the time included the Savage 333, the Ithaca 500, the Beretta BL, the Charles Daly Superior, the Franchi Falconet, and the High Standard Shadow. Like the Browning Citori, the Winchester 101 was built in Japan, and it sold for about the same price. Competition also came from within as the Browning Liege over-under made in Belgium was selling for only a few dollars more than the Citori. But the Browning Citori outlived them all and went on to become one of America’s favorite stack-barrel shotguns.

The Browning, considered by thousands of hunters and clay target shooters to be the best for the money, was improved in 2014 and reintroduced as the Citori 725. Reducing weight and giving the gun trimmer lines improved handling, and equally important, the recoil-reset trigger was replaced by mechanical reset. How do they differ? In recoil-reset, if the trigger is squeezed on a dud and the trigger is squeezed again, the second loaded barrel will not fire. In mechanical-reset, the first squeeze of the trigger can release a firing pin on a dud or even on an empty chamber, and another tug on the trigger will fire a shell in the other barrel. I hasten to add that this is less important on a target gun than on a field gun.

The 825 Sporting Up Close

The latest version of the Citori, and the one featured in this report, is the 825. For now, it is available only in 12 gauge, but as time goes on it will surely replace the 725 in its entirety. That would include but not be limited to the addition of 20-gauge, 28-gauge, and .410 chambers, as well as variations like the White Lightning, Feather, and Lightning Feather, which is my favorite 725 in .410 and 28 gauge. The new 825 is currently available in Field, Sporting, and Trap variations. Barrel lengths are 26 inches for the Field and 30 inches for the Sporting and the Trap. Chamber lengths are 2¾ inches for the Trap and 3 inches for the other two. Plastic shell residue combined with a bit of neglect can cause rust to form in the chamber of a shotgun, so a chrome finish in the chambers of all 825 variations prevents that from happening.

An extremely durable nitride finish on the precision-machined steel receiver of the Citori 825 will resist wear during decades of service, and it fights corrosion as well. Thumbing the top lever to the right withdraws the locking bolt, releasing the barrels to rotate on a large hinge pin at the front of the frame for loading. As the barrels are closed, the bolt emerges from the bottom of the standing breech to engage a full-width bite in the monobloc of the barrels. A tapered surface of the bolt compensates for wear during the firing of many thousands of rounds, or as Browning cleverly puts it, the bolt wears in rather than out.

The Citori 825 Sporting I have been shooting is intended for shooting skeet, sporting clays, and 5-stand, but it also would be an excellent choice for some hunting applications, with late-season, wild-flushing pheasants coming to mind. It is strongly believed that lengthening the forcing cone and increasing the bore diameter of a barrel, or back-boring as the latter is called, reduces recoil and improves pattern quality due to less deformation of lead pellets in a charge of shot. The Citori 825 has both. Standard bore diameter for 12-gauge barrels has long been 0.729 inch, and according to my Brownells dial-micrometer bore gauge, both barrels of the gun I shot measured precisely 0.740 inch. A Lyman Borecam 2.0 wireless camera revealed a flawless finish in the bores of both barrels.

Threaded muzzles accept Browning’s excellent Invector-DS Extended screw-in chokes. Measuring 3.970 inches long, the five chokes included with the Sporting are marked Skeet, Improved Cylinder, Modified, Improved Modified, and Full. All except the Full choke are recommended for use with steel shot. A slightly oversized brass alloy band at the tail end of each choke seals off the bore to prevent propellant gas and debris from migrating to the threaded section at the front. While the fit between the band and the bore is rather tight, as it must be to work, the choke is easy to remove with the included T-handle wrench, regardless of the number of rounds fired. A choke extends 0.800 inch beyond the muzzle of the barrel, and in addition to precision-machined surface checkering, marking on a second brass alloy band at its muzzle indicates the degree of constriction. That information is also etched into the side of each choke.

The barrels of the Sporting and Trap guns can become quite hot when clay targets are being rapidly smoked in flight, and ventilated side ribs allow air to flow between the lower surfaces of the barrels beyond the forearm. Cross-hatching on the surface of the ventilated top rib eliminates glare when shooting in bright sunlight. As is often seen on target guns, the Sporting has a tapered rib measuring 0.355 inch wide at the receiver and 0.325 inch at the muzzle. Its white mid-bead measures 0.068 inch, while at the front, fiber-optic rods in white, red, and green measuring 0.130, 0.120, and 0.105 inch in diameter are easily interchanged with the aid of an included tool. My digital scale indicated a weight of 7 pounds, 13.2 ounces for the gun.

The Sporting and Field are 50/50 guns, which means they shoot flat with pattern center on the average shooter’s hold point, or close to it. Of course, this will vary from shooter to shooter. All clay targets launched in trap are rising, and serious competitors in that sport prefer to hold under a target so it is in full view from trap house to break. For this reason, the Trap model with a nonadjustable comb on its stock is classified by Browning as a 70/30 gun, which means that 70 percent of the pattern will be above the shooter’s hold point. The owner of a gun with the extra-cost Pro Fit stock with height-adjustable comb can vary that from 50/50 to 90/10. Moving on up in cost to the Trap Max variation, its stock is fully adjustable for comb height, length of pull, drop, cast, toe-in, and toe-out. Gun balance can be adjusted by installing or removing included weights in the stock. The Trap Max is as close to an expensive custom fit as a standard-production trap gun can be.

Returning to the Sporting version of the Citori 825, the Pro Fit stock is an extra-cost option for it as well, although the one that shattered more than a few clay targets in my hands on the skeet and 5-stand fields did not have it, nor was it needed. According to Browning, contrasting figure in the black walnut stocks of the three Citori 825 variations will vary from Grade III to Grade IV, and while I have no idea how the gun I am shooting would be graded, my eyes tell me Grade III on the stock and Grade IV on the forearm. Cut checkering on the stock and forearm was perfectly executed at 20 lines per inch, with not a single border runover and all diamonds nicely pointed up. The semigloss synthetic finish described by Browning as “gloss oil” highlights the figure in the wood, and it should do a good job of preventing the moisture content of the stock from increasing during rainy day shoots. Unlike some recoil pads that are nothing more than adornments, the semisoft Inflex II pad, with internal ribbing, soaks up shock and is designed to increase shooter comfort by forcing the comb of the stock slightly downward and away from the face during recoil. By the way, the forearm has a Deeley-style latch. 

As is typical of single triggers on double-barrel shotguns, the second squeeze on the mechanically reset FireLite 2 trigger of the Citori 825 is a bit heavier than the first, although few skeet or sporting clays shooters would notice the difference while concentrating on breaking a true pair of clay birds in flight. Three finger levers included with the Sporting gun are easily interchanged. One is rather narrow, while the other two are wide, one with a smooth surface, the other checkered. Three notches on the trigger bar allow a lever to be positioned a bit closer to the grip of the stock for a shooter with small hands and short finger reach or a bit farther away for larger hands. The middle position seemed perfect for me.

The H-pattern safety slide atop the receiver tang originated on the Browning Superposed. With the tab resting in its far-right position, pushing it forward and squeezing the trigger releases the firing pin to fire a shell in the under barrel first. A second tug on the trigger fires the over barrel. Push the tab forward from its far-left position and the barrel firing order is reversed.

Prior to breaking clay targets with the 825 Sporting, I checked pattern center point of impact at the patterning plate, and it was close enough to dead on the money to suit me. Then it was on to the 5-stand field where I shot five consecutive rounds of 25 targets each. A balance point on the hinge pin of the barrels indicated excellent between-the-hands weight distribution, and it showed on the number of clay targets broken. The 825 Sporting proved to be heavy enough for smooth starts and accurate swings on singles while being light enough for quick directional changes on true pairs and on the occasional bouncing bunny that suddenly decided to leap high into the air. On the following Saturday I shot six rounds of skeet (150 targets) and the 825 Sporting continued to perform like a champ, with only a few targets avoiding the swarm of No. 8 shot from the Federal Top Gun target loads I was using. The new 825 Sporting was a tad more comfortable to shoot than my old reliable Krieghoff K32 with its 0.733-inch bore diameters, so back-boring shotgun barrels might just be a good idea. 

CITORI 825 SPORTING SPECS

• MANUFACTURER: Browning Arms, browning.com
• TYPE: Over-under shotgun
• GAUGE: 12, 3-in. chambers
• CARTRIDGE CAPACITY: 2 rounds
• BARRELS: 30 in.
• OVERALL LENGTH: 48 in.
• WEIGHT, EMPTY: 7.825 lbs.
• STOCK: Black walnut
• LENGTH OF PULL: 14.75 in.
• FINISH: Matte blued barrels, silver nitride receiver, gold trigger, gloss oil wood
• SIGHTS: Brass mid-bead, Hi-Viz Pro-Comp front
• TRIGGER: Single, mechanically reset
• SAFETY: H-pattern slide
• MSRP: $3,679.99

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