Browning BSS Sidelock 12-Gauge, 28” BARRELS, ORIGINAL FINISHES

The Browning BSS earned its reputation as a stout, beautifully made side-by-side, but the BSS Sidelock is an entirely different and much scarcer animal. Built by Miroku in Japan for only a few years during the 1980s, these guns combined Browning reliability with the handling, styling, and mechanical elegance of a traditional sidelock. This 1984 example is the kind of gun that makes you wonder why Browning didn’t keep building them longer.

With 28” barrels, a straight-grip stock, splinter forend, double triggers, and a beautifully engraved coin-finished action, this gun has all the right ingredients of a classic game gun. At just  6lbs. 13oz. and balancing directly on the hinge pin, it feels lively between the hands without being whippy. The action and hinge remain tight, the ejectors are properly timed, the triggers are crisp, and the bores are mirror bright. The wood is particularly nice, retaining an excellent original finish with sharp checkering and superb wood-to-metal fit.

The barrels retain strong original blue but do show scattered small speckled areas of finish loss, likely the result of blood being left on the barrels after a day afield.  Rather than polish away the evidence and reblue an otherwise highly original gun, we have chosen to leave the original barrel finish intact; it is, after all, well-earned character. The photographs clearly show the affected areas.

And frankly, that may make this BSS Sidelock more appealing to the right buyer. Pristine examples have become valuable enough that some owners hesitate to carry them. This one remains mechanically excellent, highly original, and handsome enough to admire—but it already has a few honest reminders that shotguns were built to go hunting. For the sportsman who has wanted one of Browning’s scarce Sidelocks to actually carry for pheasants, grouse, or a day on the clays course, this is a very attractive way into one.