Browning Citori

About the Browning Citori

The Browning Citori is a stacked-barrel (over/under) break-action shotgun introduced in 1973 as an affordable evolution of the Browning Superposed. Marketed and distributed by Browning Arms Company in Morgan, Utah and manufactured by Miroku Corporation in Nankoku, Japan, the Citori was conceived to bring genuine over/under quality to the working sportsman's price range: at launch the Citori sold for roughly $325 against the Superposed's $750. The action is a true boxlock with internal coil-sprung hammers, selective automatic ejectors and a single selective trigger that lets the shooter choose which barrel fires first. Barrels pivot on a full-length hinge pin and lock closed by a single underbolt, a robust arrangement that has proven remarkably durable over decades of high-volume clay-target shooting. Available in 12, 20, 28 gauge and .410 bore, with barrel lengths from 24 to 32 inches and chambered for everything from skeet loads to 3-inch magnums, the Citori is widely cited as the best-selling over/under shotgun ever made, with roughly a hundred different model variations produced over its lifetime. The current 725 series, introduced in 2012, features a lower-profile receiver to keep the shooter's eye closer to the rib and a mechanical trigger that does not require recoil to set the second barrel.

The Citori exists because Browning's flagship Superposed had become too expensive for the average bird hunter by the 1970s. Company president John Val Browning visited the Miroku factory in Kochi in 1965 to evaluate their work, and within a decade Browning had partnered with Miroku to produce a more affordable boxlock over/under that would sell for less than half the price of the Superposed while inheriting much of its mechanical DNA.

Browning Citori specifications

Citori weight in 12 gauge is approximately 7 to 8 pounds for standard models; the Superlight Feather variant with an alloy receiver weighs about 6 pounds in 12 gauge. Choke tubes (Invector and Invector-Plus) became standard in 1988 and replaced fixed chokes on most models. The Citori shares the boxlock concept with the Superposed but uses a removable forend (the Superposed forend is attached). Manufactured continuously by Miroku in Japan since 1973.