Trophy Buck News

It is an old story in the gun business: Fancy new model gets announced; months later prototypes leak out for promotional media testing; then, finally, a year (or two) later, real guns start shipping. And so it is with Browning's Maxus, which was announced in November 2008, with some prototypes available to shoot at the January 2009 SHOT Show in Orlando, and lagging production. Originally slated for late-spring-2009 availability, early-fall delivery has proved to be the case insteadand then, only for the 31⁄2-inch-chamber models. The initial offerings of Browning's new-for-2009 autoloader is the matte Stalker style and also a Mossy Oak Duck Blind camo version for $1499 MSRP, both with 31⁄2-inch chambers. The 3-inch versions are said to be arriving soonagain, in either Stalker matte black or camo for now. Included in all the 'Planet Maxus' hoopla, Browning has made several claims about the Maxus and touted several new features. A few of the features aren't particularly meaningful, so let's dispense with these first. The 'Turnkey' quick-change magazine plug is hardly of any use in a dedicated field gun, one directed to waterfowl at that, where three shots (2+1) is going to be it.