Old Browning A500? serial number decode?

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Cope

Fusing with fire
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Im trying to figure out the year of this shot gun and any thing else about it. It looks to be an A500 but it is bult strange to me.

The little book says 2000 automatic gas operated shot gun.

The number on the bottom (near what is normally the feed ramp but here just seems to move shells from the tube to the chamber?)
Are the numbers

31230
C47

These are the only numbers i can see.

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Charge handle and bolt.

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Is this left handed? Or im i just off my meds?



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The case has a metal Browning logo on it. I think it is original to the gun or real close.

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The story is it fell off my buddys father's boat while hunting and was lost. She was pulled up a year or so later with a magnet being drug behind a boat. She is now all cleand off as best can be with a new trigger and barrel.

Im not sure i even want to fire it but im gonna try with some low brass, a jacket and gloves....

It would be cool to give it back working.
The other side has his father's name ingraved in it.

If anyone knows about these guns i would like to hear the stories.
 
So are you telling me that gun was lost in a boating accident?
 
Duck hunters?

that makes sense, every time ive gone duckhunting it was in a boat
and i can imagine that would give them a good idea where it went into the water

but i wasnt really serious, i was referring to the old excuse for not registering guns as "they all got lost in a tragic boating accident"
 
Yes it was lost in a boating accident.

To much beer was determined to be the cause!
 
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