My brother just got a Browning Lightning o/u 12 ga. It came with 20, 28, and 410 barrels. Comes with a hardwood felt lined case. It has been setup as a skeet gun. Overall condition is 90%. What kind of value would this gun have, and what is the history of this type of shotgun. A local doctor owned it and after he died his widow sold it to my brother.

Very nice shotgun.

The "Lightning" name was originally use for the Belgian-made Superposed line, the later picked up in the Japanese-made Citori line. Both are nice guns, but the Belgian is worth substantially more than the Japanese.

Skeet sets can have been fired a verrry great deal, and don't usually suffer the bumps, hickies, and exposure that hunting guns do. A skeet gun in 90% condition, especially used for all three gauges, may have seen tens or even hundreds of thousands of rounds through it.

Even so, both the Japanese and Belgian Brownings are well made and can go for hundreds of thousands of rounds with only minor parts replacements to worry about. If the frame is tight, then the gun is worthy.

For Japanese, think $1500 up, and for Belgian perhaps twice that, again, depending on condition and originality. Be aware that the market for the more expensive shotguns is somewhat "thin", so the gun may not be as liquid as many guns are.