diff -r 8f0df4db2b06 Lib/urllib/request.py
--- a/Lib/urllib/request.py	Tue Sep 27 15:23:04 2016 -0700
+++ b/Lib/urllib/request.py	Tue Sep 27 18:53:29 2016 -0500
@@ -1059,12 +1059,13 @@
 
     # XXX qop="auth-int" supports is shaky
 
-    def __init__(self, passwd=None):
+    def __init__(self, passwd=None, retry_count=5):
         if passwd is None:
             passwd = HTTPPasswordMgr()
         self.passwd = passwd
         self.add_password = self.passwd.add_password
         self.retried = 0
+        self.retry_count = int(retry_count)
         self.nonce_count = 0
         self.last_nonce = None
 
@@ -1073,7 +1074,7 @@
 
     def http_error_auth_reqed(self, auth_header, host, req, headers):
         authreq = headers.get(auth_header, None)
-        if self.retried > 5:
+        if self.retried > self.retry_count:
             # Don't fail endlessly - if we failed once, we'll probably
             # fail a second time. Hm. Unless the Password Manager is
             # prompting for the information. Crap. This isn't great