turkish the new spanish

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brybenn

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Is It just me or is the turkish shotgun industry becoming complicated. With so many new names and entry level or budget doubles being offered who actually makes what? There are some good well made turkish guns and then there are the tomato stake guns. I have one of the latter. It's a tristar that should have been named "Try Again". However certain names keep showing up like ati calvery sx, canuck, Churchill, akkar, yildz, cz, the list goes on. To further complicate this many of these lesser names advertise to making big name guns.
Does anyone have an idea of what manufacturer makes what?
I'd like to pick up a couple cheaper guns for bird and bunny hunting that I won't care if I bang up and scratch or wear the bluing off. I'm not looking for a $2000 gun but I don't want to deal with shady workmanship like the tristar I'm forced to keep.
Yildz, Churchill, ati and canuck have caught my attention. Yildz have a good reputation and I've handled several. I haven't got my hands on the others and Google turns up conflicting info of who makes the rest
 
I wouldn't touch a Turkish gun right now. Country is unstable. What happens when they start to fail? Not worth anything for resale. Nothing is free. You get what you pay for....all those cliches...my opinion.
 
dilly said:
I wouldn't touch a Turkish gun right now. Country is unstable. What happens when they start to fail? Not worth anything for resale. Nothing is free. You get what you pay for....all those cliches...my opinion.
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Resale?? Unless its high end SXS or O/U, no normal 12ga pump has much resale value. Great wood, presentation stuff there are a some owners trading them back and forth but check EE. For that matter, rifle resale is brutal right now. New prices have go up 40-50% in the last 3 years but resale it's like diamonds, worth much less.
 
A poignant term I've heard used -regarding offshore manufacturers- is "orphan guns", budget-priced but impossible to find parts for even a few months after being offered for sale. Unless it's a throwaway single shot, I try to stay away from them.
 
I wouldn't touch the Turkish guns either, although ironically I am a huge fans of the former guns of ill repute. Spain, GDR, Russia etc
 
Philthy1 said:
ironically I am a huge fans of the former guns of ill repute. Spain, GDR, Russia etc
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In the above case, you can "buy the gun, not the brand", because many have been around long enough for most to know what is solid and what is not. The Turks are all over the map. Their walnut is the only thing I appreciate.
 
dilly said:
I wouldn't touch a Turkish gun right now. Country is unstable. What happens when they start to fail? Not worth anything for resale. Nothing is free. You get what you pay for....all those cliches...my opinion.
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Actually you don't get what you pay for. There is a law of diminishing returns on high end guns - let's ignore trap guns for a moment - Beretta won't sell a lot of $2000 field guns. Do you really think they are $1400 better than a 930? Of course not. They sell fewer, so they have theycharge more. Beretta shell lifters are famously bad and faulty, and.good luck finding a new shell lifter in a hurry. Those Turkish guns/ cheap guns are easy to find parts for usually because so many guns are made under different brands ie Ata and weatherby.

Randy wakeman wrote an article about this too worth checking out.

I like quality for money but I don't like price point guns. What I mean is you can buy a good Turkish gun that will give you a life of.hunting for not a lot of money but if you want to put 10000 shells through a gun at the club you better be prepared to pay for that diminishing return.
 
Exactly. I'm betting a couple flats of shells a year of 28 ga and 410 combined. That's including a couple rounds of skeet every now and then. I'm getting tired of using my tubes for hunting
 
If you read doublegun forums with any regularity, you will find a very high regard for a number of the Turkish guns, among them the Dickensons.

Additionally, there is no smoke and magic going on. In the production of consumer products that require significant amounts of hand labour, manufacturing migrates over time to balance skill with lower labour costs.

I use the adage I apply to the potentially hundreds and hundreds of makers of the fine old pre WWII SxS I generally target.....buy the gun, not the name.
 
canvasback said:
If you read doublegun forums with any regularity, you will find a very high regard for a number of the Turkish guns, among them the Dickensons.

Additionally, there is no smoke and magic going on. In the production of consumer products that require significant amounts of hand labour, manufacturing migrates over time to balance skill with lower labour costs.

I use the adage I apply to the potentially hundreds and hundreds of makers of the fine old pre WWII SxS I generally target.....buy the gun, not the name.
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Well said. I wish we had better access to Dickenson's in Canada.
 
With a flood of new Turkish makers in the marketplace, the difficulty is sorting the good from the bad.
It was indeed similar when Spanish shotguns flooded the market. There were always top line Spanish gun makers of total reliability, but there were also some dreadful guns with the outline of a good double but doubtful materials and workmanship. Some good makers also made some "bottom end" models - a gun for every price.
I will never be an early buyer of a "who ever heard of them?" shotgun.
 
it is not all about cheap labor, It is about sub standard steel, poor fit up and mass production lack of detail. I have had the stocks off many Turkish guns. Mostly because some one who bought them is having trouble with it. Soft steel with milling marks visible, loose fit up on selector switch assemblies, I am surprised they work as well as they do. I see many shotguns coming through the sporting clay courses, and I see far more people that regret buying a Turkish gun that a b gun Shoot what you like, but comparing Turkish guns to b guns is not fair . they are not even in the same league. save your money buy a B gun shoot it your whole life give to your grandson.
 
I just ordered a new canuck o/u and went with it instead of a yildiz because of the steel receiver , the tristar is super light duty and has a poor reputation, yildiz is too light as well but well made and finished. Ill post something on the canuck as soon as it arrives



brybenn said:
Is It just me or is the turkish shotgun industry becoming complicated. With so many new names and entry level or budget doubles being offered who actually makes what? There are some good well made turkish guns and then there are the tomato stake guns. I have one of the latter. It's a tristar that should have been named "Try Again". However certain names keep showing up like ati calvery sx, canuck, Churchill, akkar, yildz, cz, the list goes on. To further complicate this many of these lesser names advertise to making big name guns.
Does anyone have an idea of what manufacturer makes what?
I'd like to pick up a couple cheaper guns for bird and bunny hunting that I won't care if I bang up and scratch or wear the bluing off. I'm not looking for a $2000 gun but I don't want to deal with shady workmanship like the tristar I'm forced to keep.
Yildz, Churchill, ati and canuck have caught my attention. Yildz have a good reputation and I've handled several. I haven't got my hands on the others and Google turns up conflicting info of who makes the rest
Click to expand...
 
Kenny said:
it is not all about cheap labor, It is about sub standard steel, poor fit up and mass production lack of detail. I have had the stocks off many Turkish guns. Mostly because some one who bought them is having trouble with it. Soft steel with milling marks visible, loose fit up on selector switch assemblies, I am surprised they work as well as they do. I see many shotguns coming through the sporting clay courses, and I see far more people that regret buying a Turkish gun that a b gun Shoot what you like, but comparing Turkish guns to b guns is not fair . they are not even in the same league. save your money buy a B gun shoot it your whole life give to your grandson.
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Well, of course it IS about cheap labour. That's why there is an burgeoning industry in Turkey and a collapsing one in Spain. Labour is what drives it. The issues you refer to are real, but represent the normal "bugs" any and every industry goes through when setting up in new locales. I've watched it as an insider in several industries as manufacturing migrated over 40 years from North America and Europe, to Taiwan, Japan and Korea, then China, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, then finally Vietnam, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

And while I agree with you about the B guns, the whole point of Turkish guns, at this point, is to hit a price point that the B guns can't.

IMHO it's way too soon to buy a Turkish gun for serious clays volumes. But some of them currently represent great value for hunting guns. And they will get better. Again, be a knowledgeable and informed buyer.
 
I have owned and used both the Yildiz and CZ Over & Under brand shotguns and have no problem in recommending them to use for what they are, an entry level shotgun that is great for hunting and shooting a few rounds of trap or clays a year. They are well made, point great, fit me well, come with 5 chokes and have as good a wood to metal finish as my Beretta 686. Will they last as long as one of the B guns...probably not but at around a thousand, give or take as opposed to B gun prices what is not to like. OP go for it with a Yildiz or CZ, you will enjoy one of them for what you stated you wanted to use them for...the Yildiz weighs about a pound less then the CZ if that matters to you.
I am guessing most of the "nah sayers" on here have ever even shot or handle one of these 2 O/Us.

Jim
 
I'm old enough to remember when Beretta and all Italian guns were looked upon as junk. The Turks can make a product to any level necessary -- its rumored (from a reliable source within their organization) that A400 and some Benelli parts are made in Turkey and assembled in Italy and Portugal. The problem in this country is that some distributors brought in low end junk for the quick sale -- and it was/is just that ---- "junk" and so followed the bad reputation. OMHO!
 
Why do people always knock down what they have to idea about well made guns come from Turkey, I have a cy 3 1/2 and the best gun I have ever owned. To the hunters who think they know everything, Your italian Barettas havethe same parts as my 1000$ cy. Get educated before you talk CRAP
 
Grouser said:
I'm old enough to remember when Beretta and all Italian guns were looked upon as junk. The Turks can make a product to any level necessary -- its rumored (from a reliable source within their organization) that A400 and some Benelli parts are made in Turkey and assembled in Italy and Portugal. The problem in this country is that some distributors brought in low end junk for the quick sale -- and it was/is just that ---- "junk" and so followed the bad reputation. OMHO!
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Yup ... the Cdn sellers wanted the quick cash.
 
cudam said:
Why do people always knock down what they have to idea about well made guns come from Turkey, I have a cy 3 1/2 and the best gun I have ever owned. To the hunters who think they know everything, Your italian Barettas havethe same parts as my 1000$ cy. Get educated before you talk CRAP
Click to expand...
Check yourself boy. Your four posts don't exactly give you a solid platform from which to throw your mud.
 
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