FAIR Carrera One

Falconflyer

Falconflyer

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Between the mountains and the prairies
We did a bit of shooting on the sporting clay's course down at the Clark County Shooting Complex just North of Las Vegas last Sunday. I shot there some time back and I can't recall what the rental guns were then but I was surprised to see that the rental guns now are FAIR Carrera One over and under's. I have a FAIR field gun and have shot a couple of other models but this is the first time I've gotten a chance to try out the sporting clay's model which I've wanted to do for a long time. It's pretty much a standard gun, nothing really fancy with a 30 inch barrel set made of UM/8-HD40 steel with the proprietary X combs system..... what ever that means... , extended choke tubes, an adjustable comb, non- Schnabel fore end, reasonably nice looking wood with nice checkering and (unfortunately) a florescent front bead. The gun is a bit light in my opinion at 7.9 lbs according to the FAIR website but for the most part it's a pretty nice gun, the balance is to my taste and handling is
pretty good.
Has anyone shot these guns or shot the Clark County course, what are your impressions?
 
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I've been interested in seeing someone review these for a while, we just dont seem to have a reliable distributer for FAIR here. They seem like a good reasonably priced option for getting into sporting guns, kinda like what Fabarm was about 8 years ago.
 
jewman22 said:
I've been interested in seeing someone review these for a while, we just dont seem to have a reliable distributer for FAIR here. They seem like a good reasonably priced option for getting into sporting guns, kinda like what Fabarm was about 8 years ago.
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Exactly, if we had a trustworthy distributor, the brand would be much more popular.
 
Does anyone know what these retail for?
I tried to get our local FAIR dealer to get one in for a demo when he first started stocking the brand probably 15 years ago or so but he wouldn't do it. I told him he should take it (the demo gun) around to a few shoots and get some interest going but he didn't think he wanted to do that, as it turns out, he isn't very reliable or well liked so I guess it wouldn't have mattered that much anyway. I thought then as I do now that the gun has some potential, I've been very happy with the FAIR 20/28 combo I got from him back then.... that would be the same gun that he botched the order on and wouldn't admit to. Regardless, the gun itself has been very good so I think the Carrera could be a viable sporting gun.
 
I'm a bit short winded to be a very good shogun review guy Jewman22 but I though that the gun handled and felt a bit like a Beretta 682. It's close to being the same weight and has the same Schnabel fore end which I personally dislike. The hated orange glowing front bead that has no place on a shotgun as far as I'm concerned could be changed out real quickly and would be if I were to own one. The bluing on the receiver and barrels is really dark, almost black compared to the really nice bluing on my 20/28 combo FAIR. The wood was also very dark and a bit difficult to see figure in, I suspect that dark stain probably masks wood that is a bit plain and that's ok because not everyone wants to pay for nice wood. The checkering was not very sharp like it is on my FAIR but I suspect that the saddles on the push carts have worn the points off of the checkering around the pistol grip on this particular gun. I'm guessing but I'd say the checkering is probably 20 lines per inch.
I was on FAIR's website trying to get some more info and I find they are pretty short on specifics such as bore diameters or forcing cone lengths and prefer catch phrases such as "long and soft connection chamber cones" and "special steels" instead of giving particulars. One thing I find interesting on their website is that the Carerra One is only listed as having 30 inch barrels but they're other sporting model called Racing is offered with 28, 30 or 32 inch barrels. I'd have thought that not offering 32 inch barrels would be a real show stopper on a sporting model. Even their trap models only list 30 inch barrels, very strange!
All and all I think it's a pretty nice gun and a good alternative to some of the mid level guns available.
 
Falconflyer said:
I suppose it's possible.
I just looked on his website and he has one listed there for $2900, that seems reasonable for a new gun. It would be interesting to see how they hold up to higher volumes of shooting.
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The gun he has listed is a regular Carrera. Correct me if i'm wrong, but i thought the Carrera One was a lower grade version of the Carrera sporting designed for the American market to be distributed by Italian Firearms Group.
Carrera Sporting One was the entry level Carrera, Fallowed by the Carrera, which has slightly nicer wood and a nickel reciever finish as appose to the blued Carrera One.

I see the Carrera One on places like Gun Broker and Guns Int. for slightly less then 1400$USD New. That would put them around 1730$CDN before import. Even if you say with shipping and import fees run you 350$CDN, you still get really good value buying from the yanks, as appose to dealing with the dealer of which we do not speak.
Kinda tempting, cant get into a sporting Browning or Beretta for that cheap.
 
Thanks for the info, it really isn't clear on FAIR's website what the differences are between the models. The whole website seems a bit short on technical information but based on my experience with my FAIR field gun and limited experience with the Carerra One, I'd say it's pretty good value if you could get it for under $2k cdn.

The "dealer of which we do not speak".... I like that! :)
 
Falconflyer said:
We did a bit of shooting on the sporting clay's course down at the Clark County Shooting Complex just North of Las Vegas last Sunday. I shot there some time back and I can't recall what the rental guns were then but I was surprised to see that the rental guns now are FAIR Carrera One over and under's. I have a FAIR field gun and have shot a couple of other models but this is the first time I've gotten a chance to try out the sporting clay's model which I've wanted to do for a long time. It's pretty much a standard gun, nothing really fancy with a 30 inch barrel set made of UM/8-HD40 steel with the proprietary X combs system..... what ever that means... , extended choke tubes, an adjustable comb, non- Schnabel fore end, reasonably nice looking wood with nice checkering and (unfortunately) a florescent front bead. The gun is a bit light in my opinion at 7.9 lbs according to the FAIR website but for the most part it's a pretty nice gun, the balance is to my taste and handling is
pretty good.
Has anyone shot these guns or shot the Clark County course, what are your impressions?
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I owned one for a While ( Carrera Sporting) and two of my friends have bought them.
They are fine shotguns, no issues with them at all.
Cat
 
It is good to see other people in Alberta are taking a hard look at the FAIR product, and asking WHY these guns are not marketed by other firms in Alberta.

FAIR guns on an Arizona gun club public rack shows something about the reliability of the firearm.

I believe this thread has some more enquiring to do.
 
bluelynx said:
It is good to see other people in Alberta are taking a hard look at the FAIR product, and asking WHY these guns are not marketed by other firms in Alberta.

FAIR guns on an Arizona gun club public rack shows something about the reliability of the firearm.

I believe this thread has some more enquiring to do.
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Apparently the dealer that handles them is also the Canadian distributor, so nobody else can deal in them. So the product is not the reason for the lack of popularity in Canada, the distributor is.
 
bluelynx said:
It is good to see other people in Alberta are taking a hard look at the FAIR product, and asking WHY these guns are not marketed by other firms in Alberta.

FAIR guns on an Arizona gun club public rack shows something about the reliability of the firearm.

I believe this thread has some more enquiring to do.
Click to expand...



The club I saw the Carrera's at was actually in Nevada but that's of little relevance to the story. I'll stop back there maybe in a few months or a year and see if they are still using them, being rental guns they will get a FAIR bit of use I'd imagine.
 
Falconflyer said:
The club I saw the Carrera's at was actually in Nevada but that's of little relevance to the story. I'll stop back there maybe in a few months or a year and see if they are still using them, being rental guns they will get a FAIR bit of use I'd imagine.
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Thanks. Good to see your getting your Vitamin D.
 
I e-mailed FAIR and asked if there was only one dealer allowed in Canada.

Moira from FAIR e-mailed me back and asked me for a business proposition and plan to sell their firearms.
 
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