Mumbles Marble Mouth
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Lower Mainland
New gun day finally came last week! After fighting with my Stoeger M3K for quite a while, I decided to upgrade to a Franchi Affinity 3 (28", 12 gauge).
My M3K has never been happy with lighter target loads. Even after a 100-round break-in using heavy field loads, it still refuses to reliably cycle anything lighter than a 1 1/8 oz handicap load.
Yesterday was my first trip to the club with the Franchi. I packed a box of 1 oz #8s at 1300 fps specifically for the Franchi, and a box of 1 oz #8s at 1220 fps for my over/under.
As I worked through my round of skeet, I noticed the Franchi was running flawlessly. Every shell cycled perfectly and the bolt locked back every time. About halfway through the round, I reached into my pocket for another shell and happened to read the box...
1220 fps.
I'd grabbed the wrong ammunition.
The Franchi had been cycling my lighter target loads the entire time without a single hiccup.
I had two leftover 24-gram #9 loads in my pocket from a previous outing. I figured, "Why not?" I loaded them as a pair just to see what would happen.
The Franchi cycled both of them flawlessly and the bolt locked back.
For comparison, my M3K won't cycle either the 1220fps or 1300fps 1 oz loads or the 24-gram loads at all. It wants at least a 1 1/8 oz handicap load to run reliably.
This Affinity 3 was completely new, right out of the box, with no break-in—and it just kept running. I no longer need to buy a seperate handicap load just for the semi auto I can run my favorite Clever T1 1220fps in both.
Needless to say, I'm extremely happy with it. If you're looking for a shotgun that's essentially 95% of a Benelli M2 at a much friendlier price, I'd have no hesitation recommending the Franchi Affinity 3.
