Fiocchi F3 28 gram 7.5 shot, plastic wad
Fiocchi is one of the world’s larger producers of shotgun cartridges, and also provides cases and primers to many other cartridge makers. With a history dating back to 1876, and a legion of top shooters adding to their competition successes all over the world, the brand needs no further introduction.
The F3 cartridge is not from the very top of Fiocchi’s range, but it’s one of their serious competition rounds and it performed so well in our tests that we’ve decided to include it here.
The cartridge uses Fiocchi’s F3 single based, square cut, thin laminate propellant, a fairly high energy, fast burning powder, which leaves almost no residue and yields good velocities from modest charge weight. The plastic wad appears to be one of Fiocchi’s own design and worked well.
The shot used is quite well graded for size and proved extremely spherical, having been produced by the traditional shot tower method. Crush tests bear out Fiocchi’s claims of a 5% antimony content, with the Italian size 7.5 shot (close to a UK No 7) giving a CV of 22%.
The F3 was smooth to shoot and patterned well. Patterns were reasonably tight, with a 66% average, and the central density was not too high, meaning the outer sector of the pattern was strong. This sort of pattern can prove more effective than those with high central density, which might smoke centred shots, but at the cost of losing some kills that are not perfectly centred. Overall, Fiocchi F3 offered an outstanding performance for their price.
They all seem excellent cartridges, but no prices.. As a regular clay shooter and pensioner, surely there must be very good clean shot out there at an affordable price!