Gun

Franchi 612 Alcione

FUN TIME FRANCHI?

GMK have re-introduced the Franchi brand to Britain, bringing back the highly regarded 612 semi-automatic and introducing a new over-an-under - the Alcione. Richard Rawlingson reports.

Franchi is a company with a long history - one of the Brescia old guard. The firm was established in 1868 and was a great success for much of its history, until falling on hard times in the recession years of the early 90s. In stepped Beretta, the Italian giant taking over Franchi in 1995. Since then a major programme of investment in modern design and production facilities, backed by Beretta's unrivalled expertise in mass-producing shotguns, has resulted in a new range and Beretta's UK distributors, GMK Ltd, introduced the guns to the British market at last year's CLA Game Fair.

They will be concentrating on two sectors of the market, semi-automatics and 'general purpose' over-and-unders with the Alcione model featured here. The acquisition presumably called for some detailed analysis of the marketing strategy for Franchi vis-à-vis Beretta and my reading of the plan is that Franchi will be positioned at the 'value' end of the market, taking the pressure off Beretta in this segment and letting the main brand concentrate more on higher ticket items.

Hence the positioning of the Alcione as an 'all-rounder' rather than a pure competition gun. Beretta has the competition market covered quite nicely and does not need to dilute sales. So we are not seeing the higher grade models such as the sporter SL featured in the international catalogue, the emphasis instead on the buyer who wants a gun to do a bit of everything from club level claybashing to rough shooting. The price seems right at £770, how does it perform?

Technical Overview

I confess that before I actually got my hands on the Alcione I was expecting another variation on the standard Brescia pattern, the style of over-and-under made by any number of Italian firms operating in this sector of the market. What I got was rather different - and a lot more interesting as a result. The influence is more classic Japanese than traditional Italian. No obsession with slimline actions here; check out the full width hinge pin and massive locking bolt engaging the bite in the barrel lump. Looks familiar? - put a Winchester 101 alongside it and you might spot more than a passing resemblance.

The parallels continue when you take the fore end off and look at the ejector system. The bulk of Italian makers favour the style powered by springs contained in the monobloc's extractor channels. Here they again follow the Winchester pattern of kickers powered by coil springs mounted in the fore end.

If the basic layout of the gun is anything but new, the way it is made certainly is. The very latest computer controlled milling machines are employed to carve out the receiver from a single block of steel to such a degree of precision that all actions and barrels are completely interchangeable, without any need for specialist fitting. Franchi claim that this is the only gun in the world with this feature. Stocks are also interchangeable in the same way.

For the buyer of this gun I suspect these features will be largely academic, because the Alcione has been designed to be as versatile as possible straight out of the box. It is a multichoke design (five chokes are supplied with the gun) and the barrels are magnum proofed and have 'universal' chambers to accept up to three-inch cartridges. That should cover almost all needs, game or clay, quite adequately.

The safety catch is in the conventional place on the top strap and on our test gun was of the automatic type. I assume that conversion to manual should be a simple task if required. The barrel selector though is integral with the trigger blade, in very similar fashion to the SKB featured in last month's test. Whilst I can appreciate the practicality of this arrangement, especially in the field, where a rapid change of barrel priority may be very useful, I do still have a nagging doubt over safety. The thought of someone fumbling around in the area of the trigger with a loaded gun, especially on a cold day with gloved hands, feels inherently risky to me.  

Removing the stock reveals an entirely conventional boxlock action, powered by substantial coil springs. Interestingly, Franchi have opted for a mechanical single trigger rather than the more common inertia block system. Those Winchester influences are apparent once again in the general layout and the ejector trip mechanism in particular.

The barrels have both ventilated top and mid ribs. The top rib is a narrow game style, just 7mm wide and with a plain cross-cut finish. A single white front bead is fitted. The barrel gauge reveals relatively tight bores, as is common on many Italian guns. They measured .724" in the bottom barrel and .725" top. The forcing cones are on the short side - just over an inch or so.

Cosmetics

I will reveal here a pet hate. I wish makers of guns at the lower end of the spectrum would stop trying to dress them up as something they are not. In particular I really don't like etched game scene engraving because the results always look crude and clumsy. What is wrong with clean lines and simple decoration if the budget doesn't run to anything more complicated? In fact the Franchi catalogue makes the point far more eloquently than I can. The SL model has minimal decoration and looks - to me - ten times better than the model in our photographs. Gripe over.

The other area that spoils an otherwise decent finish for the price is the rather heavy chequering. The coarse pitch is emphasised by the way the diamonds get clogged up with the synthetic oil finish.

The wood itself is fairly plain, as you would expect at the price, but of good and strong straight grain and an attractive dark colour. The fore end is given just a hint of a Schnabel tip. The precision engineering gives a more than acceptable wood to metal fit, nor is there much to find fault with in the finish of the barrels, inside or out. The use of traditional gloss blacking rather than a matt finish is a good choice.

On Test

The first impression is that the gun is a little short in the stock, confirmed by the tape measure as 360mm (14 ¼"). However as the stock ends in a rather hard plastic butt plate I suspect most owners would want to fit some kind of recoil pad, adding any required extra length at the same time.

In terms of stock dimensions, the bias is rather more towards game than competition, the drop being 40mm at comb, 60mm at heel. I would knock 5mm off both those dimensions for preference and I certainly feel less drop would suit more people.

The test gun had 28" barrels and weighed spot on 3.5kg (7 ¾ lbs). The barrels alone weigh 1.65kg (over 3 ½ lbs), resulting in a degree of nose-heaviness, one that I personally quite like in my own guns. It provides some initial inertia and makes the gun harder to stop once moving. Not everyone will agree with me and if you like faster handling then this may not be the right choice for you. Whether fitting longer barrels would tip the balance from steady to ponderous is something I can't answer at this point.

The trigger has some initial free play, but is actually reasonably crisp once that is taken up. The pulls are heavier than I like however - a touch over 6lbs for both barrels according to my gauge. I suspect this is the dreaded American problem rearing its head again; makers are terrified of legal problems if they sell guns across the water with anything lighter. The pulls are not so heavy as to be actively unpleasant, but a couple of pounds off the pull weight would certainly improve things.

That aside the gun handled sweetly. I shot a varied selection of sporting targets, mainly with quarter and half choke fitted. My impression was that both were patterning on the tight side, judging by the puffs of smoke if I centered the pattern. Recoil was not a factor on one ounce cartridges, but more noticeable when I switched to some 32 gram competition loads.

Summary

I think the group strategists have been rather clever with this gun. If you are going to sell a rival product to your 'brand leader' then it makes sense for it to be as different as possible from the existing gun. If it then also harks back to a once successful and now no longer available model, so much the better.

The Franchi is a good example of just how well modern machinery can make a gun for modest cost. There is no reason to suspect that it will not give years of faithful service and it fits the brief of a gun that can do a little of everything at moderate cost more than adequately.

I am left however with a slight sense of disappointment. Having discovered a modern-day Winchester (albeit with an Italian accent) I would have loved to have gone the whole hog and seen how close they could have got to the excellent sporters of the late Winchester era. I understand why the marketing strategy is unlikely to allow us a glimpse of that SL Sporter form the catalogue, but you can't help wondering.

More information: GMK Ltd 01489 579999