The latest autoloader from Franchi, the Affinity 3 Sport Trap, is a four-season shotgun that’s great for downing birds and breaking clays
by Brad Fitzpatrick
I’ve been shooting clay targets competitively off and on for almost 30 years now, and I’m always surprised at the number of different, highly-specialized shotguns that shooters own. Many have a gun for skeet, another for trap, and a third for sporting clays. And, when winter rolls around, they head to the duck blind or upland field with yet another gun. At times it feels like they need a golf bag full of shotguns — one for every shot presentation.
You don’t have to have a shotgun for each discipline to be an effective shooter. Rather, I believe that old saw — fear the man who owns one gun, for he likely knows how to use it. That’s certainly true for shotguns, and it’s why I quickly fell in love with Franchi’s new Affinity 3 Sport Trap.
At its heart, the Affinity 3 Sport Trap operates just like the other Affinity shotguns in Franchi’s line. Using the Inertia-Driven system borrowed from sister company Benelli, the Affinity is another Italian shotgun that utilizes a bolt body, rotating bolt head, and bolt spring to effectively function with a full range of loads. When you fire these guns, everything moves rearward except the floating bolt body, which compresses a spring. When pressures are low enough, the bolt rotates and unlocks, and the inertia drives it rearward to cycle the action. A return spring located on the magazine tube (different than the Benellis with their stock-mounted return springs) drives the Franchi Affinity’s bolt back into battery, scooping another shell from the elevator as it does so. The bolts rotate and the gun is ready to fire again.
It’s a remarkably simple system, and that’s why it operates so reliably. This is extremely important on target guns. Unless you’re hunting high-volume doves, it’s unlikely that you’ll go through more than a box of shells a day in the field, but a single round of trap or skeet requires 25 shots, and many shooters shoot two or three rounds a day. Sporting clays courses are oftentimes more demanding, requiring shooters to fire a minimum of 100 rounds, often without prolonged breaks for cleaning and maintenance. An unreliable gun is prone to going down under those circumstances.
Not the Affinity 3 Sport Trap, though. The ultra-simple design can be swabbed clean in a few seconds, but if you clean the action and add a light layer of lubricant you won’t have any issues. The biggest mistake shooters make when they buy an inertia gun is overlubricating. Clean the moving parts, add a light layer of lube, and you’re in business. It’s hard to stop a Franchi, and if you clean it like you’re supposed to, it will cycle hundreds of rounds a day without a hiccup.
Many shooters will tell you they prefer gas guns over inertia because of reduced recoil, but that’s not an issue with the Franchi. This gun is available in 12-gauge with a 30-inch ported barrel, and overall weight is seven pounds. That’s about three ounces lighter than a Browning Maxus 2 Sporting Carbon Fiber with the same length barrel, but the Franchi comes with a TSA recoil pad that does an effective job of managing recoil. There’s no gas system on the Franchi to prolong the recoil push and reduced perceived recoil, but gas systems require more scrubbing and maintenance than simpler inertia designs.
Additionally, the Franchi comes with an Omni stock with shims that allow the owner to adjust drop and cast. A gun that fits properly always produces less felt recoil.
The Affinity 3 Sport Trap’s controls are easy to operate. There’s a crossbolt safety behind the trigger, an oversized bolt release and bolt handle, and a shell stop. The layout is intuitive and easy to use, which is critical at the clays range or in the field.
The stepped rib may be a bit different for shooters who are accustomed to the more traditional flat rib on many American shotguns, but the Franchi’s rib design and bright red fiber optic bar front sight offers a clear sight picture that allows you to track the muzzle while remaining target-focused.
Three extended choke tubes (IC, M, F) are included.
The Franchi’s weight is just about perfect, and with a balance point at the front of the anodized aluminum receiver, the gun’s weight rests between the hands and swings very smoothly. The gun is also quick to the shoulder, and the radiused heal prevents snagging.
It’s easy to spend a couple grand each on a trap gun, a sporting clays guns, and a field gun, but the Franchi can be used for all those disciplines and carries an MSRP of $999, which makes it an exceptional value.
At the Range
My first firearms industry trip was a duck hunt in Texas in 2012, and we used Franchi Affinity shotguns to kill limits of pintails and redheads in Matagorda Bay. Since that time, I’ve used a variety of Affinity shotguns for upland and waterfowl hunting and sport shooting, and none of them have failed. The Affinity 3 Sport Trap is no exception. With very minimal maintenance, it runs reliably with a wide range of loads from 1 1/8-ounce target ammo to 3-inch magnum waterfowl loads. The Affinity isn’t designed to run with ammo lighter than 1 1/8-ounces, but it will sometimes, though you sacrifice the gun’s outstanding reliability.
I tested the Sport Trap version on a Crazy Quail course using 1 1/8-ounce loads. For the uninitiated, Crazy Quail is a high-speed clay target game where you shoot at a variety of incoming, outgoing, rising, and crossing targets (and even rabbits if the thrower truly wants to challenge your shooting skills). It’s easy to shoot four boxes of target ammunition in a matter of ten minutes, but I’m not sure anything gives a reviewer a faster and clearer picture of the performance parameters of a shotgun.
By the time I broke open the first box, the clays were already flying, and the Franchi had no trouble transforming the 108mm discs to dust clouds. I won’t pretend I hit all the shots I took, but I came away from the experience with an appreciation of all the Franchi has to offer — and a sore shoulder.
Reliability is a critical consideration when buying a shotgun, and the Affinity does not disappoint. Franchi has been fine-tuning these Italian autoloaders for well over a decade, and they aren’t afraid to offer target models designed for long days shooting really light loads. I shot the Affinity Sport Trap 100 times, but I’d imagine by the time the media event ended, there were several thousand rounds put through the gun. The Franchi is a workhorse.
It’s big, to be sure. A 12-guage autoloader with a 30-inch barrel is a long firearm, but as someone who is tall with relatively long arms, I like the balance of the gun with the longer barrel. It’s lighter and no longer than an over/under with 34-inch barrels, and there are even some stackbarrels with 32-inch pipes that push the 52-inch overall length mark. Yes, the Franchi is big, and it wouldn’t be my first choice if all I was hunting were grouse woods in New England. But for wild birds in the prairie states and weekends at the trap range, this gun is excellent. The balance and relatively mild recoil make it a great dove gun, too. In fact, though Franchi doesn’t implicitly call this a dove shotgun, it would be a superb shotgun to have in your collection around the first of September.
With its black polymer stock and black anodized receiver, there’s nothing particularly fancy about this gun, but the Franchi is a great addition to your gun room. I like to shoot sporting clays, but I doubt I’ll ever invest the time, money, and energy to try and make a serious run on the competition trail. But the sub-$1,000 Franchi allows me to have fun a few weekends a month at the local clays course. They also happen to have a trap league here on Thursdays, and the Franchi would be perfectly suited for that. Although Franchi doesn’t directly call it a skeet gun, it would certainly be suitable for that discipline as well. If your school-age child is considering joining a local trap and skeet team, there’s no need to start out with a gun that costs any more than this so long as they are large enough to handle the Franchi’s added heft. The Affinity’s length of pull is 14 ½-inches, which is suitable for a range of shooters.
Equal parts field and sporting shotgun, the Franchi is one of the best all-around autoloaders you’ll find. Even the most mechanically inept among us can learn to disassemble and maintain the gun in a matter of minutes, and a wipe-down and the application of a fine layer of lubricant will keep this gun running until your shoulder gives out.
Affinity guns just keep getting better, and if you’re in the market for a new scattergun, don’t pull the trigger until you’ve laid your hands on the newest Franchi.
Franchi Affinity 3 Sport Trap Specifications
- Action Type: inertia-operated autoloading shotgun
- Gauge: 12
- Chamber length: 3-in.
- Barrel length: 30 in.
- Length of Pull: 14 ½ in.
- Overall length: 51.5 in.
- Weight: 7 lbs.
- Chokes: 3 (IC, M, F), extended
- Stock: black polymer, shim adjustable
- Receiver: black anodized aluminum
- Capacity: 4+1
- MSRP: $999
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