Blaser, known for their high-end long guns — from straight-pull bolt action rifles to competition over/unders to drilling guns — has just announced a new scattergun model, the F16. It’s available in Sporting and Game configurations, both only in 12 gauge for the time being. It appears to be an evolution of Blaser’s F3, which has been popular on the competition circuit for years. A really slick promotional video along with Blaser’s (by the way, that’s “bläh-zer”) press release follow . . .
F16: THE NEXT TOP GUN
Best in class
Perfectly balanced, with the lowest profile receiver on the market, the Blaser F16 comes along racy, elegant and extremely pointable at the same time. The all new F16 is immediately best in its class!
It is the unique combination of excellent characteristics which makes the all new Blaser over-and-under shotgun F16 second to none. With the lowest profile receiver on the market the F16 boasts an exceptionally low centre of gravity, making it extraordinary pointable and dynamic. This is boosted by the accentuated dynamic, semi-rounded action design, devised using an innovative monocoque construction. The shooter feels immediately the difference when picking up the shotgun. The best prerequisite for becoming a better shot!
Besides the intuitive pointability, the newly developed tapered rib supports the pheripheral vision of the shooter and results in a faster target acquisition. The Triplex® bore design and the proven Blaser ejection system (EBS®), which cocks the ejectors when the gun is opened, allows the shooter to focus on what is really important: hitting the next target. The fast mechanics and a crisp trigger pull (1,650 grams/3 lb.10oz.) allow for a fast transition from thought impulse to ignition.
With the accustomed reliability, the Inertial Block System (IBS®) prevents without any compromise an involuntary second shot or the unintentional triggering of a second shot while maintaining a superb trigger pull.
Modern production operations, the use of high-strength materials and the technological perfection Blaser is so well-known for, make the F16 a highly reliable and long-lasting shotgun for the range or in the field.
The Sporting version, which weighs just over 7 lb 8 oz. (3.4 kg), is available with 30” or 32” inch barrels, while the Game version weighs approximately 6.1 lb 13 oz. (3.1 kg) and is available with 28” or 29” barrels.
Cool video. What I want to know is where to get those shotshells that go WHOOOSSHHH!
How many reichmarks?
Sweet footage!
Blaser left me forever peeved when they brought in only a few (maybe just the one I handled at the SHOT Show) of their handguns and then decided the market was too small. I sooooo wanted one of those. Years later, when I had the money, they were ghosts.
I hope this gun is given a better shot at the U.S. market.
If they’re pitching this gun at discriminating shotgun buyers, they might want to produce a video with some more discussion and facts about the gun, and fewer dramatic slo-mo shots of clays being busted.
They don’t show a price. They have a trigger that adjusts the length of pull between the grip and the trigger face, but they don’t give the buyer any choice of length of pull for the buttstock – which, considering they’re pitching this gun at women as well as men, means that their 14.25″ LOP with the buttpad is going to be too long for many women.
Slick marketing, but they still need to do some actual work on the gun.
The “build your own F16” tool on the site doesn’t allow LOP options? I remember seeing drop and cast options and lots of other things. No LOP? (…on phone on the move and can’t check for myself at the moment….)
It listed LOP as an option. Then it gave you ONE option – “standard,” at 14.75″ long (with the pad). I fat-fingered the length above at 14.25″.
That would be a good LOP for a man my size (ie, over 6′ tall, who takes a shirt with a nearly 17″ collar and long sleeves) but for a smaller woman (say, 5’5″ and under), it will be ungainly long, causing her to open her gun mount, which increases the felt recoil. This happens because her shoulder really is no longer behind the gun, the gun is trying to slide off the outside of her shoulder because her arm is over-extended to grasp the grip.
It’s even long for shorter men. The “standard” LOP on long guns has been in the low-mid 13″ range for over 100 years. As men’s average height and width has grown in the US, it has become too small, especially for men over 6′. This LOP is actually a good starting point for someone my size – but I’m in the minority of even north American men on height. Only something like 15% of men in North America are 6′ or taller. Sure, being over 6′ tall makes us highly desired by lots of women, but it also makes most classical firearms feel short in the LOP. 1903’s/A3’s, Garands, M14’s, AR’s – they all feel short to me.
When I make a stock for myself, the wood’s LOP is at least 14″.
6 feet 1 and the milsurps all feel like they were made for midgets on the back end. My wife is 5 foot even and she has trouble with even some youth model guns just not fitting her right.
The only mosin nagant I have left got an after market recoil pad put on it for the extra reach.
“They don’t show a price.”
That’s deliberate. It gives an illusion of exclusivity.
And just like any advertisement for something, “Call for price” means you will be hit with a sales pitch, as it usually indicates the price is too high…
From the e-mail blast I received — and I understand there’s some variability because there are a lot of customization options one can choose from and some will have extra cost and some won’t — MSRP is $4,195 for Sporting flavor and $3,795 for Game.
That’s about what I figured.
For the money, I think I’d still rather go with Caesar Guerini.
Well, then, you buy a long one and have a stock smith cut it to length. There was a guy who did just that at an event at a local trap range that did just that for the Winchester pump I gave my son. He had a trailer with his tools, and did it right then and there. If it needs to be lengthened now, just add spacers.
There is that option, but if they’re going to offer you a whole bunch of stock dimension options, including drop and cast, then it seems logical that they should offer LOP as well.
That video was Über cool!
Sweet shotgun.
It still boggles my mind that a good double barrel shotgun costs more than my first car.
You can get a Stoeger or Turkish-made Savage for around $650 but they won’t hold up to sporting use. From there, you get into $3k pretty quick. I honestly don’t understand what makes them so expensive.
They’re expensive because you effectively are buying four guns in one package.
I’ve gone over this before here at TTAG – why doubles and O/U’s are so expensive for a quality gun. You should be able to dig that response up with a google search specific to the ttag domain.
Looks sweet. I’ll be looking into a nice O/U after a few more gun purchases. Probably not a Blaser, though. It’s a little too rich for me at this point. I’ll probably be looking in the $1200-$1800 range.
One more observation:
Here we have yet another European gun maker looking for sales in North America (ie, the US) of an expensive gun. There are over a dozen Italian, German, British, French and Spanish (Basque, actually) companies selling Very Nice[tm] shotguns into the US market at prices from $3K up to over $10K. They’re making money on their operations. They’re making nice guns.
Why can’t a company in the US go after this market? Is it because all our gun companies are infected with the Harvard MBA disease? What is it about the US gunmaker mentality that they think all future progress is made by shoveling tons of plastic and bead-blasted, phosphated crap out their doors?
Umm, yeah. Qulaity is just sooo expensive! There is no profit margin in it. (Reducing quality increases profit margins and results in better returns for the shareholders and bigger bonuses for top management.)
I’m guessing it’s cause the growth market in America is handguns followed closely by EBR’s. High end shotguns and hunting rifles are a niche market.
Maybe American companies think the investment in tooling and skilled workers for the return isn’t worth it. Let the europeans have that small slice of the pie.
Sure, they’re a niche market – no argument there.
Still, US auto companies make high-end sports cars to compete with the European high-end sports cars. There’s US high-end audio component companies competing with the European high-end audio products. We could go down a list of niche markets where there are US companies not leaving the whole niche market to the Europeans.
There’s clearly enough money in the high-end shotgun market to support a dozen+ foreign entrants. People still pay lots of money for American-made SxS shotguns made 100 years ago. So there is money in this niche – all someone needs to do is go after it.
Frankly, I’d love to explore gun markets after I retire. I’m bummed that the US market has so many low rent products. I like stainless and blued a lot more than phosphate finishes (except on some of my tactical pieces). I’m not sure how much money would be involved, but I think I would really enjoy Gunsmithing, producing ammo, or even helping to create firearms.
Clearly there is a lot of expertise involved, but I look at beautiful finishes and gorgeous wood stocks and bemoan the explosion of cheap shotguns, handguns and rifles.
Uhm Kolar…
Don’t know if we should be over (or under) whelmed, but serious claybusters know 100+ rounds through a 7 1/2 pound OU will pound you plenty. Might be better to get a Beretta A400 and spend the left over $2000-$3000 on shells and shooting.
I shot the 30 inch and the 32 inch last week in Texas. I am presently looking for one for a more extended “test drive”, mainly to decide between the 30 and 32! The guns handle VERY well and the recoil is no greater than any other OU in that weight range. My son and I shoot international skeet as well so we both are used to 7 1/4 to 7 1/2 lb guns. This F16 has the benifit of a more straight line recoli of the lower barrel enabling a quicker recovery to the second bird. We were shooting 1 1/8 3dr trap loads as that was what was provided, not bad at all. Yes it kicks more than a gas gun but it makes up for that in handling qualities. I’m sold! Outstanding gun, especially for the $$
Such shotguns are awesome but really expensive.