Nick Sisley Gun Review Sporting Clays Magazine

July 2008 edition of Sporting Clays Magazine
Kalispel Case Line had a successful and growing
business in hard gun cases, but in 2005, the company’s
Al Hague decided to look for a gun maker that
would match up with his cases in reliability, quality,
and affordability. Further, Hague was looking for a shotgun
manufacturer with a love for tradition as well as one with
experience, innovation, and modern technology. As you
might expect, this was a significant undertaking, but he
found what he wanted at F.A.I.R., acronym for Fabrique
Armes Issidora Rizzini.
Yes, there are a number of Rizzini gun-making families in
Italy, this company, started in 1971, based in the famous Val
Trompia Valley. The towns like Brescia and others sort of
blend together from town to town, with F.A.I.R. nestled into
the hamlet of Marcheno. Hague didn’t specify to me what list
of features he wanted in his shotguns, other than the best
over-under of its kind, as well as a shotgun that was tough, reliable,
and beautiful.
Interestingly, Cortona is the name of a very old and beautiful
city in Italy. There the Italian intelligentsia gathered in
years past because of the city’s beauty, and Kalispel knows that
their shotguns are built of intelligent design and that they are
beautiful—thus the shotgun’s name.
It didn’t take long for Cortona shotguns to hit the market,
and Hague’s company almost immediately came out with a
wide variety of models, all based on the same receiver type.
There are sporting, hunting, and side-plate models, even
hunting 12 and 20 gauges built with a lightweight aluminum
alloy receiver.
New for 2008 is a 28-ga. version of its Grande Sporting
model. Normally, we think of a 28-ga. sporting model as only
for use in 28-ga. sporting events. But what about shooting a
28-ga. sporter for all target shooting, including sporting main
events? I’m sure a lot of you shoot or have shot skeet or use a
skeet field for your sporting clays practice. You may even
know that there’s not a nickel’s worth of differindividual
shooter averages between the 28 and 20 gauge, even the 28
and 12.
How about older shooters whose reflexes are slowing
slightly? Would they shoot higher sporting scores with a
lighter gun? If you can reload 28-ga. shells, you can save because
you will use considerably less of that super-expensive
magnum shot. If you want to shoot potent factory stuff, Winchester
makes the 28-ga. Super Sporting with 3/4 oz. shot at
1,300 fps. There are all manner of reasons to think about
shooting a 28 gauge instead of a 12, but most of us have a
mindset against going smaller.
Lock-up of the 28-ga. Cortona Grande Sporting’s receiver
to the barrels is pretty standard, with a bolt moving forward at
the base of the receiver to lock into lugs built into the rear
bottom of the monobloc. Further, two lugs milled into thebase of the monobloc engage two milled-out areas in the baseof the receiver.
Barrels pivot on trunnions. Both the underbolt
and trunnions can be replaced with wear, but don’t expect
that to happen for thousands and thousands of rounds.
The receiver wears a silver-like finish with good polish.
There’s a bit of floral engraving on both sides and bottom,
plus “contour” engraving that shows off styling and three gold
clay targets, one each on the sides and bottom. “Grande
Sporting” is engraved on both sides of the receiver, and “Cortona”
and “Grande” are engraved on the receiver’s bottom.
There’s more floral engraving on either side of the opening
lever, the fences are stippled, there’s engraving on the blued
opening lever, including another gold clay target, and all this
is nicely finished with a “filigreed” opening lever.
There’s also nice engraving on the blued trigger guard. The
gold-plated trigger itself is the mechanical type and can be
moved back and forth to attain your ideal grip-to-trigger distance.
Barrel selection is a part of the top-tang safety. While
the top tang itself is bright, the safety and selector are in contrasting
blue. The bottom barrel goes off at 4 lbs., 4 ozs., the
top at 4 lbs., 12 ozs., fairly light triggers compared to most I
test, though these have a bit of creep.
The sides of the monobloc are jeweled. The fore-end is
about 9” long, schnabel in shape, and 1.575” wide at its
widest point. Press the plunger at the forward end for removal.
Cortona says this is the Anson style of fore-end latch.
The fore-end snaps off easily, and fit is tight. I tried to wiggle
the fore-end to get any feeling of looseness, but it was solid.
The fore-end iron up against the front of the receiver is both
engraved and blued.
The chrome-lined, 30” barrels weigh 2 lbs., 14.5 ozs. on my
digital postal scale. The vent top rib is flat and measures .370”
its full length, plus there is also a ventilated mid rib. The green
fiber-optic front sight is over 5” long, and when your cheek is
properly positioned to look down the barrel, it sure glows.
There is no mid bead. The barrels are also ported, with two
rows of 13 holes on both the bottom and the top barrel for a
total of 52 ports. Evidently, current thinking is the more port
holes the better. Most makers or porting after-market companies
use more holes on the bottom barrel than the top, figuring
that the bottom barrel will be fired first, when recoil
reduction is most important—before the follow-up shot from
the top tube. The barrels and ribs wear a non-reflecting, semimatte
finish. The top rib has crosshatched horizontal lines. I
shot this gun in some bright sunlight conditions, and there
was no distracting glare. My test gun came with five screw-in chokes I measured
17/8” in length, reasonably long as 28-ga. screw-ins go. The
bores measured .550”, right on target for standard 28-ga.
bores. The cylinder choke measured .547” (for .003” constriction),
the improved cylinder .538” (.012”), and the modified
.529” (.021”). I could measure neither the improved modified
nor full chokes since the Baker Bore Reader probe would not
go into either.
The fore-end is light, at 9.7 ozs., and total gun weight is 6
lbs., 15.5 ozs. This 28-ga. sporter has 30” barrels, but 32” are
available. This 28 is built on a 20-ga. frame, Hague feeling
that a smaller 28-ga. frame would be too light on a true
sporting model.
The Turkish walnut stock gets a hand-rubbed oil finish.
The grain on my test gun is all straight, which should bode
well from a strength standpoint. The checkering is well done,
apparently via a sophisticated, computer-driven laser machine,
and there’s plenty of it at the pistol grip and fore-end,
with a full wrap-around on the latter, save a non-checkered
diamond shape at the bottom of the fore-end. There’s a pistol
grip swale for right-handers, and the stock measures a relatively
long 143/4” length of pull, 11/2” drop at comb, and 23/8”
drop at heel.
The black recoil pad is made of pretty hard rubber, and it is
ventilated. While the edges are somewhat sharp, they are not
overly so. There is a bevel at the top of the pad to guard against
hang-ups on clothing during mounting. The pad is 1/2” thick,
set off from the stock via a black plastic spacer.
I found the 28-ga. Cortona Sporting a pleasure to shoot, so I
shot it plenty. I didn’t expect any malfunctions, and there were
none. The gun seemed very quick on outgoing and crossing targets,
though I tried to keep “slow down” uppermost in my mind
as I was shooting. The little Cortona worked particularly well on
incoming crossers. I was shooting standard 28-ga. shells of 3/4
oz. at 1,200 fps, and I did not find recoil at all objectionable. This
will indeed make a “Grande” sporting gun for many, especially
old-timers like myself. Further, I’d shoot doves with this one,
game farm pheasants or any smaller species of wild birds. It’s my
bet that this would make a wonderful gun to take to South
America for a stint of high-volume dove shooting.
by Nick Sisley

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