After much deliberation about picking a gun for us to carry out our first gun review, Haydn stepped up to the mark and has chosen the Blaser F3 Grande Luxe to take out for a shot and give his thoughts on.
| Gun Details | |
| Model: | Blaser F3 Grande Luxe |
| Gauge: | 12 Gauge |
| Barrels: | 32" |
| Chokes: | Briley Multi-chokes |
| Weight: | 8lb 6oz |
| Steel Shot Proof: | Yes |
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE BLASER F3
Even before taking the Blaser off the shelf, you can tell this is a serious tool for clay busting. The sleek black action with the subtle hint of gold on the “F3” logo, paired perfectly with the high-grade wood that you get as standard from Blaser.
Even just swinging the gun around in the shop, you can tell this gun was built with control in mind, if you’re a shooter that prefers to have the weight towards the barrels or back towards the stock, this can all be adjusted using the barrel and stock weights provided with the gun.
The build quality is what you’d normally associate with any German manufacturing, everything feels solid; opening and closing the gun you get a solid “clunk” rather than the tinny sound that sometimes comes from other shotguns.
SHOOTING THE BLASER F3
I first took the gun down to our low driven stand on our shooting ground, and the first thing I noticed on the gun was how crisp and positive the trigger pulls are on the Blaser F3, they must be some of the best trigger pulls that I have felt on a competition gun. As I first thought in the shop the Blaser was easy to control, even on the closer and quicker targets which isn’t always the case for a gun that weighs 8lb 6oz.
Moving down to our famous Stand 13 I had a close right-to-left chondelle, followed by our 80-yard right-to-left crosser coming off the high tower and down over the valley – a challenging target to say the least! The first target was turned in to a ball of soot, that could be helped by the Lyalvale Express Power Blues I was using! It was then easy to transition to the long crosser and the swing felt smooth and comfortable to just take out the front edge of the clay, which is sometimes hard to manage with my usual 30” barrels.
Overall opinion
In short I thought the Blaser F3 was one of the better handling 32” guns that I have shot. It felt extremely pointable for the closer targets, but still maintained the control over distance. The F3 is certainly up there with the best competition shotguns available.