Franchi Opinions

It depends on which Franchi you are talking about. There are indeed some more or less unfinished Franchis, Beretta has some of those kind too!

Tell me that about my Veloce and expect me to believe it. Look at the AL-48 28 ga, especially in the Deluxe grade. Ever see the Franchi 2004 or 2005 Trap guns? Unfinished? Guess again. The higher grade Franchis are indeed a very nice to look at gun. They all are very good guns as shooters. Are they an ASE 90 or a K-80, even a 682 Gold, a Browning Golden Clays? Nope, but they are a very good gun and take a back seat to nobody, dollar for dollar. Even exceeding some many dollars more. Service? Heck I didn't need any, how would I know? Well that really isn't true, I do know. I have a friend who also has a Veloce. It developed a crack in the stock. He sent it back to Franchi's service center and within 10 days it was returned with a new stock and an "I'm sorry, this is the best wood match we have right now!"

Not too bad in my estimation!

BP

I loved my Veloce; thought it was well made and great to look at. However, I returned it to Benelli/USA at the end of February,less than a year after I bought it, for correction of a point of impact problem, which they confirmed 5 weeks later. Since the Veloce is no longer in production, they said, they would replace my shotgun with a Renaissance Classic. "Cool," I thought, "this company really stands behind its products."

And maybe they do. But the fact is, more than 8 months later, I'm still waiting for my replacement shotgun, and calls to customer service only inform me that they just have no idea at all when I might receive it, because the gun order has not been shipped yet from Italy. Apparently, Benelli/USA is unable to communicate with Italy to determine when they plan on completing the order. To my further disgruntlement, I learned that I won't receive any sort of communication--email or phone call--to notify me the gun is on its way to me. It will just show up, UPS ground, at some unknown future time.

You can probably tell I'm seriously miffed. I guess Benelli/USA will eventually honor their 3 year warranty with a replacement new gun; but I have essentially lost an entire hunting season waiting for it, and I am angry about that.

So my experience is this: the gun is great, the customer service most definitely is not. I hope others out there have had better luck. I'd be reluctant to buy another one, even though I liked just about everything about my one and only Franchi purchase.

Roger,