Hopefully this won't come across as too much of a moan at Ceasar Guerrini but regulars may remember I was hoping to change decades long allegiances from Beretta to CG by purchasing one of their Invictus M spec guns. Well it took 3 weeks before my RFD managed to get a price out of them for my request to be sent one with Trap adj stock and beavertail Trap fore end plus same again but in V Pheasant side plate both choked 1/2 & 3/4, after that it took another 4 excruciating weeks of waiting and waiting and promises and extremely confusing and contradictory information including at one point being told 3 guns had been boxed ready for dispatch including a standard multi choke Invictus that I could actually shoot. These simply wouldn't materialise and further excuses would include ParcelForce being unable to collect said parcels due to snow...........................eventually I rang them myself and spoke to gentleman X who promised gentleman Y will call me by 5 pm that day and when gentleman Y didn't, I called again and had another 15+ minute somewhat surreal conversation where I had to regurgitate what had already supposedly been discussed and agreed a dozen times before but somehow nobody knew anything about !
Anywho, we agreed and I was promised that a regular black action 32" M spec and a sideplate version both with adj wood would be with my RFD within 36 hours. I wasn't unduly surprised or upset when a message informed me that they had sent a standard black action as a gunsmith wasn't available to swap wood around.
I eventually after 7 weeks managed to see and handle these guns and sadly have had to give the idea a miss despite being raring to go ahead with the purchase. The reasons are thus :
The black action stock is way too low and the overall weight came in at 7.8 lbs, i.e, too light as well, the wood quality was average at best, I'm sure plenty of people might like it but a serious high volume tool would need to be over 8 lbs in my opinion, the other reason I didn't take to it is the good dollop of cast it appeared to have, resting the gun on its heel and looking down at it via the closed barrels confirmed there was a good bit of cast, not something that would necessarily hold anyone back but it wasn't right for me. The chokes on this gun appeared to gauge 3/4 in both barrels.
The sideplate had lovely engraving and being equipped with an adj stock and beavertail fore end tipped the scales at well over a pound heavier and felt much better, it also seemed to have less cast and the rib picture felt no worse for it. Both guns have such good ribs that the sight picture is exactly what I would want but again even this gun was too low (as I had already tried my best to explain to gentleman Y) even with the comb yanked up half an inch or more it felt like a low combed gun, not just my feeling either as a very capable shot who prefers slightly Trappy combs confirmed. To top it all the wood figuring and quality was in my view rather poor for what I have come to expect from even regular CG guns never mind one over £5k and so well engraved. The barrels on this gun appeared to gauge 1/2 & 3/4 - very surprising as I had been told all their guns came in as 3/4 & Full and would be bored out per customer request after purchase ! Both guns had nice light barrels which was something I was after.
Now my real gripe apart from the rather long winded customer service is why CG are incapable of fitting an actual Trap stock to these, I was even told that a Trap stock cannot physically be fitted to the M spec Invictus :???: which technically means that CG are unable to supply a low rib Trap configured Invictus, something I find bizarre. During the initial numerous phone calls they had apparently told my RFD that they will be able to supply such a stock but that since it would be taken off one that was designed to be fitted to a mid rib gun, that it would probably feel all wrong, judging by the low comb of the guns that did arrive I'd say anything higher would be an improvement - anyway how very odd and most definitely a contributory factor to my decision not to purchase because I could see I wasn't going to get on with either long term.
So there we are, the only glimmer of hope and good news is that I will be test driving a very lightly used DT10 Trap gun being sold on by a young local shot who found out he will be getting a sponsored gun just after purchasing it a few weeks ago, if things work out I shall be sending it away to ease out the chokes as it's currently almost shooting bullets and turning the action into a selective one, will keep you posted.
Anywho, we agreed and I was promised that a regular black action 32" M spec and a sideplate version both with adj wood would be with my RFD within 36 hours. I wasn't unduly surprised or upset when a message informed me that they had sent a standard black action as a gunsmith wasn't available to swap wood around.
I eventually after 7 weeks managed to see and handle these guns and sadly have had to give the idea a miss despite being raring to go ahead with the purchase. The reasons are thus :
The black action stock is way too low and the overall weight came in at 7.8 lbs, i.e, too light as well, the wood quality was average at best, I'm sure plenty of people might like it but a serious high volume tool would need to be over 8 lbs in my opinion, the other reason I didn't take to it is the good dollop of cast it appeared to have, resting the gun on its heel and looking down at it via the closed barrels confirmed there was a good bit of cast, not something that would necessarily hold anyone back but it wasn't right for me. The chokes on this gun appeared to gauge 3/4 in both barrels.
The sideplate had lovely engraving and being equipped with an adj stock and beavertail fore end tipped the scales at well over a pound heavier and felt much better, it also seemed to have less cast and the rib picture felt no worse for it. Both guns have such good ribs that the sight picture is exactly what I would want but again even this gun was too low (as I had already tried my best to explain to gentleman Y) even with the comb yanked up half an inch or more it felt like a low combed gun, not just my feeling either as a very capable shot who prefers slightly Trappy combs confirmed. To top it all the wood figuring and quality was in my view rather poor for what I have come to expect from even regular CG guns never mind one over £5k and so well engraved. The barrels on this gun appeared to gauge 1/2 & 3/4 - very surprising as I had been told all their guns came in as 3/4 & Full and would be bored out per customer request after purchase ! Both guns had nice light barrels which was something I was after.
Now my real gripe apart from the rather long winded customer service is why CG are incapable of fitting an actual Trap stock to these, I was even told that a Trap stock cannot physically be fitted to the M spec Invictus :???: which technically means that CG are unable to supply a low rib Trap configured Invictus, something I find bizarre. During the initial numerous phone calls they had apparently told my RFD that they will be able to supply such a stock but that since it would be taken off one that was designed to be fitted to a mid rib gun, that it would probably feel all wrong, judging by the low comb of the guns that did arrive I'd say anything higher would be an improvement - anyway how very odd and most definitely a contributory factor to my decision not to purchase because I could see I wasn't going to get on with either long term.
So there we are, the only glimmer of hope and good news is that I will be test driving a very lightly used DT10 Trap gun being sold on by a young local shot who found out he will be getting a sponsored gun just after purchasing it a few weeks ago, if things work out I shall be sending it away to ease out the chokes as it's currently almost shooting bullets and turning the action into a selective one, will keep you posted.
