Fiocchi - Poor quality

[Santa2512]

Well I'm very disappointed with Fiocchi, 

Disastrous afternoons shooting on Friday afternoon at Southdown, courtesy of Fiocchi FBlack fibre   

Thought i'd kill two birds with one stone,   Get some more cartridges for the weekend, and have a quick afternoons shooting to boot.

How wrong was i !!

Spotted some Fiocchi Fblacks in Fibre in the Shop,  so grabbed 300  

Plan was 2 rounds of skeet, ad 50 bird sporting down the lane

The skeet went fine,  if i can get lead on the clay's they break everytime,  Just need a bit of work on hold points

So moved onto the  sporting and as i'd used the 2 loose boxes of 25, i broke open the slab

Have to say i had reservations about shooting on the lane,  

on the field on the right were two tractors harvesting,   so shooting at clay's with tractors & people behind, wasn't something i was going to do, so i shot everything on the LH side of the lane

First stand some crossers, so i shot about 10 and move onto the next stand , 

A nice stand, a std L/R & a std going away

The LR went OK, but missed the going away, so i opened the gun and popped in the next pair of carts.

I thought the cart in the lower barrel was odd when i put in it,, but  couldn't say what, but it felt odd.

Called the bird, pulled the trigger and  PHUT!, a small wisp of smoke out of the breech by the fence, and some Browny yellow smoke out of the barrel ....

Uh oh,  something very wrong...  waited 10 seconds and opened the gun,. the cart ejected cleanly and a lot of smoke came out ....

Looked down the barrel, and yup as i thought, a wad jammed just past the end of the fore-end ..   Now that's not good...  

So clever head on, i thought about how do i get rid of a stuck wad...     Easy i thought, I'll pop another shell in and use that to clear the blockage

Behave!!!!!   did you think i was that daft.

No i closed the gun, and started the walk back up the lane thinking how was i going to get the wad out ...

The shop was  great, they had a cleaning rod, and popped the wad out, and checked the barrel over,

All given a clean bill of health,   genuinely concerned of the problem, as they'd never seen it on an F Black.

So wanting to make sure all was OK, i went out to put some more carts though it.

Rather than walk down the lane, i walked back round to the skeet. As it was, there was a guy shooting, and i joined him for a round.

Stand 1 and 2 fine no problem. Loaded  and called the high bird for stand 3  pulled the trigger and  click,    Bugger not again !!

Waited  10 secs, opened the gun grabbed the cart, and saw a wad stuck in the end of the cartridge,  looked down the bore, only to be greeted  with a another stuck wad, and a pile of unburnt powder as it entered the forcing cone... 

Now seriously peed off i walked back to the shop.    

They couldn't believe it, and managed to get the wad  and powder out of the breech, they took pictures and got on the phone to discuss the matter with I'm guessing, the Fiocchi rep.

Looking at the batch numbers of the carts, all were the same batch, so it looks like either a QC issue with the powder, or the assembly of the cartridges...

So by this time I'm very unhappy with the Fblacks, and don't want them, i cant keep having this uncertainty everytime i pull the trigger, not to mention the hassle of getting a jammed wad out everytime .  

The shop were really understanding and immediately swapped the whole lot without question for an alternative fibre brand.

Just to make sure it wasn't the gun i went back over to the skeet and shot another round...    All Ok with no problems, ( well apart from missing .)

So my faith in  premium brand cartridges is a bit dented at the  mo ,  I've emailed Fiocchi with the info, lets see whats they say 

:santa:  

 

[Hamster]

The primer sounds like it has gone off but not the powder ?! Very disconcerting but hopefully they'll get to the bottom of it. 

 

[ips]

I have had a similar bad batch of f black in fact twice. As you say very disconcerting. I have never had to return any batch of any make up until this so that's thirty years of shooting. The first bad batch I accepted as just that but after the second .........

I no longer shoot fiocchi.

 

[Sian]

I used them in fibre for Beretta world didn't have any problems and going to use the rest at Bisley.  Ips I use the Fiocchi TT 1 plastic and I've used thousands by now - get the odd mishapened one but very soft shell.

 

[ips]

sian

I am stocked with 3k superfast at the mo, I think they are very good for the money. Fast (not that it means much particularly) clean soft and cheap, oh and a pretty orange box. What's not to like

ps

I gave balltrap a slab, he shot an abt straight all first barrell (I think) then decided he didn't like em, go figure.

he is very fickle

 

[PhilR]

Since 2012 I reckon I've used with Mary in excess of 20k of Fiocchi FBLACK Plas wads in both 28 and 24gm without a single problem.

I ditched my Eley sponsorship because of the quality control problems with the Superbs I used from 2006 and they were as the name said superb. However, it all changed when Maxam  took over :

Lack of correct number of cartridges in a box, worst case was 21 with cartridges standing vertically.

Misshapen cartridges that wouldn't fit in the chamber.

Missing primers.

Wads stuck in barrel after shot rolled out of end of barrel.

Primers set low in the head.

Batches had different recoil characteristics, some as thumpy as hell.

All reported to the then MD Tom Atienza who I shot with regularly and still do to no avail. Interestingly he used and still does the Caledonian cartridges loaded by Eley, but not a named Eley product.

 

[garry2749]

Ive shoot so many F Blacks in Plastic not 1 problem. Perazzi and Fiocchi do go together very well.

Never tried fiber so cant comment. 

 

[DKGibbs]

Well I'm very disappointed with Fiocchi, 

Disastrous afternoons shooting on Friday afternoon at Southdown, courtesy of Fiocchi FBlack fibre   

Thought i'd kill two birds with one stone,   Get some more cartridges for the weekend, and have a quick afternoons shooting to boot.

How wrong was i !!

Spotted some Fiocchi Fblacks in Fibre in the Shop,  so grabbed 300  

Plan was 2 rounds of skeet, ad 50 bird sporting down the lane

The skeet went fine,  if i can get lead on the clay's they break everytime,  Just need a bit of work on hold points

So moved onto the  sporting and as i'd used the 2 loose boxes of 25, i broke open the slab

Have to say i had reservations about shooting on the lane,  

on the field on the right were two tractors harvesting,   so shooting at clay's with tractors & people behind, wasn't something i was going to do, so i shot everything on the LH side of the lane

First stand some crossers, so i shot about 10 and move onto the next stand , 

A nice stand, a std L/R & a std going away

The LR went OK, but missed the going away, so i opened the gun and popped in the next pair of carts.

I thought the cart in the lower barrel was odd when i put in it,, but  couldn't say what, but it felt odd.

Called the bird, pulled the trigger and  PHUT!, a small wisp of smoke out of the breech by the fence, and some Browny yellow smoke out of the barrel ....

Uh oh,  something very wrong...  waited 10 seconds and opened the gun,. the cart ejected cleanly and a lot of smoke came out ....

Looked down the barrel, and yup as i thought, a wad jammed just past the end of the fore-end ..   Now that's not good...  

So clever head on, i thought about how do i get rid of a stuck wad...     Easy i thought, I'll pop another shell in and use that to clear the blockage

Behave!!!!!   did you think i was that daft.

No i closed the gun, and started the walk back up the lane thinking how was i going to get the wad out ...

The shop was  great, they had a cleaning rod, and popped the wad out, and checked the barrel over,

All given a clean bill of health,   genuinely concerned of the problem, as they'd never seen it on an F Black.

So wanting to make sure all was OK, i went out to put some more carts though it.

Rather than walk down the lane, i walked back round to the skeet. As it was, there was a guy shooting, and i joined him for a round.

Stand 1 and 2 fine no problem. Loaded  and called the high bird for stand 3  pulled the trigger and  click,    Bugger not again !!

Waited  10 secs, opened the gun grabbed the cart, and saw a wad stuck in the end of the cartridge,  looked down the bore, only to be greeted  with a another stuck wad, and a pile of unburnt powder as it entered the forcing cone... 

Now seriously peed off i walked back to the shop.    

They couldn't believe it, and managed to get the wad  and powder out of the breech, they took pictures and got on the phone to discuss the matter with I'm guessing, the Fiocchi rep.

Looking at the batch numbers of the carts, all were the same batch, so it looks like either a QC issue with the powder, or the assembly of the cartridges...

So by this time I'm very unhappy with the Fblacks, and don't want them, i cant keep having this uncertainty everytime i pull the trigger, not to mention the hassle of getting a jammed wad out everytime .  

The shop were really understanding and immediately swapped the whole lot without question for an alternative fibre brand.

Just to make sure it wasn't the gun i went back over to the skeet and shot another round...    All Ok with no problems, ( well apart from missing .)

So my faith in  premium brand cartridges is a bit dented at the  mo ,  I've emailed Fiocchi with the info, lets see whats they say 

:santa:  

The guys at Rakers are great.

Funnily enough I saw a chap at the England Selection shoot at Barbury have the same issue with FBLACK on a stand.

But this was a plastic wad stuck in the barrel, he was obviously getting pretty hacked off as he said he'd had a couple do it that day. Not what you eat at a Selection shoot!

Rakers will get it sorted for you though.

 

[schmokinn]

The only faulty cartridges i have ever had have all been Fiocchi F Black which is a shame as i quite liked them apart from the fact i had a few go off like a sparrows fart and when you tip the gun up have the shot run out of the barrel then have to look around to find something to poke down the barrel to remove the wad!

 

[P1Fanatic]

Never used them but followed a chap at Churchills last year and literally 1 in 3 were not firing. Proper strikes each time but nothing. He was properly hacked off - luckily the refs took pity on him and didnt enforce the 3 misfire rule. But by then his round was ruined.

 

[Dog Tyred]

Just to put some balance to this thread I've used Fiocchi Black's, Official's and (recently) Golden Trap almost exclusively for several years and never had a problem with them going bang. They have all been plastic wad mind.

Must be lucky I guess

DT

 

[ips]

The only faulty cartridges i have ever had have all been Fiocchi F Black which is a shame as i quite liked them apart from the fact i had a few go off like a sparrows fart and when you tip the gun up have the shot run out of the barrel then have to look around to find something to poke down the barrel to remove the wad!

same here I have shot pretty much every brand over thirty years prob hundreds of thousands and like you never had to send a batch back other than two occasions both f black,

 

[DrBeau]

Really surprised. I use FBlack Sporters (fibre) a lot, and personally I really rate them: I've easily put 2k+ through my B725 without a single misfire. Maybe dumb luck for me, though.

 

[salop sniper]

Santa2512, did you get the batch number so we can check any that we have at home ?

 

[Santa2512]

Yup    Batch number is

309 - GGR - 380

:santa:

 

[Forestry-gunn]

Glad I have seen this thread as on the 21st of July I also went up Southdown and got 100 FBlacks and had non stop trouble with them. Some would recoil so much it would make you think about a trip to A&E and others you would wonder if they went off at all. I thought it was just me being stupid but after I got home and cleaned my gun I have never seen so much residue down the barrels in my life. I'm going up there Saturday so I might mention this to the guy in the shop.

 

[ips]

that's same symptoms I had. Take em back if you still have any

 

[SmeGHeaD]

Santa, did Fiocchi come back to you on this?

 

[Santa2512]

Santa, did Fiocchi come back to you on this?

In a nutsell,  NO!

Not a flicker of response, not even a thank you for your email.

That's one manufacturer who wont be used again !

:santa: