doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Fabbri guns - an interesting article

Many English patents and designs were preceeded by French patents and design sometimes by as much as decade or two. A good example...The "jones" underlever and bolting system having been designed, patented, and used in France well before Jones thought of it, let alone filed for a patent. English gunmaking was very much like BASF....they made good things better.

This article alludes to how H&H bettered designs to achieve their status. H&H

I disagree, performance under the harshest conditions brought them to predominance and long before the breechloader showed up.

Great article. Thanks for the link! The H&H action is copied widely because of its simplicity. The Beesley action on the other hand is a thing of beauty and mechanical ingenuity, but only a small number of makers copied it because of its complexity. I used the Beesley action it extensively, and the self opening action is so positive the gun literally opens itself and ejects upon pushing the lever.

Fabbris seem to stand up to hard use. I have examined several that have been used intensely in Trap shooting for decades and are still tight. Cannot really compare though since other "best" are almost never seen in target work.

Shotgunlover, Why are they that durable? Do they have wider bearing surfaces? Are certain friction points hardened or treated? Thanks

This is what I consider hard use.

Mr. Coetsee worked for the Game Department in Southern Rhodesia. His responsibilities included the control of problem animals and the control of the spread of the Tsetse Fly disease. Between 1964 and 1970 the .500 Hollis was to be used almost exclusively on elephant control in the then Southern Rhodesian Game department. On the southern banks of the Kariba Dam especially, elephant carriers of the Tsetse fly had to be controlled to limit the spread of the disease and in the Gokwe and Omay Tribal Trust areas, problems with bull elephant crop raiders kept the rifle in regular usage.

The .500 rifle became well known to VIP foreign guests of the then Prime Minister Mr. Ian Douglas Smith during hunting safaris conducted in the Gokwe area. Among the dignitaries was the late sir Archibald James from London whom hunted his last elephant (accompanied by Mr. Coetsee) at the age of about 80 years. The late Prime Minister, John Voster of South Africa and many dignitaries from the USA, Germany and South Africa were also accompanied during hunts using the same rifle


Of his rifle, Mr. Coetsee said 'the Hollis .500 served me well, having put down about 1000 elephants with brain shots, many buffalos and a considerable number of lions. Bull elephant that were shot with this rifle ranged from 50lbs. per side to 100lbs. per side.'

The Alfred Hollis double rifle was probably built by Henry Leonard of Birmingham.

But, back to Ivo Fabbri.

High end Italian guns are simply made of quality materials. Perazzi and Beretta trap guns typically consume tens of thousands of rounds with nothing more than wear to the locking bolt. My oldest Perazzi is from 1972 and I have no way of guessing how much it was shot prior to my acquisition but I shot it exclusively for several years and put untold thousands of shells thru it. AFAIK the locking bolt in it remains original. Expecting less of a Fabbri ???

From the lack of responses on their personal opinions or experiences with a Fabbri doesn't seem like a lot of people on this board own one. Of course they only make a few guns a year so that cuts the odds way down.