Franchi SPAS-12

Origins

Luigi Franchi S.p.A. of Brescia, a maker of sporting shotguns since 1868, developed the SPAS-12 in the late 1970s for the police and military market, and its name was chosen with an eye on export: "Sporting Purpose Automatic Shotgun" for American import rules, "Special Purpose Automatic Shotgun" for everyone else. Production began in 1979. The problem it addressed was real: a gas-operated shotgun set up for buckshot will not cycle the low-pressure specialty rounds police increasingly fired, and a pump gun is slow with buckshot. Franchi's answer was to build both actions into one weapon.

Design & Construction

The SPAS-12 is a gas-operated semi-automatic with a conventional tube magazine of eight rounds beneath a 21.5-inch barrel (shorter barrels were offered), all in a blued steel and alloy package under a ventilated heat shield. A button beneath the forend switches the action: with the pump engaged the gas system is bypassed and the forend cycles the bolt by hand. The stock is a folding steel skeleton with a curious hook that swings out to brace the weapon against the forearm for one-handed firing; a fixed synthetic stock was also made. There is a magazine cutoff for changing loads, a cross-bolt safety, and on early guns a much-criticized lever safety in the trigger guard that could fire the gun when released — Franchi recalled it. The whole weighs 9.6 pounds empty, ten and a half loaded.

Combat Use

The SPAS-12 was bought by Italian police and Carabinieri units, by special police teams in France, Germany, Austria, Portugal, Malaysia and elsewhere, and by a number of armies in small quantities for guard and riot roles, but its weight, complexity and the unreliability of its semi-automatic mode with light loads limited its adoption. Its fame came from Hollywood: it is the shotgun of The Terminator (1984), of Robocop, of Jurassic Park and of dozens of video games, where its heat shield and folded stock made it the recognizable "future" shotgun. In the United States it was imported until 1989, when it was excluded by the import ban on "non-sporting" firearms, and again briefly in modified form; production ended in 2000, replaced by the more conventional SPAS-15 with a detachable magazine.

Legacy

The dual-mode idea did not catch on — the gas-operated Benelli M4 that the US Marine Corps adopted in 1999 simply cycles everything — and the SPAS-12 is a period piece. That is exactly why it is collected: fewer than 2,000 reached the United States, parts and magazines are scarce, and a complete SPAS-12 with its original stock and hook commands prices its makers never imagined.