"Zeroing" bead sights on a Franchi

O

Oleg Volk

Staff Alumnus
I am considering getting a Franchi 612 Defense. The 18.5" barrel has a bead on a pedestal sight. I have several concerns:

That the bead would not be zeroed for slugs (my Winchester 1300 just happened to shoot to point of aim with slugs, I got lucky)...can ANYTHING be done in that case?

That I would want to replace the bead with a fiberoptic sight...can that be done without major rework of the barrel?

Can barrels from Beretta shotguns be used on a Franchi receiver? I am thinking of getting a barrel with rifle sights if the bead doesn't work out...
 
Just a crazy thought, I've seen "off the shelf" fiber-optic sight kits for shotguns. The front sight replaces your bead. The rear sights clip on the rib. Would it be possible to adjust the rears with a demel or file?

You can adjust the height of your front bead a bit. Just screw in a taller bead, or file one down.

Not sure what you could do for windage...
 
There are fiber optic sights meant for rifles that may possibly be adapted. Since it's ribless, you may have to use a divetailed base and it may not be worth it.

I've shot lots of institutional 870s with plain beads and slugs. A bead on the bbl tends to make the slugs hit high, a base(pedestal) tends to bring impact down to POA. Almost always, slugs will impact higher than the center of a shot pattern.

I know nothing about that Franchi,but I would be surprised if it didn't shoot close to POA with ONE slug.

And, slug shooting for defense is still not a big piece of the pie. If it patterns your serious load of choice nicely and POA/POI coincide, you're in.
 
Brownells has a number of fiberoptic beads meant to replace the traditional front brass bead, plain or pedestal mounted...
 
Ashley makes an express tritium sight that glues over the bead on shotguns if you're interested. This may work almost as well as fiber-optic and is supposed to have the same point-of-aim as the original bead. Don't know how well glue will hold, but you might try exploring this solution.
 
There's a couple of ways you can go about this; if you want to stick with the bead sight, trap shooters often put a second bead midway down the rib, so when they see the front bead sitting on top of the "halfway" bead, they know they're lined up. If you want the fluorescent "death dot" type of fibre-optic sight, there are a couple of companies (Tru-Glo, etc.) that make "stick-on" versions of these. They also make "screw-in" versions that simply replace your existing bead.
Stacey C.
(PS. Great site and pictures, BTW. A while ago, there was someone selling CDs full of your images for donations to your site; are these still available?)
 
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