Sam K11
Here is the latest pistol from the "pen" of Cesare Morini. As can be seen it is a single shot 4.5mm compressed air designed for the ISSF 10 meter air-pistol competition. It comes in a beautiful Aluminium Case with a spare air cylinder, adapter ,gauge and tools. Instructions are in German but there is included some from their previous model in English . Most things though are self explanatory. The first thing that jumps out at you are the balance weights, which seem to owe more to archery than this, but these do work and keep the balance perfectly and are adjustable in angle as are the weights for position. The new Hammerli Free Pistol has the same features (FP10) .I wonder why ??? The grip is superb and is available in all sizes with Left hand options available. The front sight is available also in different widths (see specifications later). The rear sight is adjustable for width with little diagrams on the top and sides to tell you which way to turn the adjustment screws to move the shot. How many times in the heat of a competition have I looked at the manual …..
The grip angle is set up from the factory with an extreme rake, but is adjustable in all directions including offsetting the pistol Left or Right. Other features include, dry-fire lever, muzzle brake, low pressure indicator, easy loading with drop in pellet (see picture). This loading system I prefer over the Steyr as I find it difficult in a cold range to load easily without bending the pellets….It is interesting to note that direct placement of the pellet into the barrel is now only seen in the Steyr I haven’t noticed any changes in accuracy because of this.
Next and most important next to the sights is the trigger. This has all the adjustments you need and has a unique mode of operation, which allows easy setting of both stages and the required weights of each. If you see the picture you will notice the similarity with the Morini pistol.
Getting to the nitty-gritty.. "Well how does it shoot".
In a nut-shell, superbly. There is no special anti-recoil mechanism but due to the design and grip angle, hardly any recoil is felt. Set up in a bench the pistol shoots "one hole" groups and testing with my Combro 625 velocity gauge showed it to shoot at 525 fps consistently. The trigger set up from the factory had a slight rollover effect so I made a small adjustment and shot it with a longish firm first stage and a very crisp light feeling 2nd. I couldn’t fault it for feel and consistency
At the moment there is no agent in this country but you can contact the factory via their website: www.samlugano.ch .
There are a few nice points that other manufacturers might learn from . Nylock to hold the set screws from rotating. Build quality is excellent on all parts. The only fault I could find and this doesn’t only work for this pistol is the fitting of the cylinder to the pistol. The Cylinder is Aluminium as is the frame, so the threads always seem to bind as these materials are not self lubricating. A brass insert or even a steel screw system as per the Morini would be much better. The Feinwerkbau has the same problem on the P34.
All In all I would recommend this one. Up to now it has not broken down and scores have been encouraging. I will be looking next time at the new Hammerli .
