Tomorrow’s Forgotten Weapon: Chiappa Triple Threat

I had the chance to play with a friend’s new Chiappa Triple Threat at the range last week, so I took the opportunity to put together a video. It was intended for a different website, but they already have someone reviewing the gun – so I figured I might as well post it here. It’s not a forgotten weapon yet, but I suspect it will be before too long. Not because the gun is bad – it’s actually quite nice as far as I could tell. But it is definitely a niche market item, and way overpriced.

Chiappa product info: Triple Threat (18.5″ barrel length)

Chiappa product info: Triple Crown (28″ barrel version)

 

18 Comments

  1. Excellent video evaluation, as usual, and thank you, Ian. Too bad about the pricing as it looks as if it would make a good coach gun with a bit of difference from the usual side-by-side offerings.

  2. You are so correct.
    The three barreled shot gun is SOOOOO cool.
    Me want!
    Did the sling come with it?
    Is it Italian or all US made?
    It would be great to use it on a SASS competition shoot!.
    Professor Pistolero

  3. Such a beautiful shotgun. I know it does not make any sense, but I want one anyway, if only so that I can go skeet shooting and confuse everyone else on the range…

  4. It won’t go away that soon, Ian – it’s being made by Turkish Akkar, not the Italians (even more maddening considering the price tag), so if Chiappa pulls a plug on it, the Turks would go on, and probably cheaper. The gun is way too cool to disappear quickly. A sort of a cross between a SxS and O/U. I shot it at SHOT Show 2013 and really liked it much.

  5. Very cool. Visually very similar (at first glance) to an M-79. The segment of shooting with the buttstock removed (noticed you didn’t try that with buckshot!) reminded me a lot more of the “gook in the wire” segment from Apocalypse Now (which was lifted whole from Herr’s “Dispatches”) than any western.

    Not sure what the completion would carry, but I see a very vida loca two-gun with a Triple Threat and a .357 Rhino. Chiappa all the way… to the funny farm. In his “American Handgunner” interview Stephen Hunter went on a riff about weapons whose styling is so obviously national… the Single Action Army is quintessentially American, no one but the Germans would have designed the Luger, the Mk VI Webley is as British as a derby and a brolly. (Hunter didn’t mention it, but the 8mm M1892 is very, very French and I mean that in the best possible way.) By that standard, Chiappa is doing firearms styling – revolver and shotgun – that is as Italian as a 1977 Moto Morini 3 1/2 V-twin street bike. Expensive, exotic, unique, somewhat impractical, but I want, I want, I want…..

    • That little Moto Morini 3-1/2 Strada was simply a blast to ride, and had all the panache and elan one would associate with an Italian sportbike of that era. You are quite right about the “want” factor…..

  6. The gun has the advantage of barrel locations of an 0/U which minimum barrel jump
    when firing lower tubes but a very serious disadvantage of lack of a barrel selector
    which needing to reload fired shells at each barrel break up, or in other case, the
    user has to make rapid subsequent dry fires to reach to the unfired one in emergency
    since single trigger action setting itself on starting order at everytime when the
    barrels being opened. By the way, designing a barrel selector for three barreled
    gun should not be, as easy as, on twin barreled kinds.

    • What about separate (see – back) trigger+selector for bottom barrels and separate (see – front) trigger for top barrel.

  7. Interesting shotgun. I wonder if they make speedloaders for it 😉

    Not in jest, loading one with a speedloader would probably produce a pretty good practical rate of fire in comparison, since loading a tubular magazine is so much slower. I suppose you could get pretty fast reloading it even without a speedloader, but three 12 gauge shells is really a bit of handful.

    By the way, I don’t not to be a nitpicker, but since you seem to care about such things, it’s pronounced ‘khiappa’ in Italian. “Chianti” (a type of wine) is a good analog: http://www.merriam-webster.com/audio.php?file=chiant01&word=Chianti&text=\k%C4%93-%CB%88%C3%A4n-t%C4%93%2C%20-%CB%88an-\#

    or you good follow Sir Anthony Hopkins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVlkZVAw8Gc, although his vowels are a somewhat American (ironically, considering he’s British and the character was later written to be Lithuanian in origin…)

    • The use of the same spelling for opposite pronounciation is a sure recipe for confusion between Italian and English speakers.

      For the record, “h” is used to signify a hard “c” or “g”

      as Euroweasel points out, Chiappa is pronounced “Ki-appa”

      and Emilio Ghisoni’s surname begins with a hard “G” as in “gut”

      A “c” or a “G” with a vowel as the next letter would take on the softer form eg the girl’s name Giulia (Julia in English).

  8. That’s a very interesting gun, thanks Ian.

    Friends and family members have Turkish made Beretta shotguns, they seem to be every bit as good as the Italian ones, they’re very pleased with them.

    The choice of the single barrel on top is interesting, I gather Americans originally went for the over and under layout, having grown up with a single barrel sight picture.

    The British and other Europeans (more prosperous and less subject to tariff barriers in the late 19th century when these things were being developed) were already accustomed to the side by side sight picture – hence the most common of the Germanic combination guns, the Drilling went for the side by side shot gun barrels on top.

    Given the use of side by sides for the likes of the .577, .600 and .700 nitro express chamberings (the first two for well over 100 years)I don’t know that there is any great advantage one way or the other for where the centre line barrel goes.

    I’m in the market for a work gun at the moment, but I think I’ll be going for a scabby, mis treated £100 Mossberg pump…

  9. They have some good products on that website, Terminator 2 Shotgun… Etc, three barrel at once selector switch though “Zombie defence in the U.S seems to be a worry for some reason” they are undead, three barrels better than one.

    Reload, have two in either hand.

    “Possibly do some push ups prior”

  10. Drillings are still very popular among traditional hunters in Western Europe. They will not go out of style.

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