This is a small review of TM’s SPAS 12, thats Special Purpose Automatic Shotgun, a 6mm BB Airsoft version of Franchii’s stylish and efficient assault shotgun, star of Half-Life and NewWorldOrder.
Ddeveloped in the late seventies this assault shotgun was made for close quarters and rapid assault deployment against terrorist targets by the italian company Franchii. as expected with an italian company, the result was as sexy as it was expensive. however it offered a more adaptable package than many shotgun manufacturers at the time, with the feature that it could be fired in an ‘automatic’ capacity simply by depressing the trigger and repeatedly pumping the action untill the eight round buckshot magazine ran dry.
the airsoft version works in much the same manner, except the magazine holds ten rounds in the receiver, instead of a long tube type magazine. these are fired in bursts of three from three seperate ‘hopped up’ barrels inside the main outer barrel. thats right, it fores a blast, not just a single bb for all your cocking effort.
to emulate some of the form of the origional shotgun, mauri allow two extra shells to be stored in the tube mag. however this requires you to remove a very fiddly knob at the front of the weapon in order to get at your spare shells. not very cool in combat. to get past this problem i removed the spring feeder and the cap from this tube and inserted an armoured maglite with a red filter, thus giving the fore end some extra weight and adding functionality to a (sorry marui) rather silly feature for a frontline assault weapon.
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