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Beware of the Tristar setter...

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I would just like to warn anyone who may be considering buying a Tristar over under shotgun. I just recently bought a brand new Tristar setter 12 ga in November as a cheap option to get started into sporting clays. Me and my friends have brought this out a handful of times and probably have around 1600 rounds through it. Within the last few rounds of 100 the gun would start to fire both barrels simultaneously on occassion and sometimes the 2nd shot wouldn't go off at all when pulling the trigger. Last week the first round went off and then nothing. The action was stuck shut and the breakdown lever was completely stuck and cocked all the way to the right. I had to break down the shotgun completely to get the live shell out. I brought it home and inspected it and the lever is still stuck to the right and the firing pin for the bottom barrel is broken in half. I was just using low brass fiocchi target loads so it definitely wasn't an issue with the ammo. I sent Tristar an email regarding getting it warrantied 4 days ago and still have had no response. I submitted a support ticket 2 days ago with no response. So if any of you are considering this entry level over under i would suggest going with another brand.

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Sorry to hear about this.

I was looking at the Tristar over/under last year for the same reasons as you (inexpensive shotgun for clays).

1600 rounds seems like a really low round count for the problems you're experiencing so hopefully they take care of you.

Zero response so far isn't good but there are a lot of companies that are just getting back to work today after the holiday break, so fingers crossed that you hear something today.

Good luck.

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Keep us in the loop.  Keep in mind it is the holiday weekend and not sure about Turkey (where Tristars are made?) but in Russia and other soviet countries you have the January holidays, so short staffed. 

Hopefully it is resolved but would be a good question to ask them while at Shot Show.

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On 1/7/2019 at 7:24 AM, 124gr9mm said:

Sorry to hear about this.

I was looking at the Tristar over/under last year for the same reasons as you (inexpensive shotgun for clays).

1600 rounds seems like a really low round count for the problems you're experiencing so hopefully they take care of you.

Zero response so far isn't good but there are a lot of companies that are just getting back to work today after the holiday break, so fingers crossed that you hear something today.

Good luck.

They have responded to me at this point and told me to send it in for their gunsmith to look at. With a little more research I have found that this is fairly common as the firing pins are made by a company called khan which makes firing pins for basically all guns manufactured in turkey and Spain. From what I can tell khan doesn't exactly have a very good track record. I found on another forum someone said his Tristar broke a firing pin at 5k rounds, had it replaced and it broke again after another 1k rounds. Unfortunately it doesn't look like there are any aftermarket options available. 

On 1/7/2019 at 7:27 AM, Maksim said:

Keep us in the loop.  Keep in mind it is the holiday weekend and not sure about Turkey (where Tristars are made?) but in Russia and other soviet countries you have the January holidays, so short staffed. 

Hopefully it is resolved but would be a good question to ask them while at Shot Show.

Yeah they are made in turkey, but Tristar as a company is located in Kansas city. Regardless they have gotten back to me at this point but basically said it has to be sent in to determine whether it's a warranty or not. I have read online that someone's warranty claim was denied because there was evidence that they were using magnum loads although the owners manual specifically states that you can do so. I have not used any magnum loads so I don't see this being an issue for me. 

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Trapshooters & Shotgunworld forum comments haven't been too kind to Turkish guns for a number of years now. They seem hit or miss and a shooter who is going to put a lot of trigger time behind an O/U shotgun should invest in a good one. Parts & service can sometimes be a problem with Turkish guns. 

When American, Belgium, English & Italian shotguns set the standards decades and centuries ago for quality and durability, double owners even then learned to be suspicious of early Spanish guns that were being imported at low prices for they sometimes exhibited inferior and soft metals. (There weren't many online gun forums back in the 60's & 70's to learn this either. Just word of mouth at the time.) However, Spanish guns have come a long way, and many are high grade works of art that work well. 

Anything mechanical can fail. I've learned that over time. One can hope that the Turkish guns get better. 

 

 

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