The new Fabarm Autumn Elite joins the Autumn as one of the few side-by-side shotguns filling the wide price-point gap between inexpensive Turkish doubles and higher-end side guns. The original Autumn debuted a few years ago, a pretty 20-gauge with case-colors and a unique art-nouveau-style engraving pattern. The Autumn Elite, also available only in 20, adds better wood and full-color engraving with gold-inlaid birds on a silver receiver for richer and more traditional decoration. It is not a cheap gun by any means. For a lot of us, it would be aspirational, but if you aspire to be more elegant in the field, while also being more dangerous to gamebirds, the Autumn Elite is great choice. I recently put the gun through its paces at my local range. Here is my full review.
Fabarm Autumn Elite Specs
Length: 45.25 inches
Weight: 6 pounds, 10 ounces (with pistol grip and beavertail forend)
Barrel: 28-inch barrels, silver bead, swamped rib, five Inner HP chokes
Action: Break-action side-by-side
Trigger: 4 pounds, 12 ounces
Capacity: 2
Finish: Blued barrels, silver-nitride receiver with gold inlays
Stock: Deluxe oil-finished Turkish walnut, available in pistol grip or straight grip
Chambering: 3-inch 20-gauge
Price: $6,594.50
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Fabarm Autumn Elite Overview
Fabarm has been making side-by-sides for a hundred years. In the 1970s, the company achieved some notoriety in Europe for its side-by-side pigeon guns, built around a durable four-lug action. That rugged action lies inside the Autumn Elite's gracefully rounded receiver, and while the gun is strong, the first thing you notice is how good it looks. Pictures I had seen of the gun didn’t do it justice. It’s a beauty in hand.
The receiver has acanthus scroll borders and game scenes with gold-inlaid ruffed grouse, bobwhites, and pheasants. It’s all done with a 5-axis laser that can execute an engraving pattern on the rounded action of the gun. The birds look right, the habitats are correct, and all the engraving is cut deep enough that you can see it. A lot of laser engraving is very shallow and disappears when you look at it from even a few feet away. Laser time costs money, and on this gun, it’s money well-spent.
The stock is deluxe, oil-finished Turkish walnut. My test gun had a pleasing grain pattern under a hand-rubbed oil-finish and finely-cut checkering panels and a checkered walnut buttplate. The Autumn Elite comes in a choice of pistol grip/beavertail forend and straight-grip/splinter forend. Mine was the pistol-grip version. With 28-inch barrels, it weighed 6 pounds, 10 ounces.
Fabarm Autumn Elite Test Results
That slightly under 7-pound weight, coupled with a stock that measured a full 5 inches around the wrist and a hand-filling beavertail forend, made this gun feel substantial in hand, which is likely why I found it so easy to shoot at skeet targets over the swamped (concave) rib, which is meant not to be seen. It helped, too, that the single trigger (double triggers available) broke cleanly at 4 pounds, 12 ounces. The checkered buttplate, while exceedingly classy and good-looking, does nothing to reduce recoil. I’d leave it as is if I were only upland hunting with this gun, and maybe replace it with a pad if I planned to do a lot of dove shooting with the Autumn Elite—and it would make a terrific dove gun.
Fabarm guns are known for their TriBore barrels, which combine a long forcing cone, and an overbored section that tapers to extra-long choke tubes. The Venturi effect of the tapered bore increases velocity slightly, and the guns pattern well. The barrels are strong, too, having been voluntarily proofed to 1630 BAR, in excess of Italian government standards. They shot about 3 inches high at 40 yards from a benchrest, and printed solid Modifed (60%-plus) patterns with 1 ounce of Winchester Super X with the Modified choke installed. All in all, it passed the range test with high marks, as I found it easy to shoot well with the gun.
Related: The Best Shoguns We've Tested in the Past Year
Final Thoughts on the Autumn Elite
Pros
Beautiful wood and engraving
Hand-filling grip and forend
Smooth-swinging
Cons
Only 20-gauges available
I liked everything about the gun, mechanically, ergonomically, and aesthetically. It’s a tad heavy to be a primary grouse gun, but for doves, quail, and pheasants, it’s hard to imagine a better, or better-looking, tool.
