Tristar features women-designed shotguns - Arms and the woman
Tristar Sporting Arms offers three models of shotguns designed for women: the Turkish-made Models 333L and 333SCL Spotting and the Italian-made Rizzini TR-L.
The Model 333L was introduced several years ago and set the design base for subsequent Tristar shotguns designed for women by a woman.
“When I worked at the Fajen Custom Shop, I took all the women’s measurements from all the custom guns we made for women and averaged them to get the measurements for this gun,” said Marry Fajen, former vice president of Reinhart Fajen.
The result is a shotgun that takes into account that women have longer necks, less shoulder mass and higher cheekbones than men. Its straight styling allows for this difference. The straight alignment with the barrel produces straight-back, into-the-shoulder recoil, instead of the up-and-back recoil women get when using a man’s stock. This lessens the amount of felt recoil.
Because women’s arms are usually shorter than men’s, the Tristar ladies shotguns sport a 13 1/2-inch length-of-stock pull compared to the 14 1/2-inch pull on men’s guns. Additional features include a 3-inch drop at the heel and 1/4-inch cast-off. This allows the female shooter to place the butt of the shotgun securely into her shoulder, and to get a sight picture without tilting her head.
The “toe out” feature moves the bottom edge of the stock buttplate 1/2-inch to the right, angling the toe away from the breast area and fitting it more naturally in a woman’s shoulder pocket without canting. This also allows women shooters to mount the gun in the same place every time.
Fajen also said the Tristar firearms are very easy to shorten.
“She can just remove the recoil pad and saw off an inch, if necessary,” Fajen said.
The Turkish 333SCL Sporting has the same features as the 333L, but includes “sporting” elements. These are an 11mm sporting rib with target bead, sporting recoil pad, elongated forcing cones, ported barrels and four CT-4 extended stainless choke tubes. The 333L and 333SCL Sporting come in 12 and 20 gauge.
The Italian-made TR-L is of the same design and is also available in 12 and 20 gauge. The TR-L sports a semi-fancy walnut stock, 3-inch chambers, choke tubes, auto ejectors and a ventilated 10mm rib.
Fajen said that despite not having the time to promote the ladies guns as much as she would like, they’ve been selling relatively well.
“When I present them, or a lady shoots the gun, they really like them,” she added.