How to Jam Your SPAS-12 and Impress Your Friends!

Franchi SPAS-12 Shotgun

How to Jam Your SPAS-12 and Impress Your Friends!

I have mentioned elsewhere that the SPAS-12 is quite complicated to use, at least as far as shotguns go. If you don't practice you'll likely find yourself tugging at something and wondering why it won't budge. This is especially impressive in front of your friends who you were (up till then) showing off to.

There is one primary mechanism for inexplicable jams. To see it in action, do the following:

Unload the gun. Then make sure it is unloaded. Then make sure one more time.
Put in in Manual (Pump) mode.
Take the safety off.
Pump it to cock it.
Pull the trigger to dry-fire it.
Put the safety back on.
Pump it to cock it again.

Couldn't pump it could you? Put it into Auto and you'll see you can't cycle the slide either. The fix is to take the safety off. The SPAS-12 will not allow itself to be cocked when the safety is on. It is one of those somewhat rare guns that allows the safety to be turned on cocked or not cocked. But if the safety is on you can't uncock it by pulling the trigger (one would hope) and you can't cock it by cycling the slide. ( The same is true with the pushbutton or crossbolt style.)

This is so easy to stumble across. Fire it till it is empty, put the safety on, load it up, and then try to chamber a round. No way.

Or load it up with the chamber empty and it uncocked to save the spring, put the safety on and put it somewhere ready to use. Grab it, pump it, jam! If a round is not chambered, don't put that safety on! This jam especially impresses household invaders.

Practice makes perfect!

What This Does to the Gun

If you try to cock the SPAS with the safety on, you damge it as it hits, see below. Cocking it includes trying to open the action. Don't do that!