Some wise guy once described my clays shooting as “moments of brilliance.” Riding a rollercoaster of inconsistency, my typical great shot is not seeing the target (where is it? hey look up) until the very last opportunity then powdering it three feet from the ground. And of course there’s the catalogue of easy misses, you know, the overhead outgoers, streaking quartering-away targets and those evil rabbits that always seem to bounce just when you pull the trigger.

Then one day, shooting 5-Stand with the crew, smashing one target after another, I heard from down the line “Hey, Irwin, what happened to you?”

Simple answer: the Blaser F16 Pro Series.

The 12-gauge competition over/under is a collaboration between Germany’s Blaser GmbH, international clays-shooting champ Corey Kruse and Rhino Shooting Sports of Clearwater, Florida. Blaser describes its F16 Pro Series as moderately priced and tournament-ready out of the box.

The 12-gauge Blaser F16 Pro.

“We wanted to redefine what a competition gun shoots like out of the box,” Corey told me over the phone. “The idea of a competition out-of-the-box gun that was already balanced and basically race tuned, so when you pull the trigger the gun goes straight back with no muzzle flip. The less recoil the better your brain imprints a shot and sight picture, and your consistency goes up. Your brain will stay a lot quieter and calmer, to lock your eyes down on the bird. You can absorb all the information, you can make on a shot.”

Corey and Blaser have a rich history. He became a Blaser pro-shooter in about 2010. Prior, he had been shooting competitively for Browning using their Gold semi-auto, but as Corey explained that shotgun was never meant to withstand the punishment of the clays tournament circuit. Blaser was new to the U.S. at the time when the company’s executive team and Corey formed an early relationship that led to a sponsorship. Corey has been shooting Blaser’s flagship F3 over/under ever since, racking up a string of incredible achievements including 26-time Consecutive NSCA All-American Team Member, 2019 World Sporting Clays Championship, 8-time Texas Sporting Clays Association State Champion, two-time National Sporting Clays Association Champion and 2023 saw him win the U.S. Grand Prix FITASC Champion and Diamond Classic Legacy Cup Championship.

Cory Kruse showing the fine balance of the Blaser F16 Pro.

With that impressive track record, Corey knew exactly what a competition-ready Blaser F16 should include to achieve maximum performance for clays shooters of any level at a mid-tier price point.

Design objectives of the Blaser F16 Pro Series focused on improving the actual shooting experience, which in turn would raise scores. The idea for a more commercially available and comfortable Blaser F16 clays crusher started with Corey’s wife, Catherine. She owned Blaser’s ergonomically female friendly F16 Intuition. Still, the 12-gauge Blaser F16 Intuition needed personalized tweaking to reduce felt recoil as a means of improving Catherine’s performance. In effect, through some trial and error on barrel porting, recoil pads and chokes, Corey ended up building his wife a prototype of the F16 Pro Series.

Corey and Katherine Kruse with their Blaser shotguns.

The modifications to her F16 Intuition intended to decrease recoil and muzzle jump for quicker, precise transitions to the second target. Corey’s calculations reconfigured the pitch angle that “welded” the shotgun to her shoulder for more control and enhanced recoil dispersion. He also swapped out the factory F16 recoil pad with a one-inch version made from solid Sorbothane by Kick-EEZ. Sorbothane, Inc. touts its material for “reducing shock, isolating vibration, and damping noise. No other material can dissipate energy as effectively. Sorbothane is a solid that removes energy away from the point of impact.” It’s the same recoil pad that’s now standard on the F16 Pro Series.

The F16 Pro Series retains the adjustable comb and palm swell of it’s sibling F16 Sporting. The dimensions are length-of-pull 14^5/8inches, cast off ⅛ inch and drop-at-heel 1⅞ inches. The standard satin-finished, Grade-4 walnut attracted some attention at the gun club.

But hidden within the stock and forend, Corey took advantage of the Balancer System incorporated in Blaser’s F3 over/under as well as the F16. Modular weights let you adjust the shotgun’s balance through weight placement in the barrel and stock. The barrel weights are screwed to hangers between the top and bottom barrels. The barrel weight can be increased by up to 170g (6 ounces) Out of the box, the F16 Pro Series is shipped with two 1¼-ounce weights. The embedded stock balancer is a threaded rod that can be equipped with one or two weight cylinders, and in the F16 Pro Series you’ll find three weights, each 68 grams for a total of 204 grams or some 7.2 ounces. Adding it all up, the standard 7½-pound of the Blaser F16 can approach eight pounds. More importantly, though, is that the additional weight can be positioned fore and aft to achieve the shooter’s ideal balance. For example, there’s a photo of Corey showing him balancing Blaser F16 Pro Series on its hinge pins.

The Blaser Balancer System.

The weights impart a gravitas to the F16 Pro Series that instilled a certain stability you would find in far more expensive world-class clays guns. “I don’t care if it’s heavy or light, but how does it feel?” he said. “And I need to be able to mount the gun easily.

Next, Corey turned to Rhino Shooting Sports to help him achieve the desired results. Rhino’s patented Pigeon Porting design creates 13 vents on each side of the 32-inch barrels in a two-row configuration. Rhino uses Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) on their Pigeon Porting. The process emits electrical discharges in a dielectric fluid rather than more traditional methods to remove materials. Rhino explains it as “the ports have virtually no leading edge to cut or shear the wads, which produces the large amount of plastic buildup in the holes and barrel. When the wad has been cut by porting, the shot has less protection from deformation in the choke are. Our design of elongated ports that are not at 90 degrees create no plastic buildup in them. This is accomplished with less wad sheer due to a one-and-a-half degree of entry to our ports.” The company claims that their porting “reduces muzzle jump by a minimum of 87%.”

Rhino’s Pigeon Porting.

Why barrel porting? It helps decrease the felt recoil by redirecting some of the gases that are expelled after firing the shot. The payoff is more comfort and less fatigue, especially during extended shooting sessions or when using heavier loads. By venting gases upward, porting helps counteract the upward force that causes muzzle jump for better control, faster target acquisition and sharper accuracy during follow-up shots. And some enthusiasts of porting will argue that those tiny holes increase shot-pattern consistency. Yet everyone pretty much agrees on one thing about porting: it makes shotguns noisier.

The satin finished barrels feature the Blaser’s Triplex Bore Design of elongated forcing cones. Inside, the barrels are steel-proofed and chrome finished.

Corey also turned to Rhino for their non-stick-coated, ported competition chokes. The F16 Pro Series is shipped with two G1 chokes in the 0.007 inch and 0.017 inch constrictions. He associated the 0.007 with skeet and the 0.017 to light modified.

The Rhino choke used on the Blaser F16 Pro Series.

By shooting those Rhino chokes in competition, he told me “Those are the two constrictions I won world championships with.”

Although Corey still shoots an F3, he tricked it out with all the enhancements made to the F16 Pro.

The F16 is a follow-on model to the more expensive and modular F3. Blaser’s F16 budget objectives were helped by sourcing technology from the F3. The proven Ejection Ball System (EBS) of the Blaser F3 cocks the F16’s ejectors only when the shot is fired, eliminating tension after ejecting the hulls. Blaser’s EBS has another distinct advantage: you don’t have to force their shotguns closed right before a shot to cock the ejectors. In the field, the EBS contributed to a more relaxed and single-minded shooting experience.

The understated receiver of the Blaser F16 Pro Series.

The EBS has a big payoff for owners of new over/unders. How many times have you bought a shotgun and out-of-the-box that’s difficult to close? We routinely accept this annoyance as a breaking-in period, which could last for years. Blaser’s EBS eliminates that hassle.

In addition, Blaser included the F3’s Inertial Block System (IBS) into the F16. The IBS enhances shooter safety and comfort by preventing the shotgun from fan firing or doubling.

Blaser’s F16 receiver measures 60mm tall and 42mm across. For handling, the F16 has rounded bottom edges.

I found the F16 to be handsomely unpretentious with its plain satin-finished charcoal grey receiver and a spark of F16 in red. In typical Blaser quality, the shotgun’s wood-to-metal fit was gap-free and slightly proud.

The F16 Pro Series.

Fans of Blaser’s F3 will also be glad to know that its wonderful mechanical, selectable trigger has been fitted to the F16. At 3.6 pounds of pull, the draw is smooth, precise and intuitive.

Having previously shot the F16 Game and Sporting in 12 gauge, it becomes immediately apparent that Corey’s modifications on the Pro Series dramatically emphasize the true capabilities of Blaser’s F16 platform.

Needing all the help I could muster on the 5-Stand, I shot Federal Top Gun loads packing 1⅛ ounces of #8 shot rated at 1200 feet per second. It was a load similar used previously in shooting the Blaser F16 Sporting, which itself proved to be a soft shooter.

While the F16 Sporting was a soft shooter, the Pro Series virtually eliminates felt recoil, as became immediately evident on the first position of 5-Stand. It was somewhat of a pleasant revelation, actually. Compared to the Sporting and Game models, the additional weight balancers yielded a far smoother and more disciplined swing, complemented by a near-perfect fit as orchestrated by Corey. The Kick-EEZ recoil pad, angled 45 degrees at the top, helped prevent the butt from catching on clothing when shooting low-gun. A rounded and slender Boss-style forend invited relaxed control in swinging to the target. Ultimately, Blaser’s F16 Pro Series felt like a fully actualized clays gun that refreshingly demanded no compromises by its owner.

The Blaser F16 Pro Series has a suggested retail price of $6,675 for the right-hand model and $7,165 for the left-handed model. Given its price, the F16 Pro is a relative bargain.

Every F16 Pro Series purchased benefits the Warrior Health Foundation (www.warriorhealthfoundation.org) – an organization supported by Corey that helps military Special Operation Forces veterans through proactive and preventative healthcare services at zero cost to the participant.

Irwin Greenstein is the publisher of Shotgun Life. You can reach him at the Shotgun Life Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/shotgunlife

Helpful resources:

The Blaser web site

The Rhino Shooting Sports web site