Rizzini Venus Sporter

The Rizzini Venus Sporter is one of Rizzini’s latest guns that embodies innovations that the Italian gunmaker has embraced over the last few decades. It is a dedicated ladies’ Sporter. It has a very pretty Rizzini Round Body action, with some very delicate scroll engraving. (Read Becky’s review of the Rizzini Venus Game Gun here.)

The engraving really is very nice indeed. When you turn that beautiful round-bodied action over it has a ‘V’ engraved underneath too. There is also engraving on the underside of the trigger guard. The top lever is nicely engraved too.

This Rizzini Sporter has some excellent quality walnut on it too, making this a very attractive little gun. Like many guns dedicated for female shooters it has a Monte Carlo stock. This has the dual advantage of raising the comb – women tend to have longer necks than men – and lowering the butt, so it sits in the shoulder pocket making the gun more comfortable to shoot. This one has the bonus of an adjustable comb so that it can be made to fit most female shooters.

Female friendly Rizzini Venus Sporter

The stock length of pull is 14in and the lack of ‘toe’ is noticeable. The toe is the bottom of the stock. It tends to be longer and more pronounced on standard guns, which can cause it to dig into the chest of women shooters. Not very comfortable.

It can also cause a pivoting experience, which means only half of the butt pad is actually in the shoulder. When you start to move the gun and squeeze the trigger the toe, or lower point of the pad, sticks into your chest and then the recoil can make it appear that the barrels flip upwards slightly. It’s difficult to explain without being in front of you. But the toe on the Sporter is less pronounced, so there was mercifully no movement in the shoulder.

The Sporter came – like the game gun I tested recently – in a very handsome and compact hard case. Barrel and fore-end go on one side and stock and action on the other. All are cosseted in nice gun socks.

The safety is non-automatic. I did have a few issues with the auto safe on the game version, which is not the gun’s fault. Never in my 18 years of shooting have I owned an auto safe gun, so muscle memory tells me everything is OK when I shout ‘pull’, then squeeze the trigger and nothing happens. It can get quite frustrating. Anyway, the Sporter version is all good on this point.

The Rizzini Venus Sporter comes in 12-bore, as tested here, and also 20-bore, with 28in steel-proofed barrels. It has a ventilated middle and top rib. The barrel itself weighs 3lb 3oz (1.44kg) and total weight is 7lb 12 (3.52kg). There’s not much difference in weight between the Sporter and the Game gun. The main difference is the stock styles.

Promising start

Now onto the shooting. It can be challenging to write reviews as I usually have three guns to test at the same time. My last review was on the Caesar Guerini Invictus V Allsport and that was one of three being tested at the same time as this gun. So shooting the big Guerini alongside this small, elegant Rizzini could not have felt more different. Putting together the Venus at home, it went together smoothly as you’d expect from a quality gun. Closing of the action was satisfactory too.

On the range

I have to be honest here, the Sporter didn’t feel much different from its sister, the Game Venus. The Sporter, however, felt better in the shoulder for me, which was probably due to the Monte Carlo stock.

It gave me good vision of the clays, fitted into the ‘pocket’ of my shoulder well. If I’m being picky it was a little too short in the stock compared with what I’m used to.

Shooting the Caesar Guerini then the Rizzini, my perceived recoil was a tad higher than expected on the Venus. But when I sit back and think about it, shooting an 8lb 15oz gun, followed by a waif of 7lb 12oz, sensitive Becky was always going to feel more of a kick with the lighter gun. That said, there was only minor barrel flip, barely noticeable. I only noticed it because I was looking for it.

On the first two crossers (right to left) I missed the first one, and hit the second. I missed the first one because I was over muscling the relatively light gun. Calling for the same targets again, and remembering to be a little bit gentler with the Venus and the clays broke well. (Read more on shooting crossers.)

The 28in barrels patterned well with my Fiocchi FBLU 24g cartridges and the more I shot this gun the more I enjoyed it. And the more I shot it, the less recoil I felt too. Moving on to different targets, the Rizzini Venus coped well with the targets presented.

If I really had to search for any issues with this gun I would say it’s just too light for me, which of course is a personal thing. My muscle memory is for bigger-barrelled and heavier guns, which made shooting the Venus harder work for me, but purely only the fact I had to slow myself down.

I can’t take anything away from this little lady’s gun. It’s well built and looks mighty fine. It patterns nicely, has lowish recoil and moves smoothly.

Conclusion

So, if you are a lady looking for a new gun, I recommend you go and check out the Rizzini Venus, in either Game or Sporting format. Both guns are excellent and good value for money. New, the Sporter version retails around £3,750, and the Game version around £3,840.

There are shops around, such as Honesberie Shooting School, that are main dealers, have the demo guns available and have a shooting ground on site too. But don’t take my word for it, go and try one out, they are cracking little guns.

Tech specs

• Model Rizzini Venus Sporter
• Bore 12-bore
• Action Round action
• Barrel length 28in
• Chamber 3in
• Chokes Multichoke flush
• Rib Tapered Sporting rib, vented
• Fore-end Rounded
• Weight 7lb 12oz
• Price £3,750