Dumb question: Franchi 20G autoloader not cycling

Neighbor has a 20G semiauto shotgun that he got from a family member. After placing 2 shells into the plugged chamber, I attempted to cycle the action to load the 3rd, but couldn't for the life of me get the carrier to pickup the shell.

Did a little poking around and found a post on another forum that indicated when loading a shotgun of this type, you need to manually place a shell into the chamber, slam the bolt home and this will engage the internals to begin cycling shells.

The same board had numerous discussions about the same model slamfiring when the bolt slammed home.

Is this normal? I want to give the guy good info, but this seems counterintuitive to me.

A model number / name would go along way in helping diagnose the issue.
just my 2 cents

most auto loaders, you lock the action open, drop shell in ejection port, close action, then load magazine. here is franchi manual site to verify if different https://www.franchiusa.com/manuals

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rellisonii

most auto loaders, you lock the action open, drop shell in ejection port, close action, then load magazine. here is franchi manual site to verify if different https://www.franchiusa.com/manuals

---

Perfect. I'll pass this along to him.

Thank you.

If the shell fires when the bolt closes on a loaded chamber and the trigger is not depressed that is called a slam fire. You should be able to lock the bolt open drop a shell in the chamber and then release the bolt with the bolt release and the bolt should go to it's closed battery position and the gun should not fire. There is always a chance of that happening due to mechanical failure so when you do release the bolt make sure it is pointed in a safe direction. Also, if when shooting the gun you fire a round and it chambers another round and fires when the bolt closes before you squeeze the trigger that is a slam fire. It is a defect and not a feature and the gun should be examined by a qualified gunsmith. There are now supposedly educated persons on the you tubes that are calling pump action shotguns that are able to fire on closing the bolt on a loaded chamber with the trigger depressed "slam firing". The Ithaca Model 37 for example.That is a feature of that particular model of shotgun. SKS rifles have always been prone to slam firing but it's rare to hear a shotgun failing in that manner.