Franchi Momentum Carbine Elite Rifle Review

Most of us know Franchi as a Benelli-adjacent shotgun maker, based in Bresca, Italy, whose products hit a sweet spot between quality and price. While that is true, the company has expanded beyond that role and into one nearer to my own heart; since 2018, Franchi has been in the rifle business. That year the company introduced its Momentum bolt-action rifle. Based on that experience, Franchi has expanded its lineup to include the Momentum Elite, a rifle that builds on the success of the Momentum but includes design elements that hunters are looking for. The latest evolution is the Momentum Carbine Elite, a compact rifle ready for the field.

Despite what you may see in today’s outdoor media, a 16-pound precision rifle isn’t ideal for most hunting scenarios. In most cases, you don’t need a five-pound featherweight, either. For the majority of scenarios, a reasonably compact and portable rifle chambered in a versatile cartridge is the way to go. At little more than seven pounds with an overall length of 46.25 inches, this carbine fits perfectly in that niche.

The Meat of the Momentum

The Momentum Carbine Elite is built around the company’s three-lug bolt action. Three-lug bolts are very popular in competition circles, partially because they have a significantly shorter bolt throw than two-lug designs. This means the bolt does not need to be rotated as far in order to cycle the action and it also means a scope can be mounted lower to the axis of the bore without the bolt handle impacting the ocular lens housing. Three-lug bolts generally require more force to cycle but, on a hunting rifle, this isn’t a big deal.

When discussing rifles, accuracy gets a lot of attention but feeding and extraction get nary a mention. To me, this is a huge mistake. A rifle that won’t feed reliably is worthless and it happens more often than folks want to admit. On the Momentum Elite’s action, the bottom bolt lug sits at the 6 o’clock position when the bolt is out of battery which means that lug is in the perfect position to engage with the top round and the magazine and guide it into the chamber. This can be a real aid to reliable feeding.

The bolt itself is a beefy chunk of steel that is fluted and chrome-plated. The reason the bolt’s diameter is so large is this rifle dispenses with lug raceways. The bolt body slides in and out of the receiver like a piston inside a cylinder, which means there’s no real way for it to bind. The result is an action that cycles very smoothly. The bolt uses a sliding plate-style extractor and a spring-loaded plunger ejector. The bolt handle is not integral to the bolt body but it is extended and with a slightly oversized knob.

The tubular steel receiver does not have a recoil lug, per se, but instead relies on a C-shaped aluminum lug that is recessed into the polymer stock. This bedding block engages with slots cut on either side of the receiver. Instead of the action lug engaging with the stock, it is the other way around. This was probably done as a way of streamlining production but, whatever the reason, it works just fine.

The bolt stop is located on the 9 o’clock side of the receiver and engages with a slot in the bolt rather than one of the bolt lugs. This means that, no matter how hard you run the bolt, you’re not bashing a lug into the stop at the rear position. The two-position safety sits at the right side of the tang.

A Sum of Its Parts

Franchi uses what they call the Relia Trigger, which is a single-stage adjustable trigger. The trigger pull was the star of the show on this rifle, breaking right at two pounds with no creep. The trigger is not intended to be user-adjustable but can be adapted by a gunsmith to break between two and four pounds. I wasn’t upset that our sample’s trigger broke at the low end of that range.

The Franchi uses cold hammer-forged barrels made by Sabatti, a northern Italian firm founded by a family that has been making guns since the early 1700s. Cold hammer-forging is a highly specialized process that requires heavy and expensive machinery. Outsourcing barrel-making to a company that specializes in it is not only cost-effective, it often results in a better finished product. Hammer-forged barrels have long service lives and often shoot well because the bore and chamber are formed together around the same mandrel which ensures alignment at this key junction.

Our test rifle was chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor and was fit with a 20-inch fluted sporter contour barrel. Other chamberings, including .308 Winchester and .350 Legend, are fit with 18-inch barrels. Our barrel had a 1:8 twist and was threaded at the muzzle and fit with a multi-port muzzle brake.

The Momentum Carbine Elite uses an injection-molded stock which, in our case, was finished with Franchi’s own Terra camouflage pattern. Regular readers of this column might be aware of my general dislike for Tupperware stocks due to their lack of rigidity, but this one was better than most in that regard.

The stock design is a combination of a traditional sporter but with more modern elements you’d expect to find on a Franchi shotgun stock. The forend flares outward at the bottom which provides a flat surface for resting the rifle and is also comfortable to hold in field positions. The comb of the stock is raised to align the shooter’s eye with a mounted optic. There is a soft recoil pad at the butt and textured sections at the pistol grip, above the magazine and on the forend.

The stock has integrated QD-style sling swivel cups at the heel and on the forend. There is also a steel M-LOK section on the bottom of the forend for mounting bipods and other accessories. With the widespread use of artificial shooting aids including bipods and tripods, having a built-in way to mount them is a great idea.

This rifle uses a single-stack detachable box magazine that sits nearly flush with the bottom of the stock. In 6.5 Creedmoor, the magazine holds three rounds. The magazine release is located inside the trigger bow.

The Momentum Elite Carbine comes with a Picatinny rail section installed on the receiver. American Precision Arms sells some of the lowest Picatinny rings on the market, so I use them frequently when I want a scope mounted as low as possible. I mounted a Steiner Predator 4S 4-16x44mm and headed to the range for a test drive.

Pay Attention to Position

Shooting a seven-pound rifle in a mild chambering with a muzzle brake is extremely comfortable. This would be a great setup for a recoil-shy hunter. Running the bolt was as smooth as silk and the rifle fed, fired and ejected with 100% reliability.

Here comes my dig on injection-molded stocks. When shooting this rifle from the bench, the position of the forend on the front rest was extremely critical. With the rest at the middle of the forend, this rifle would shoot groups in the 1.5 MOA range at 100 yards. Good enough to sneak one through a buck’s lungs but nothing to brag about. Resting the rifle closer to the face of the receiver, right above the barrel shank, shrunk the groups by roughly half. Stock position is always important when shooting from a bench rest, but this was one of the most dramatic examples of this that I’ve ever seen. This isn’t a huge deal so long as the shooter knows about it, which is why you should always spend some time on the range familiarizing oneself with a rifle before taking it afield.

Franchi is relatively new to the rifle game, but the performance of this rifle tells me that they did their homework. The Momentum Carbine Elite is a well-built rifle with a smooth-running bolt and a great trigger. Once I figured out the way that the rifle liked to be positioned, accuracy was excellent. This rifle is compact enough to carry in the timber or brush and light enough to pack easily but remains shootable. The Momentum Carbine Elite is, in my book, the company’s best rifle to date.

Franchi Momentum Carbine Elite Specs

• Type: Bolt-action centerfire repeater
• Caliber: 6.5 Creedmoor (tested)
• Barrel: 20 inches, 1:8 twist, threaded 1/2-28
• Weight: 7 pounds, 3 ounces
• Capacity: 3+1
• Stock: Synthetic
• Finish: Cobalt Cerakote
• Sights: None. Picatinny rail installed
• Safety: Two-position
• Trigger: Single-stage, 2.0 pounds
• Price: $1,249
• Manufacturer: Franchi, franchiusa.com

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