Lanber Sporting 97 LCH: A middle-price shotgun from Spain

Lanber Sporting 97 LCH is a middle-price shotgun manufactured by Armas Lanber SA. It is a double-barreled, superposed 12-gauge with a beautiful design and finishes.

Introduction

The Lanber company of Spain has, over the past 20 years, built up an outstanding reputation for middle-price shotguns throughout Europe and is now beginning to export them farther afield. Their current range includes four grades of over-and-under guns (Expert, Aventura, Aventura Light, Rivaland Sporting) and three semi-automatics (Victoria I, II, and IV), which are between them cater to practically any shooting requirement.

Design

The Lanber Sporting 97 LCH was their “best-seller,”, particularly in the trap-shooting fraternity. The barrels are of high-grade steel and fitted into the usual monoblock breech end, which carries the ejectors and locking system. The barrels are joined by a ventilated rib, and the sighting rib has a slight tapper and a white front beat, giving a very well-defined sight picture. The bores are somewhat loose, at 18.6mm diameter, rather unusual on a European gun, but tend to reduce recoil slightly and shot deformation.

The action is of steel and uses twin stud hinges, as on the Beretta system described elsewhere, rather than the more usual full-width hinge pin. One advantage of this construction is that it reduces the height of the action and gives the entire gun a sleeker appearance. A combined safety catch and barrel selector are mounted on the action backstrap, just behind the lever. The action locks the barrels by a full-width flat bolt that engages on a groove on the barrel block. The action side-plates are machine-en-graved with a decorative pattern.

The barrels are fitted with multi-chokes, and five different chokes are provided with each gun. The multichoke units fit unobtrusively; there is a slight enlargement of the muzzles to make room for them, but this is scarcely noticeable. The Lanber Sporting 97 LCH handles well, shoots accurately and with a good pattern, and well merits its popularity.

Technical specifications