Drennan reviews a stunning secondhand Zoli Kronos that he's owned for years, which offers incredible value for money and can be set up to suit your preferences.
We are awash with diversity when it comes to competition shotguns here in the UK, and certainly, most of the gunshops I have visited across the pond are in a sate of desire for the variety we have access to. As we bundle and blunder our way through 2022 with the horizon looking distinctly BAF (Bleak as Feck), my eardrums ring daily from the constant stream of negativity emitting from shooters on everything from pricing to the profiteering ways of cartridge manufacturers and gunmakers. I won’t deny that when I hear this rhetoric, my pummeled brain shuts down and goes into safe mode. It’s not that I don’t have empathy, I do, and I understand what people are saying on some level; but much of it is myth, stirred up by some frenzied keyboard warriors hell bent on gathering like-minded friends (all be it, digital ones!). Anyway, you may be surprised, given the previous paragraph, that this article, like most of my articles, is a very positive one on the whole, and that I do actually have some good news for you!
A good long while back I was given the chance to try out a Zoli Z gun; I’ll be honest, I’d heard of Zoli, but hadn’t taken too much notice of the brand until one was delivered to me. I won’t go into the details and chapters and verses just yet, but straight out the box, a quick adjustment to the comb, an alteration to the trigger, and I set off for the West Midlands Championships. Would you Adam and Eve it, I went on to win! This, of course, raised my interest in Zoli shotguns… after all, it had shot fantastically, and it looked absolutely superb.
I jumped onto my computer and with the help of Google I came across a Zoli Kronos with 32” barrels, presented with a case and featuring an adjustable trigger, a comb raiser, multi-chokes… the list went on. I then read that it had a drop-out trigger group… well, tickle me with a hedgehog, but this is serious stuff! This is what you’d expect to see on some Perazzis, or on Beretta’s DT range, which even at second-hand prices can be costly enough to equal a year's electric bill for a six-bed house, post-October 2023 (keep up folks). When I saw the price of the Kronos (£1,500), I honestly thought it was a joke. I called the trade seller and I bought it immediately, with the intention of giving it
to my wife because I didn’t expect it to quite measure up to that Zoli Z Gun I used at the Midlands.
I’m big enough and tough enough to hold my hands up when I’m wrong, and I was very very wrong in this case. The gun arrived, and it’s a serious, very well put together gun that has all the refinement of a full grade competition gun. In this article, I’ll explain what features the gun has and why that makes it so great!
Zoli Kronos Wood
The wood is excellent, well-figured and grained, with a lovely confident palm swell. The chequering is of a fine cut and, if I’m not mistaken, is hand-cut… if it isn’t, then the laser equipment is from the year 2099! The fore-end is slim but has a good length that suits the 32” barrels; it’s simply spot on, and one of the best stock and fore-end setups there is. The stock is non-adjustable, but you’ll see from the photos that I fitted a comb-raiser and an adjustable heel-plate. The extra bells and whistles really make the difference, so it’s well worth going the extra mile to fit it to you well, as is the case with all guns. The extras were not cheap, but the entire package was still sub-£2,000… and there’s not another gun on the market at that price that would offer you the feel and performance of the Kronos.
Zoli Kronos Barrels
The 32” barrels are remarkably quite slender for a factory-made multi-choke set. They are double ventilated and feature a hatched top rib to remove glare. The finish is up there with any of the top grade guns, and if you just had the barrels placed in your hands you wouldn’t be wrong in saying they are of a very high quality. They certainly point and swing with grace when the Kronos
is assembled.
Action
The action is nice and slim, and the weight hasn’t been compromised to the detriment of the handling, as you find on some guns that have been sent on a diet. Hats off to Zoli here for making such an action that incorporates dropout triggers.
Trigger
The dropout triggers don’t, of course, just “drop out”, you do have to undo a screw that hold the trigger group into the receiver. This trigger group is absolutely astonishing, and considering the general price of a secondhand Zoli Kronos is, in my opinion, leaps and bounds ahead of some of its competition. There simply isn’t another trigger group as good as this for the same money in the second hand market. The pulls are super-crisp because they are leaf springs, which are superior in terms of performance and feel… if you’ve ever felt the difference between a coil spring trigger and a leaf spring trigger, you’ll know what I mean.
What is the Zoli Kronos like to shoot?
So, the big question really is, how does it shoot? Weighing in at 8½lb, it fits right in with other competition guns, but the Kronos’ handling is in a different class to plenty of other competition guns I've shot.
The fantastically machined barrels combined with the way in which Zoli has balanced the rest of the gun for that beautiful glide and pointability puts it in class of its own.
The gun is naturally a little front-end biased in terms of balance, but with the addition of the comb-raiser and heel plate, it became a little more rear-end heavy, which is what I personally prefer my guns to feel like.
It is without question a podium level gun, and is finished to a standard as good as anything else you will find in the “Top of the Range” section from Italy. In all, the Zoli Kronos is an absolute diamond… lost temporarily, but now found!
Zoli Kronos Tech Specs
Gauge: 12
Trigger: Detachable single selective
Barrels: Multi-choke, 28”, 30” or 32”
Stock: Non-adjustable
Sights: Red front bead
Rib: Tapered flat, 11x7mm
Price: Secondhand prices vary