SPSA-14

SPSA-14
Type	Shotgun
Ammunition	12x70 Buckshot 12x76 Slug 12x76 Dart 8 round capacity

This special purpose smoothbore automatic shotgun was designed in the second half of the 20th century and comes with pump-action and self-cocking firing modes. Used as an all-purpose weapon by the police and assault troops. Notable for its reliability and tactical flexibility. Despite its large weight, complex mechanism and considerable cost it is in demand in the Zone due to its effectiveness against mutants.
― Call of Pripyat in-game description

The Franchi Special Purpose Automatic Shotgun-12 (named SPSA-14 in-game) is a dual-mode tactical shotgun (capable of both pump action and semi-auto fire). It appears in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat.

Overview

It was designed during the 1970s as a military or law enforcement firearm made by the Luigi Franchi S.p.A. company. The company went bankrupt and is now a part of Beretta arms. The weapon can use shot shells, slugs or dart rounds.

In games, the SPSA-14 is one of the most powerful shotguns in game, possessing great stopping power and highest magazine size out of all available shotguns in game (excluding special versions of common weapons).

The in-game model has the folding stock removed and the standard 24 inch barrel. Additionally, while the shotgun has a dual-mode feature, the gun is used in a semi-automatic mode in ShoC and pump mode in CS and CoP.

Appearances

Shadow of Chernobyl

The SPSA-14 is rarely found anywhere, only being used by a few Exoskeleton zombies found in Yantar and the Red Forest, as well as by Monolith elites inside the Sarcophagus. The weapon is powerful at close range, however is quite heavy. Its weight is 4.4 kg. Unlike other shotguns in the game, the SPSA14 is semi-automatic, yet still fires slowly at the rate a pump-action shotgun shoots (it can fire with decent speed, but it has huge recoil while shooting as fast as possible). The real SPAS-12 can fire up to 4 shots per second and can hold 9 shots in an 8+1 configuration, or 8 shells in the tube itself.

The SPSA-14 is relatively unpopular, because other weapons like assault rifles have better damage over range, but it is still popular with some players and is generally considered as an improvement over the sawn off shotgun. It is a great weapon against mutants, so one might want to take one into X16 if one is found.

Note that with patch 1.0005 onwards it's no longer limited to exoskeleton zombies in Yantar or the Red Forest. It has a greater spread and recoil and a bit less damage than the Chaser 13.

The bandit Poker has the special version with rifled barrel that is great if you use slugs.

Clear Sky

The SPSA-14 is more available in Clear Sky, it's sometimes held by Duty members and some Loners wearing Exoskeletons. It is sold by Mitay regardless of faction alignment. Alternatively, if you managed to save Sergeant Cheersov near the entrance to the Agroprom Underground from the swarms of Snorks that would come out of there, he will give you his SPSA-14 with 20 extra slug rounds when you talk to him (though even if he is killed you can still pick it up without the extra ammo though you don't have a chance to get the coordinates of the rare Walker P9m pistol, and weapon will be damaged and having very big spread cause of it). It uses the same upgrades used by all combat shotguns and is surprisingly cheap to maintain and upgrade. It's as reliable and effective as Chaser, but while loading faster and being able to load 2 more shells into tube, it is much heavier, so choosing between that two is up to player's likings.

Ripper Shotgun

There is a unique variant of the SPSA14 called "Ripper", a limited edition boomstick which cannot be upgraded, but can be repaired. It is a quest item for a Duty stalker who needs due to it's sentimental value when he threw it at a Pseudogiant when he ran out of ammo in order to cover his squad and escape, after throwing it at the beast the Pseudogiant stopped chasing the Duty squad and proceeded to gnaw and bite the shotgun. There is a lone Pseudogiant guarding the stash containing this shotgun.

Call of Pripyat

In Call of Pripyat, the SPSA-14 is readily available almost right from the start, and will likely become a mainstay weapon for the player. Of the shotguns, it is only second to the Eliminator in overall stats, and is capable of fully-automatic fire by default. It has a much better handling and rate of fire after only a few upgrades, and the punch it packs makes it just as useful for zombie or bandit disposal as it is against mutants.

Coordinates for stash with this weapon are given to player after finishing Transaction for Beard, also Gonta rewards the player with SPSA if one completes the Hunting the Chimera side mission and Garmata survives, and more experienced Bandits in Zaton and Jupiter will start carrying it by default once some of Beard's/Sultan's faction quests are completed.

Nimble can sell you a Carabiner – a unique variant of SPSA that comes already modified for faster rate of fire, allowing the user to spend another upgrade on lower recoil or an even higher rate of fire. While heavier then the Eliminator, after upgrades it has the same capacity and superior handling.

In Yanov there is a stash with one under just west of Yanov station. Itis in the small pond, under the small pier.

Multi-chambering technique

Combat shotguns like the Chaser 13 and SPSA-14 can chamber different shot shells at a time, for example in one SPAS-12 one could load 4 shot shells, 2 Slug rounds and 2 Dart rounds. This is done by pressing the fire key during reloading and causing the player to stop reloading. Once satisfied with initial load, pressing the load different ammunition key ("Y" by default) will have the player chamber new shells once he resumes reloading. This method allows one to adapt to different situations quickly as one can rapidly switch from unarmored hunting to armor puncher in a moment's notice.

Trivia

• If looking closely at the weapon, it says Benelli on the side, which is odd since the weapon is made by Franchi/Beretta arms and not Benelli.
  • It's possible that the developers confused Franchi with Benelli as both are Italian firearms manufacturers. Both even made fully automatic shotguns.
• As an uncommon, Italian-made shotgun that has been long discontinued by the game's timeline, the SPAS-12's availability in the Zone (located in Eastern Europe) is somewhat suspect, given that there are several Russian-made semiautomatic shotguns that would be available "closer to home," such as the Baikal MP-153, the Vepr 12, or the Saiga series of shotguns, especially considering that the weapon has been out of production since the year 2000 and has become something akin to a rare collector's item.
• Like the other shotguns in this game, the SPSA-14 must be manually unloaded before you can change ammo type, since it does not use a detachable box magazine.
  • Pressing "change ammo type" button, however, will make "closing" (finishing reload) animation to appear in ShoC and CS. In CoP it won't do anything.
• Stat-wise, the SPSA is slightly inferior in every way to the Eliminator – it even deals only 51 damage as opposed to 52. It is however, much cheaper to maintain than the Eliminator.
• In reality, the SPAS-12 isn't built for the extensive combat duties like the Armsel Protecta. It was more tactically oriented as the shotgun was built to fire slug, and other special rounds with greater effectiveness.
• The SPAS-12 is also not capable of fully-automatic fire (where the gun will keep firing as long as you keep the trigger pressed and the gun still has ammunition) as Call of Pripyat portrays with the appropriate upgrade, only semi-automatic fire (where the gun will fire one shot for every press of the trigger). Although it is theoretically possible to modify such a weapon to be fully automatic it would require an extremely skilled and experienced gunsmith with access to top quality tools/machinery and posses detailed knowledge of the weapon's internal firing mechanism, all of which would be almost impossible to find in the Zone. Even then there is a high chance that attempting such a modification would permanently destroy the gun's internal firing mechanism.
• For whatever reason, the SPSA-14's ironsights were properly aligned in Shadow of Chernobyl, but are misaligned in Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat.

Gallery

Shadow of Chernobyl

First person view

Iron sights

Call of Pripyat

CoPSPASfirst.png

First person view

CoPSPASsights.png

Iron sights

CoPSPASload.png

Reloading

Third person view