Have to say I didn’t see that coming out of British Sporting Arms.
Jonny’s continuing “Coming to America” series has been interesting and entertaining but I found his stop at the BSA shop in Millbrook, NY, fascinating (@ 17:00).
And I notice the TGS logo continues. Do we suppose his keeping company with rebellious colonials has cured him of his Proofhouse thinking? 😉
For those of an interest, a trip up to Millbrook is a very nice trip.
Sandanona is a lovely place to spend the day and BSA is a great place to buy things. He will have things in stock there for you to handle that you cannot find anywhere else without great effort. Hard and soft goods.
I would beg to differ on the Benelli thing, unless you are talking a Nova. There is a SBE in the house that can not be considered “reliable”.
I believe it was Kirk Merrington that pointed out to me that no double is really maintenance free. Honestly, he pointed out the more expensive the double gun, the more expensive the maintenance would be. This ended my short period of ownership of English side lock guns, that I freely admit was aggravated by the fact that I only purchased clapped out versions of same- hey, I was a kid. He grudgingly noted that a Darne, sans under rib, would be very, very close to maintenance free.
He was my gunsmith for the Darne guns I imported for 20 years. He didn’t get much work from me.
I beg to differ on the Benellis as well. I would replace the name Benelli with Beretta, based on personal experience.
Beretta owns Benelli, and makes all the barrels for them. Benellis kick harder, are louder, and require more cleaning and lubing than Berettas. But, fact of the matter is, they're all semis, and I'm not a big fan of any of them.
An inertia gun requires less maintenance than any gas gun, provided you don't try to feed them Kent steel shells which would likely induce a failure in any shotgun ever made.
My M1 Super 90 'Field' has been trouble free for 27 years now. 20 gauge Cordoba has been perfect for 15 years. I can't say that about my Beretta 391's. They both needed the bent carrier mod from Cole's. That fixed the reliability issues with them. That said, I just shot the 'Ghetto Special' Teknys 391 for 3 weeks in a row because all I can get here is the Wally World 100 packs and it ran through 600 of those with nary a burp. This may be because Federal has finally learned to make a smokeless shotgun shell. The gun is still clean and would doubtless run 600 more without service.
My Beretta O/U guns have been good, except for that part about the broken hammer. The various Brownings here have never broken a hammer. They do, however, need pins and springs once in a while unlike the Berettas.
My point is that to state the Miroku guns as the most reliable is just absurd.
"The price of good shotgunnery is constant practice" - Fred Kimble
An inertia gun requires less maintenance than any gas gun, provided you don't try to feed them Kent steel shells which would likely induce a failure in any shotgun ever made.
That has just not been my experience at all. My old 390 will just go, and go and go. Without cleaning if necessary. It is the only autoloader I've ever bought, and when I did I asked about cleaning it. I was told "You know how, when you hold it up and turn it from end to end, you hear something that sounds like it slides and stops with a ping? When it doesn't do that anymore it might be time for a cleaning." That was a tongue-in-cheek comment, but fairly accurate. I was duck hunting with it in the Bayou Meto one morning and got sick. I headed for the boat, some 60-80 yds. away, and passed out and fell face forwards into the crotch deep water. My 390 was being held in both hands and went under, and down into the silt and muck on the bottom. The cold water woke me and I got up and made my way to the boat where I eventually recovered from my brief sickness. The action was frozen shut. I poured mud, water, leaves and silt out of the barrel, checked it, worked the action a few times, and went back to killing ducks. It never failed to cycle one time. Later that day it got a complete strip, clean and lube. Even the action spring had trash in it.
I have seen too many Benellis fail to cycle on a round of clays to agree with your statement. And BTW, my old Super X2, that I won in a sporting clays tournament, would shoot a round (100) of Kent Estates without any attention at all. JMEYMMV.
The Benelli. It was a happy day I bought my first SBE which lasted until it wouldn't cycle after the first shot out of the box. The dealer replaced it. The next happy Benelli day was when I got rid of the replacement. What other shotgun has had so many documented ftf's that it has earned a title when the bolt unexpectedly rotates out of battery? The "Benelli Click". BTW, Jonny, the author of the video above, has a video wherein he shows how to completely strip down the trigger and ejector assemblies of 680-686 series with a Leatherman tool with commentary of the genius of the design that all parts can be purchased inexpensively and replaced without requiring fitting to properly work. When I first decided to buy my Beretta O/U, it was only after consulting my LGS's owner and gunsmith who sold both the Browning and Beretta that Beretta was far better to source parts than was Browning but that the Beretta needed far less repairs than the Browning O/U. OMMV. Gil
Getting back to doubles, OUs have an inherent weakness compared to sxs: With the exception of the few that have straight line strikers, they're angled on most OUs. Not unusual for them to require tinkering to keep them working properly.
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