doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com yay/nay whether new bbls can be fit (beretta BL)?

Hello all,
Just recieved a set of barrels from a member here for my older Beretta BL4. The barrels fit on the gun, the gun closes tightly, there is zero wiggle, and the lever is farther to the right than it is with the original barrels. The ejectors are not timed with the new set.

It seems that these would have no problem being fitted to my gun...but I wouldn't really know. It actualy seems like they don't even need any fitting with the exception of the ejectors.

My questions:
With the above in mind, is it a given that they CAN reasonably be fitted to my action?

If I shot the gun as-is would it cause any damage to the barrels, action or ejectors??

I'll try to reach Coles int he next day or three, but any info anyone has would be helpful.
Thanks!

Hello

Should not be a concern if the lock up is good.

As to causing damage, I think not, but I would open the barrels carefully on the first few shots to insure no binding.

Have you dry fired the gun with EMPTY hulls in place?
No concerns?

More info please

Thanks
Mike

Mike, thank you.
The barrels feel "tight" the way a newer gun feels before it has been used much. There is no binding that I can feel, i.e. the tightness feels uniform throughout the opening/closing, although I would not characterise it as "buttery", it's not rough but it's not as smooth as the original set--can't tell if that's only due to tightness or something else. On opening, the top lever grabs just a tiny bit before it turns to the right at all, then opens fine. The top lever snaps shut and stops, I cant close it any more by hand and it makes no difference whether I close it slowly or abruptly. My only fear would be that any wear is concentrated on metal that doesnt fit as WELL (as opposed to tightly) and concentrates wear causing premature loosening or some other such malady that might be a more difficult fix--I have no idea if this is realistic.
If I fire both barrels with empty shells in them, the bottom barrel ejects with correct timing while the upper barrel ejects just as it starts to close...I could live with it as long as it causes no long-term harm.

To my (very) untrained eys it SEEMS like it would be fine to use as-is...just thought I would throw that out there before I got myself in over my head or set myself up to be the proud owner of a useless set of barrels, or did any harm to mmy gun.

Thanks a ton for any insight.
Dave

If the lever does not go over as far as you would like it to, I would attempt to clean out the holes in the breech of the barrels. If cleaning does not cause the lever to go over a bit more, I would gently file the surfaces of the holes with a fine round file to see if the locking lugs don't go a bit farther into the holes. Beretta gunsmiths have a reamer that does this. Unfotunately you don't. Flush and lubricate as you file. When fitting barrels, it sometimes helps to slam the gun a bit harder when closing than you usually would to see if you are "getting close". Since these are my barrels, so far, I wish you luck. It sounds like you have a good match.

Feeling tight when opening and closing the barrels may be tightness between the forend iron and the front of the receiver. Test for this by removing the forend and opening and closing the barrels. If the tightness is gone, it's not the width of the barrel monobloc. Removing a small amount from the rear of the under lug will eliminate this stiffness. This is very common on Browning Citoris and lots of other O/U's. Rich Cole is a top authority and gunsmith, relative to Berettas.
The precision of the modern machining makes barrel interchanging much more do-able than it was on older guns.
Hope it works out well for you.

Thanks very much all,
I will again try to reach coles today, although they have been extremely noncommittal on the phone and not very forthcoming with info. As I mentioned I could easily live with the barrels as they are with NO fitting so I'm pretty sure they'll work, my main concern is to not do anything that could damage them or the gun.
Does anyone have any insight into whether I could do any harm to the gun or to either barrel set by using it as-is for a while until I have them fitted? Do I gain anything by having them fitted apart from perfect ejector timing?
Thanks,
Dave

I would definitely ease the back of the lug as Mr.Legg suggested. A fine file and a few thou worth of metal can make a great difference. Personally I would avoid dicking w/ the locking recesses. Once metal is gone it is pretty tricky to put it back. And not having the right tool or even experience ..... hmmmmm. I'm sure Cole's has made a tidy sum fixing what have become way expensive repair jobs made so by wannabees. Aside from the cleaning part I know I would avoid the bolt fitting process that was outlined above.

JMO of course but remember what Dirty Harry said.

Dr.WtS

Just to clarify, I wont be doing anything myself--it's clearly more than I have the skillset for. The information I'm looking for is WHETHER they really need fitting at all, not how to perform the operation myself. It'll cost me $80 to ship it there and back plus they say $150 or so minimum to have them fit it...I'm happy to pay that if it's worthwhile, but I don't like throwing money away--it seems a relatively steep price if nothing needs to be done.

By the way, I just spoke with Coles. They were unwilling to tell me anything at all about whether they could be fit at all, even given the seemingly good fit "out of the box". As I suspected, they said that one worry is whether the metal is just sitting on the high spots, and will wear faster than it should. They did say that if they had it in hand they could tell within seconds if it could be fit and what it would need. So what do you all say about it--should I send it to them so they can tell me whether I have a set of barrels or a tomato stake? or is there something I can look at to tell whether it can be fit?

Thoughts?

It is always better if experts look at something that you are not sure of, and you are smart to not do anything.

What you could do and what they are going to do is "smoke black" the different fits. You could use a candle and smoke the lumps, the breech face and also smoke the for-end metal to see how it fits on the receiver. Shiny spots in the black will tell where you are hitting.

As a reference, smoke black the original barrels and compare them, at least it will give you an idea.

With the lever being to the right a little is fine, the gun closes tight, and you could check that with a piece of paper (.003-.004) or thinner newspaper.

As for the ejectors not timed, did you receive a for-end with this gun or are you using your original? If you are using your original for-end the extractor slide could be worn. If the for-end came with the barrel, it could be the ejector spring in the for-end.

If those check out I would let it go and save yourself a couple hundred dollars.

I do own an early BL-4 in 28 ga, but I am not familar with the names of componants I mentioned.

do you have go, no go gage?