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This sucks to hear. General gun smiths are dangerous. whatever you do, don’t fire it until we can look over everything. I’m certain they reassembled the ARGO plugs wrong. The receiver extension is wrong too. If you can work a deal that it comes to my shop for proper reassembly, I’d be glad to help.

I had been looking for a month or so when I decided to look on Facebook - just searched for M4 fans - and up popped about 5 dealers that had them in stock. Some wanted 1K over MSRP, some a few hundred over. One day, a shop popped up that said they had 2 just come in - I called and they were 200 under MSRP. I snatched it up. You just have to stay vigilant and check different sources. Good luck! F

I got my M4 H2O 2 weeks ago by sheer dumb luck at a nearby Cabelas ( 15 miles away ). My Cabelas doesn't even list the M4 as something they carry. I saw a regular M4 in stock on my area BassPro website a few months ago, but hesitated and it was gone. Their order online/pickup in store option was not available at that point either. I considered their waitlist option but decided not to bother. I got the list of my local dealers ( north of Atlanta ) off the Benelli USA website, contacted each and every one of them, and came up empty. I sadly drove to Cabelas 2 weeks ago for my plan B: Immediately get a .45 ACP pistol for home defense ( weak substitute for an M4 ), a 9mm pistol for an eventual concealed carry/backup, and an M4 in the future if/when available. As luck would have it, Cabelas was out of the pistols I was interested in, not even counter models to pick up and evaluate. I was disappointed that I had wasted a trip, and when I mentioned my plan B to the guy at the counter he said "I have the H2O version of the M4 right over here, want to take a look at it ?" Stunned, all I could say was "Um, yeah!" Needless to say, I bought it right then and there.

“Carrier Loading” (aka Ghost Loading). See page 24 of the USMC M1014 manual LINK to USMC M1014 manual

Good stuff Scout, I appreciate it. Strange thing about this ammo is it’s 2.37” long per my caliper. Verified on a second one to double check I made sure the spring retainer was a hair below the end when I reassembled so there wasn’t much there to gain. I like your idea on leaving it out a hair and squaring with the end using the cap, will definitely do that going forward. I also throughly molested the follower while cleaning the factory coatings off and am confident there’s nothing in it hanging the spring up, but again, great call out I’d read about clipping the spring- both home jobs and sending back to Benelli for “warranty” work- so I called them this morning to ask for guidance. Guy was super cool, confirmed that they do use the 7-round spring in the 5-round tube and told me to cut it myself. I could hardly believe my ears. He was really casual about it, said it’s exactly what they would do if it sent it in (but minus the four week wait) and walked me through the procedure. He said the 7-round spring is “longer than it needs to be even in the 7-round tube” but that in the 5-round tube it is known to be sometimes problematic due to the amount of spring steel accumulated at the nose of the tube when loading. He said that that “4 to 6 coils” could be cut off without risk of a malfunction due to too-low of spring force, but to start with 4 coils and go from there. So, I broke out the split ring pliers and wire nippers, took a deep breath and did exactly as he told me. Reassembled and sure enough it swallowed five shells and the fifth just barely cleared/seated. I cycled five loaded tubes through to check for malfunction and couldn’t make one happen. That said, the above is not a recommendation to anyone to do as I did just as I wouldn’t have taken action without Benelli themselves telling me to. I look forward to zero malfunctions due to spring weight at the range tomorrow and will report back here should I get any.