mudhen

For all around, the 26" is best. I use several choke tubes that are 2"+. With the 26" + the 2"+ choke tube, you can still move the gun around in the turkey cover as well as the duck blind. I have shot the 26" for 14 seasons and have never wished for the 28". With the new Super Mad Max choke, the 28" would be almost 32" long! Too much for my turkey hunting. mudhen - CA

??? You really think Benelli should test every brand of slug - every weight of slug - every possible combination of slug & choke, etc. ??? And then publish it? There are thousands of possible combinations! The problem here is that your question is not "quick and easy"! Why would you want a quick and easy answer when harvesting a game animal anyway or defending your home??? Do your field work!! Anyway - the slug manufacturer is better suited to tell you about their product. Some give good info, some give little. Try www.brenekkeusa.com for starts - their smooth bore slugs work with all sizes of chokes (according to them), and their info is good. I've knocked a few Iowa whitetails off their feet with the Rottweil slug + SBE w/factory IC choke tube - works fine. Federal and Winchester offer little help. www.lightfieldslugs.com also talks about choke tubes in smoothbores - they recommend buying a rifled choke tube. The bottom line is that standard choke tubes do little if anything for a Foster slug - so who cares which one you use. Most recommend cylinder or IC. I would guess that tigher tubes will not help and may get fouled with plastic. A rifled choke tube might help - Rhino makes a decent one - my M1 was marginally more accurate with the Rhino rifled choke & sabots. One thing I know for sure is that the Iowa boys knock deer on their arse with whatever gun they know how to shoot! They don't care about sabots, rifled chokes, etc. they just know where their slug is going to go and how to put slug to bone! mudhen - CA

Hmmm... You only want solutions - no comments..... Ok here's one solution - wear glasses! Briley is making tubes for the Sport II on a special order basis, but it seems sorta dumb to buy new ones with color rings when you have perfectly good factory tubes now. My solution would be to send all the factory tubes to Briley and have them engraved in big letters with the choke size. That shouldn't cost too much and I bet they will do it cheap. Briley is a neat company. mudhen - CA

GFL. I have never been able to find a stock barrel for less than MSRP from any Benelli authorized source. BTW - I bought a new SBE matte barrel for $325 in a private sale for my new SBE slug gun - the slug forearm fits fine with the standard barrell - no rattle. Don't know what that is about? mudhen - CA

I'll just repeat what I've heard: SBE II -Longer choke tubes, Crios like the Sport II, they work very well with Hevishot. - The barrel will be a Crio barrel, some believe it patterns better. - Max 4 camo as an option. - Forcing cone lengthened. - Backbored barrel. - Gel recoil pad & gel grips. - Recoil suppressor installed. I have heard the new retail cost is $75-$150 more than the 2003 price. I have also heard that the SBE and SBE II will be sold side by side for several years. I guessing (just guessing) that Benelli will lower the price of the original SBE to keep it selling, and create a price spread to make the SBE II a premium priced gun. While I'm sure the II will sell great, I still love my original SBE. It's smooth as glass going into it's 13th season of hard use. mudhen - CA

Wow - you are really having a tough time! There is no excuse for the sling swivel to break - that's pure crap. Of course, every one I have installed myself has broken!, but not out of the box. That noise you hear is the inertia spring aka the spring that makes the gun work. Click on Benelli above, then Innovations, then Inertia Recoil Design. You can read all about the design there. Sounds like the black gun was badly broken or missing parts. I have put 30,000+ rounds through Benelli semis, and the only malfunction that has ever caused me to take the gun apart was; dry firing, putting the safety back on, and then pulling the bolt back with the safety engaged. That locked the gun up good! mudhen - CA

I have been buying Benelli parts from Brownells for years. Just go to www.brownells.com I click on schematics to get the parts blow-up listing. The part # is 301-000-038 - $6.74 - and is in stock at this time. I keep 2 of these on hand at all time. Usually takes them 2-3 days tops to ship. Not cheap - but parts is parts! mudhen - CA [ 09-18-2003, 01:27 PM: Message edited by: mudhen ]

I have the round bolt handle shown in Brownell's catalog. It fits both of my SBE's and my M1 mudhen - CA