tucker301

If you have had the trigger group out of the gun, you may not have reinstalled it correctly. You have to make sure that the carrier latch fits behind the cartridge drop lever (076L) and that the cartridge drop lever spring is on right.

Good points, mudhen. Do this alteration at your own risk. I'd be interested to know if anyone's been written for it.

Good deal. Stick around. we don't mind a few Beretta cousins.

I talked with them around 10:30 AM and they'd only gotten one. They weren't in there like they had been the two previous trips. I'll pass the message on to Tommy tomorrow.

Welcome to this joint. I look forward to seeing some sea duck hunt pics later on!

I'm not helping on that one. I haven't talked to them since yesterday AM, so I'm not sure. They hunted while I worked on a broken Honda.

Are you still shooting a Beretta, or have you come back to the dark side?

I saw that massacre posted somewhere else the other day. Awesome shoot! Congrats on the bands too!

Flatsspy, You wouldn't happen to be from the Bracey, VA area would you?

I watched the promo video and you are right. The magazine tube is designed to be quickly removed by pushing a button and twisting it off. The questions now are: How quickly can it be removed and replaced? Can it be removed and replaced while loaded? And the big one, how much is an extra mag tube, and will it ever be available for purchase? We've got some Vinci owners here. I look forward to hearing from them on this. They can answer the first two easily.

The magazine tube is part of the lower receiver sub-assembly. It is not a quick change part. Certainly not doable in a few seconds as geese approach. What the Vinci and other Benellis do have is the capability to quickly remove the chambered round and insert another shell from your pocket, bypassing those in the magazine.

Here's my bottom line. I don't care if you pattern the gun from a bench, but I do think it's a useless endeavor for most shooters. That's because most aren't going to realize that they're missing because of shooter errors, although the gun is shooting "straight". I'd rather have the gun setup, as closely as possible, to the way I'm going to be using it.

Most of my shots at deer are from a sitting position with rest, but that's a moot point. On a rifle, you have mechanical rear and front sights, or a scope. These force the shooter into a certain shooting posture that is repeated, whether standing or sitting. On a shotgun, the rear sight is the shooter's eye. Because of that, it is best to pattern the gun from posture and circumstances that are most likely to mimic field use.

The mid bead should be aligned just below the front bead, not covering it.

Best test. Pick a distant point. Close your eyes. Shoulder the gun as if you were trying to shoot that point. Open your eyes and see how you're lined up. Ideally, the beads will be aligned like a figure 8 just below the target. If not, adjust shims accordingly and try again.

My point is simply this. The gun will not kill anything or break any clays by itself. The combination of shooter and gun are what gets the job done. So they must be tested together as one shooting system. With that in mind, shooting from a bench is a useless endeavor, unless you are going to shoot turkeys or shoot benchrest matches for shotguns. It is VERY unlikely that your natural shooting posture will be anything like what it is when you're sitting at a bench with a perfect cheek weld and a rest, so all of that is a waste of time, IMO. Tuning the gun to the shooter is much more easy to accomplish than trying to tune the shooter to the gun.

dognducks, That's not a bad deal if the gun is in good shape.

I've never seen it on mine.

I don't like patterning from a rest, because I won't be shooting from a rest. I think the body dynamics change from a sitting rest to a standing off-hand shot, so I like to pattern my guns from the position I'll be using when shooting them. I also don't like "aiming" a shotgun with too much consideration given the the beads. A shotgun is made for pointing and it should be shot with both eyes opened and focused on the target, not on the beads. Shooting with both eyes opened is safer in the field, because your peripheral vision is effectively doubled. You also need both eyes to perceive distances effectively. With that in mind, try the following. Set up a series of targets spaced a few yards apart in a line at 20-25 yards. An old fence line covered with brown kraft paper makes an ideal setup. Draw or place targets about 5-7 yards apart. Load the gun and begin walking at a steady pace, as though you were walking a field. When you get in line with a target, shoulder the gun and fire at one of the targets. Take a few steps, and repeat the process at another. Even better, would be to have a friend present, and have them call "bird" when you're supposed to shoot. This simulates the field condition of not knowing when a target will appear. Use the pattern results as an aggregate, scoring all of them together to find your average pattern placement. Adjust your shims accordingly and repeat the process until you are happy with the results. This will give you patterns based on your natural shooting position and how you shoulder the gun when a target appears. Unless you're shooting clays and game from a sitting position with a rest, the above method will give you more realistic results.

I have used Brakfree with results similar to those of Hoppes. I think they're very similar products. I wouldn't use Corrosion X on them. It feels slimy to me.

I didn't go out today. Had other business to attend to. It took myself and my daughter 11 years and 163,000 miles, but we finally killed these two Honda Civic CV Axles. They're marinating now, but I'm not optimistic about how they're going to turn out. Honda makes great cars. This is the second service item it has required. The other was the timing belt, which is actually overdue for another change.

Just about any gun store gas generic plugs. You can make one from a wooden dowel. Cut it the length of two unfired 3" shells (not 6 inches), and test it. If the third shell won't go in, note how much is not going and recut the dowel accordingly. Ideally, you should be able to insert the third round no more than halfway before it bottoms out. Be sure to test with 2.75" loads as well.

Longer barrel = longer sighting plane and a smoother more fluid swing. If hunting from a blind, the longer barrel is appreciated by blindmates for getting the noise out there another couple of inches.

Hoppes Elite Field Cleaner makes mine look new again. I use it on the metals and the synthetics. IF there's any mud or dirt I wash that off with mild soap and water, then use the Hoppes. Soak it down, then buff it off.

You actually have a perfect understanding of how it works. It's tricky with 3.5" shells, because you have to open the bolt enough, but not all the way.