Unobtanium

At 25 yards with my M4 and cheap winchester Power Point slugs I can shoot clover-leafs at 25 yards. At 50 yards I can keep them all in an 8" circle. GOod enough for me. Another vote for the M4. Even if you DON'T go M4, the Benelli shotgun with a smooth bore is going to be good with slugs compared to other brands due to the smaller bore diameter benelli uses. Using a Federal Tru slug will do wonders. I say stay smoothbore and forget the rifled barrel. Buckshot does POOR in a rifled barrel, slugs do well in smoothbore. No-brainer.

User error is my bet. I hate to sound like I am going on the offensive here, but it seems the most likely guess. If it is not user error, then something does seem amiss.

I hope you never have to shoot anyone with that.

Maybe they didn't get much on the tube with you guys, but with mine it took constant heat and tq and was pretty hard to turn even after I "broke the seal". After about 2 full turns, it began to get easier. I cleaned the threads and re-applied locktite. I used blue.

I am going to look into the M1 S90 spring from E-guns. It is meant for a factory 5+1 rifle and has a different part number. WE will see if it works better. My FTE's were a LOT better with the stock spring/follower. Only when I was shooting some hot 3" stuff did it occur. I think the action was moving too fast for the mag spring to keep up then.

The M4 is a heavy/solid weapon. If you plan on doing transition drills and running/moving fast, your manhood will thank you for NOT choosing a single-point. Other than that, make one out of duct-tape if it moves you to do so.

Okay...I called Benelli today. After being thrown around on hold and waiting 15 minutes (I felt bad for the operator, she sounded like this was a college job for her and I could all but feel her cringe when I said "Hi, you put me on hold and I waited 10 minutes and the system directed me back to you". Completely understandable, but I work with people all the time and always have, so I empathized...ANYWAYS>..) Benelli finally got to me on the phone. I was informed that there is ONE! spring for the M4. It's part number is:70053 But wait... I have seen part number 70052 bandied about on this forum as well! Is benelli misleading me? Well, I asked the nice lady to punch in 70052. Turns out this is the part number for the mag tube itself. SOCOMguy is correct. There is only one factory spring for the Benelli M4. It is meant to go with the factory 5 OR 7-shot tube. I am going to go and test things out with the Benelli follower and stock spring, as it is what SHOULD be in there according to Benelli. (Also, I find it quite telling that it has MORE tension on the last round than does the SRM M4+2 spring they sell with their kit. All evidence points to the rep I spoke to at Benelli being correct). Also, if you look at the "extended spring" on the e-guns site that is recommended with their extended tube ( TUBE: http://www.e-gunparts.com/DisplayAd.asp?chrProductSKU=981490&chrSuperSKU=&MC= SPRING: http://www.e-gunparts.com/product.asp?chrProductSKU=981390&MC= ), its Benelli part number: 60479 (acertained by a call to E-guns). According to Benelli (and E-guns when you click on this part number), this item fits: M1/M3 Super 90 and is a factory type spring. NOT extended capacity (which Benelli only offers if you get a +4 or larger extension, and not at all for the M4 model). I have thus spoken with 2 Benelli Reps and both of them have told me 70053 is the ONLY spring spec'ed by Benelli for the M4. Reguardless of the mag tube. The fact that I have not found any other spring online made by Benelli for the M4 confirms this. There you have it, 1 hour of my day spend fiddling with mag-springs and data to put this to bed.

I pulled out all the SRM stuff. The SRM spring had about 1/2# less tension on the last round than did the stocker. I also put the stock follower back in. I am going shooting later today, we will see. I expect it to be flawless though.

Suprise, the stock 11707 spring has 1/2# more tension than the SRM 33" 2-shot extension spring. THis was measured like so: Remove the mag-spring seal and insert a 12ga 2-3/4 shell into the end opposite the mag follower. I then pressed this end to my bathroom scale, letting the spring press the shell into the scale. The stock spring had 1/2# more pressure at 3 to 3.5# vs. 2.5-3# for the SRM. I re-installed the factory spring.

Looks like I am not the only one, was your FTF the same as I described?

Well, I have the SRM follower and M4 2 round extension 33" spring and a Numrich tube. During part of my shooting session today the shell failed to eject from the mag-tube all the way onto the follower. The action jammed with the bolt all the way back as though it were empty. The jam could be simulated (if you want to know what I mean) by loading 1 round in your tube, and pressing the carrier a LITTLE BIT and then pressing the shell release. This would effect an identical jam to what I had. Observations: SRM follower does not protrude as far into the reciever as the M4 stock one. This may cause the shell to be not getting kicked out of the tube as far. I could get the same jams while just cycling it in my room. The jamming went away as sudden as it began. It seemed more prominant with 3" shells than the 2-3/4". I am replacing my SRM follower with the stock one. Could the spring be too weak? I doubt it, it is a new +2 SRM spring... Ideas/Thoughts? I am thinking SRM follower right now... (happens only on the last round)

My shotgun is by my bed. I don't need to be fumbling for the wrench at 3am half asleep. As to the other poster who said "that is all you need, it's a shotgun". Well...yes and no. I CLEAN my weapons. That means, I remove all fouling that I reasonably can (i.e., I don't take JB paste to the bore every time). Point being, why have all that lead in your bore? All it does is grab the shot wad/work into the gas ports/provide a place for powder fouling (and thereby moisture) to reside (more important in non-Cr Lined bores). There are 2 schools of thought I guess, I am of the CLP AND SCRUB! school rather than the CLP and Snake! school.

I have now seen several posts where you say not to leave the choke-tube in the barrel ready to go. As long as you are using a quality lube and good PM to prevent rust, what is the issue with it?

Using a bore-snake is like taking your car through a $3 automatic touch-free car wash. Using a cleaning rod with a brush and then a patch/swab is like taking it to a hand-wash/wax detail shop. This is as good of an analogy as I can give you.

Or more than 4 hours of sleep and a full-time job and getting started in 1st level clinicals. Maybe that would improve my spelling

No, get a cleaning rod. You can "scrub" the bore with a copper brush to get all the lead (EEK CHROME IS FLAKING!) out of your bore after shooting unplated buckshot/slugs.

The results are well worth it!

I removed mine with a $22 heat-gun (750 and 1,000*F options) from Wal-Mart. I heated the reciever by holding the gun 2-3" from where the tube joined it (heat the reciever, not the tube). I heated it by moving the gun around, evenly heating around the area for a 3-5 minutes. THen I wrapped the reciever in a pair of boxers (what I had laying around on the floor) and used my knee to pin it to the seat of my computer desk chair and with my hands I turned the tube. IT moved VERY LITTLE, but at that point I knew I had won. I just kept heating and immediately turning until it stopped and then repeating until I got it. You don't need a vice or anything crazy, just some juevos and some patients. Above all, when working on firearms/cars/computers, PATIENTS!

My 11707 spring was about 27" long

My SRM spring and aluminum follower arrived. It is 33-34" long and I think it will be perfect. Everything looks great.

what kind of neighborhood do YOU live in? Usually here all they want is your TV or stereo.

Oddly none of my AR's have any except on the little nub that keeps the shells out of my face. The Winchester 1500 I have has none. However, for this platform it is well and normal and if it ever bugs anyone, I suggest the Alumablack.

I feel like a car buyer. I got to the lot and picked up a model I had never looked at. I ended up with a Primos Dead Deer choke.

I want the choke that is going to produce the tightest patterns possible with buckshot out to 40-50 yards. I shot my M4 with the stock MOD choke that it came with and while it performed about like one would expect, I was non-plussed. At 15 yards only 30% of the OO hit the target (typing paper). I like the look of the Buck Kicker. The ports look "cool" I guess, but it worries me. They are angled, but are they going to cause the choke to unscrew because of how they vent the gas? What does everyone think of this choke, will it produce the tight cloud of OO that I am after? ETA: Could I just get the Kicks High-Flyer Full Choke and shoot OO through it? That way if I want to shoot steel or something I don't have to buy another tube. I realise it may not be QUITE as good as the Buck Kicker, but is there a reason not to do this?

It's cool, I got it. Charging handle=charging bolt BCG=Bolt Carrier Group I am an AR-fan. Shotguns are a pretty new animal to me, so when I flounder for a term and don't have the time to look it up, I just use the AR equivalent. At any rate, I have not stripped my M4 down to the max that I feel confortable taking it down to (basically to the point right before screws and roll-pins get tweaked) and await the mag tube to replace it.