fermionorama

I finally got to go back out after all the crummy weather over the last week, & the supernova fired everything I ran through it without any problems this time. I don't know if it was cleaning out all the heavy grease in the bolt, or if it was all the trigger pulls on the snap caps, but the gun works just fine now. I have to say Benelli's comfortech stock, at least in my limited experience, lives up to it's promises. The 3" magnum #4 buckshot shells I shot today felt about equivalent to 2.75" target loads that I went out shooting with a friend a few months ago (in his winchester pump not sure of the model), and the 2.75" target loads I shot today felt like nothing more than a stiff push.

Like I said, it's my first shotgun so I'm not going to entirely rule out 'user error' but the operation seems pretty straightforward to me. I haven't had a chance to try firing again since I cleaned out the bolt assembly/firing pin, but I do notice that even with a shell chambered the forearm has about 2 millimeters of 'give'. To say another way, If I have a shell chambered & the bolt locked forward I can move the slide forward/back very slightly (~2mm), and the slide moves the bolt assembly with it (the bolt head stays locked up against the barrel opening). I can probably get some pics of this and post/link to them if it would help. Can another supernova owner check if theirs does this too? It could explain the failure-to-fire; if the bolt assembly was a few millimeters back then the firing pin wouldn't poke out past the bolt head as far as it should.

Thanks, shotgunNoob. I consulted with a few other shotgun owning acquaintances about this as well, their assessment was similar to yours. I had cleaned/oiled the gun after I bought it, but had left the thick black grease in the bolt assembly because I wasn't sure if it was supposed to have a thicker lube in there; I figured that's the way it came so I'd leave it. Maybe it was benelli, or maybe it was the sporting goods store (scheels, they had it out on display) that I bought it from who put that thick black grease on/in the bolt assembly, but I wiped it off/washed it all out and then wiped the firing pin/spring down with cloth patches soaked in a light oil this evening. I'm going to buy a box of a bit heavier load and take it out sometime this weekend for another try.

I just got a brand new supernova 12ga, my first shotgun. I took it out to a range to do some test patterning with a light 2.75" target load & it wouldn't fire. I tried several different shells from 2 manufacturers (winchester 1oz 7.5 shot & estate 1&1/8 oz 7.5 shot), none would fire. Looking at the fired shells, the primers had a spot of the heavy grease on them but they weren't significantly dented in. The grease spot must be from the firing pin, which came packed in this fairly heavy black grease. Nothing in the manual mentioned cleaning it out so I didn't. Overall I fired it at least 10 times without any shells going off. I called up Benelli & they suggested I try a heavier round, said that it should fire a heavier round & after a box or two should fire lighter rounds too. The CS rep said that the firing pin return spring was too stiff on a brand new gun for those light loads. I'm not too savvy about the construction of shotshell, but if the firing pin return spring is so stiff that the firing pin doesn't go far enough forward to 'whack' the primer sufficiently, how will a heavier load help? Is the heavier load going to have a primer that sticks out further/is more sensitive to shock? Would just dry-firing the gun some number of times (a few dozen? a few hundred?) work the spring sufficiently so that it isn't so stiff? Should I clean out the heavy grease that the firing pin came packed in? If so, should I replace it with grease, or just oil up the spring/pin/inside of the bolt assembly? If I am to take the CS rep's advice (which I plan to), what sort of load would people here recommend that I use? She didn't tell me exactly what to use, just said 'heavier loads'. Heavier as in more shot, or more powder, or bigger shot, or a longer cartridge? Maybe all 4? I don't want to buy 2 boxes of expensive 3.5" magnum 00 buck or rifled slugs if I can help it ($1+/cartridge? That price hurts almost as much as the recoil would!)