Planetcat

I have a 15 year old R1 in .30-06 with wood stock, blued barrel. It has the 20” barrel and is extremely accurate. I also have it in .300 win mag and .338. The .30’s are old and have the crio treated barrels which never change poi even when extremely hot. The .338 is newer with the black barrel and not as accurate. Something changed since the original barrels were made. My point is that the R1 pro looks a lot like the original and I would buy it if I were looking for another .30-06. Given how much Italians like the .30-06, I would bet the entire platform was Originally based on that cartridge. I also have a BAR shortrac in .308 which is very accurate. Both the R1 and the Browning are finicky about ammo, but can be extremely accurate once the right load is had. They both favor heavy bullets for me, seem to dislike the copper stuff. Unfortunately, my socialist State requires me to hunt with copper. Didn’t directly answer your question, but those are my observations shooting the R1’s a lot in the last 15 years.

Thanks. It’s been a ridiculously expensive trial and error process. The Hornady 185 grain gmx’s aren’t terrible either. The 225 grain barnes and trophy copper are all over the paper. The Hornady’s are really pleasant to shoot, but not as tight groups as the barnes 210. I’m not a small guy or recoil sensitive, but maybe the extra recoil on the 225 grainers are just past my shooting ability. Two of my hunting buddies just bought Weatherby Mark V’s in 6.5-300. They are getting really accurate results with the Weatherby ammo in 127 grain barnes LRX. An amazing rifle and cartridge. I hate shooting with them, because the boom and concussion from that rifle with the muzzle brake on is horrific. Lol.

Ok, finally got it dialed in using 210 grain barnes vor-tx ttsx ammo. Shooting sub-moa, so I’m goin to stock up on that ammo. Also, for entertainment purposes, here’s a 150 lb. sow I shot with the .338 R1 at about 150 yards. Back i February. This was using the 200 grain Hornady sst ammo. Needless to say, there was no tracking involved. The shot was clean, quartering away behind the shoulder, so no meat was wasted nor did the overkill bullet obliterate her.

You sure its not the recoil spring in the tube in the buttstock? The spring part appears to be the same for all R1’s, and I can’t believe the recoil spring constant is the same for your .308 as it is for my .338 win mag.

Does it matter that much, since the safety is just a button on the trigger assembly?

I was actually thinking that. Does your R1 have the comfortech stock? My .300 has the wooden stock and recoil with 180’s is quite sharp. My .338 has the comfortech, and it soaks up the recoil some. They are finicky on ammo. If you really want to shoot 180’s (I would), I’d keep trying other stuff. Then go down to 165’s.

That seems unusual, but not impossible. My .300wm and .30-06 R1 barrels love the 180’s in most flavors. Maybe try 200’s, since it’s a moose gun? I’ve also had good success with 165’s, like fusions, blue box, and hornady interbond and interlock. All 3 of my R1 barrels hate copper and other non-toxic bullets however. Once you find the happy load for it, you will be satisfied. It can be an expensive experiment though.

My .300wm is threaded for a muzzle brake, but now I’m entertaining the idea of a supressor on it.

Shoots great using hornady superformance 200 grain sst’s. Copper ammo and 225 grain core-lokts, not so much (see my other post about non-lead ammo). Comfortech is nice with the .338, but still has a whallop. Less recoil than my .300 win mag wood stock R1 for sure.

Thanks Thunder. I’ve found that my rifles made in Europe don’t like the non-lead bullets. Three R1’s(.30-06, .300wm, .338) browning bar .308, and winchester .308 and .338wm made by FN. All have mediocre and/or inconsistent groups using barnes, trophy copper, and gmx ammo. I bet if I reloaded, i could dial them in. I’m getting sub 1” at 100 yards using .338 wm 200 grain superformance sst’s. The .30-06 and .300 wm R1 are over 12 years old and I get very good results with 180 grain bullets (Hornady interbond, federal blue box soft points, and fusions).

I know this is a long shot shot on this deader-than-dead forum, but I can’t get my .338 wm R1 to get decent groups (<1” at 50 yards) with 210 gr. Barnes, .225 gr. Federeal trophy copper, or 185 gr. Hornady gmx. All three shoot radically different groups - all mediocre. I had my barrel cryo treated again at 300 below, and it seems to allow me to shoot about 10 shots now before the barrel heat affects accuracy as opposed to 3-4 shots with factory barrel. Thats not the issue though, I just cant get decent groups with any non-lead ammo that I can find regularly. Buffalo bore makes 250 gr barnes, but that is a lot of bullet for hogs, deer, and black bear. Plus its expensive! I’m at a quandary. Any other suggestions? I dont reload. Also, my stupid restrictive state says i have to hunt with non lead ammo. 200 gr sst’s shoot great out of it. Her’s a picture of a nice sow I shot a few months ago with 200 grain SST ammo. She was drt at 150 yards.

I would bet the new .308 magazines would work since they are all short action calibers, but it is an expensive experiment. As an example, my R1 .338 and .300 win mag magazines are interchangeable both ways.

Ok, so the .300 win mag old blued barrel off of my wood stocked R1 fit on my new comfortech R1 receiver no problem. I might use the .300 for a while for longer range shooting.

Nice to see that Benelli re-released the R1 in .308. I never understood why they discontinued it several years ago, when it is such a popular caliber. Glad that Benelli is keeping this product line on life support.

I finally got a chance to shoot my new R1 in .338 win mag with black ComforTech stock. The Good: In general, the rifle shoots well and I like it enough to hunt with regularly for large game. It shot 225 grain Fusions very well, cloverleafs at 50 yards shooting at the range (no lead sled). It also shot Superformance 200's and Federal Trophy Copper 225's very well, both had similar performance and ballistics, but different than the fusions (about 1" higher and not as tight groups). Feeding and ejection were fast and slick, as expected, and it even fed with my .300 win mag magazine from my other R1. I took my time breaking in the new barrel, cleaning and cooling between shots for the first box or so. Even after 60 or so shots, my shoulder was not bruised. The Not So Good: The fit and finish is not nearly as refined as my 12 year old blued/wooden R1 with the crio barrel. The machining on the older rifle is the nicest I've seen, as well as the durability of the blued crio barrel and finish. It looks like Benelli might have reduced manufacturing costs somewhere down the line. The black coating is decent, but not great (scratched on the cement range table), and the fitment of the action and parts isn't as precise as I expected. Also, I think my expectations were too high with the recoil reduction of the ComfortTech stock. It still kicked like a .338 win mag, with maybe a little less sharpness than my other bolt action .338 WM. I also wish they had done the crio treatment on the barrel, as I noticed some accuracy degradation from it when it got hot. This doesn't happen at all on the older model I have. All in all, it shoots and functions great, which is all that really matters. It's a very good semi-auto hunting rifle for the price, and don't regret buying it at all.

Sorry this thread is such a morgue. I would think the chamber throat would have to be reamed to accept the longer bullets. Are you sure the overall lengths are in specs, and what weight bullets are your fmj's? I highly doubt benelli would fix this problem. I have the R1 in .30-06, .300 winmag, and .338, shoot heavy for caliber factory ammo, and dont have this problem. Also, it sounds like you are reloading. If its military surplus fmj's youre trying to shoot, Ive had issues with the .30 caliber R1's using crappy eastern block stuff.

Ok, the ouiga board didnt resurrect any spirits on this ghost town of a forum, so i bought myself the R1 in .338 black comfort tech. I like the caliber a lot, as it recoils less than my R1 .300 win mag (wood stock), and Im curious as to how good the comfort tech system is for recoil reduction. The first thing I am going to try is to put my original gen 1 R1 .300 and .30-06 barrels on the comfort tech platform. They are both tack drivers on the walnut stock, but .300 recoil is sharp. Very excited about this experiment. I will post pics when i get it all set up.

I have a bolt action .338 and I really like the cartridge. I am thinking of picking up an R1 in .338, but would like some more feedback than the few youtube vids out there.

I love fusion ammo. Now go kill a big hog!

Thanks for asking. We are about 80 miles south if it, but the smoke was bad for almost two weeks. I cancelled a deer hunt last weekend, because roads were closed. Lots of coughing, my wife got bronchitis, kids had to stay in for the most part. Everyone around here knows people who lost everything. Really good support locally and from the rest of the country. Some wineries and vineyards were burned, but the majority of the damage was in blue collar suburbs and rural homes. Recovery will be a long haul.

Nice. Our archery season ended in September and now fully into rifle season. I did arrow a big boar sipping chardonnay in August, but lost it on the adjacent ranch. :-( Real boars dont drink chardonnay, so I was trying to get him out of the gene pool.

Hey Thunder, hows that new R1 treating you? Did you get the ammo dialed in?

We hunt very similar, which is why I had the barrel cut down, except I hunt hogs with attitude about 3,500 miles West of you in the Sonoma wine country coastal mountains. Thick, steep, oak timber. The short barreled R1 is perfect for it. I carry a Glock 29 10mm for backup as well. The barrel cutting/muzzle brake was done by a guy named Ryan Pierce of Piercision Rifles. He's very well known in the custom muzzle loader rifle arena, but offers really well designed muzzle brakes. The brake he put on mine is a little big and ugly, but it works really well. The shorter barrel is great for quick shots in thick brush too. My R1 is old (12+ years), one of the originals before they even invented the comfortech stocks. The trigger on it is great, just the right amount of creep and overtravel, probably at around 4 lbs. It has the original crio-barrel on it, which shoots same POI even when blazing hot, and it loves soft pointed, bonded bullets.

The win mag barrel was 24", but I had it cut down and added a muzzle brake for a total length around 22". Accuracy did not change, but recoil is now more manageable. The .30-06 is the Benelli 20" carbine. Saving the copper bullets is a good idea, especially since the 180 grain copper bullets will be physically larger than the lead ones in the same weight. I even get decent accuracy out of the heavy core lokts. Also, it seems like even the hornady interbond and interlock are better than the sst, and superformance are worse than the regular hornady.