I finally got my M3 - been a long time waiting - and lo and behold, I *believe* it came with a problem. (NIB with a manufacture date seeming to be 2015.)
See pic, but the carrier seems to be bent? Or for some other reason off center. I have trouble loading it - I have to manually the push carrier to the side a bit and down for the last centimeter or so, so that it clears magazine entry point and a shell can be pushed into magazine.
I disassembled it and cleaned and lubed it (didn't take trigger assembly apart), and it fired fine, mostly. I have a few mis-feeds initially, where a shell got jammed behind carrier. But after a second time apart, cleaning, and relubing, no more of those mis-feeds, and in semiauto mode, it handled the 1300 ft/sec 1 1/8 loads mostly fine. (One or two partial feeds out of 50 rounds, which could well have been due to "pulling my shoulder", it was getting sore.)
A few questions:
I'm pretty sure now it is NOT supposed to be off center in this way. (Call me a bone-head, but this is my first semi-auto.) Right?
I am hesitant to send it in to Benelli - I've written to them about a separate issue (finding a picatinny rail for the *factory* drilled/tapped receiver), and haven't heard a word, after more than a month. I've heard they are good folk, but way over-worked and under-staffed - espcially now.
Can I just replace the carrier or will there be more that needs doing?
It seems carriers are very inter-changeable - will an M1 or M2 or M3 carrier work? E.g., TTI seems to offer the same carrier for M1, M2, M3, and M1014.
Should I go to a gunsmith locally?
Thanks for any thoughts.