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Benelli M4 cycling. Does it get better?


ERdept

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I had a Benelli M1, but it didn't cycle light loads.

 

Sold it and used my 870.

 

Held out hope for a Benelli, but didn't buy one till the M4 came out. Like the dual gas pistons that ensured cycling.

 

But, it still cant' cycle light loads. That's the only thing the range will allow.

 

Can anything be done to make it cycle lighter loads.

 

It's fairly new with less then 400 rounds of full power buck.

 

Will it cycle light loads as it wears and is there anything to do to make it cycle a wider range of loads?

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I don't know what to tell you man ...

 

It's a stock gun, 5 round tube, stock spring, stock follower?

 

Shooting ~100 full power rounds should have taken care of any cycling problems, at least in my experience and by accounts I've heard. 400 should be plenty to break in the gun, if you have in fact shot 400 full power buck through it as you say.

 

What ammo won't it cycle? Brand and specs?

 

Have you taken your shotgun apart and checked to make sure that the gas pistons will indeed move and that there is nothing impeding them from moving?

 

Have you cleaned/lubed your gun fully yet?

 

What happens when it "doesn't cycle"? The round in the chamber goes off, and what happens? It won't eject the round? It ejects it and a new one doesn't leave the tube? The BCG doesn't go back far enough to trip the lifter and lift another round up to be chambered? What happens?

 

I need more details to try and determine what is wrong with your gun.

 

As far as doing stuff to make it cycle better ... it's basically just shooting and lubing. If it won't cycle light loads after doing that, then something is wrong with the gun and it needs to be corrected.

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quick question - anyone fired federal le 127 00 with the M4? - was thinking about buying some, then saw this post and figured i'd better ask first bec i think that load is technically light reoil...

 

lol, you mean this stuff?

 

http://le.atk.com/general/federalproducts/shotshell/tacticalbuckshot.aspx

 

I don't know why you think it's light recoiling ... the LE127 is the full power, 1325 FPS 9 pellet buck.

 

It also happens to be my favorite round, and in my opinion, probably the best buckshot available. I need to find someone LE to buy it for me, since they no longer sell it to civilians, it's stupid.

 

So yes, it will cycle it just fine ... I've shot 100 rounds or so of it thus far and I can assure it is a full power, 100% cycling round :)

Edited by Duggan
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Aside from shooting a few more high power rounds, the only thing you may try is to remove the stock, then the nut at the end of the recoil tube. The one that is inside the tube. Remove it carefully and remove the recoil spring. It is not necessary to remove the recoil tube! I ran a bronze brush on the end of a drill and polished out the tube. That seemed to have helped reduce the breakin time. If nothing else, I made certain that I removed the heavier oil/grease that the M4 came from the factory with before I lubed it myself. The recoil spring can be changed out to a "lighter" one that handle the lighter loads. Go to the Wolff GunSprings website. If you're shooting at an inside range, that may be the trick. If you were in a situation where you were alternating loads (outside), I would probably just run a few more rounds through it and stick with the heavier spring.

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Maybe ERdept should buy a Monty in 12 guage. They will eat low power loads faster than you can feed them, especially the Wally World promo packages (Remington or Winchester). The M4 series and SBII series were all designed to fire heavy loads. In the case of SBII's, 3+1/2 stove pipes. I'm always a little confused when folks buy these hard firing shotguns and stoke'm with little lamb shells. Most fellars I know wouldn't dream about buying a little Toyota Tercel and exspect it to go 200 MPH ??

The Monty's thrive on light loads all the way up to 3" magnums. But then again, why would someone by a Monty to fire 3" shells all day when you have the M4's and SBII'S for that?

As for ERdept's M1, which model exactly was that bad boy? I have the H+K Benelli M1 S90 in defense configuration, and it loves the light loads included some 2+1/2" English loads I got my hands on a few years ago. And yes, when I fire a 3" out of my baby, it DOES let me know. But hey, what 3" load doesn't? :D

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The light loads are the low wall # 7 shot that the range requires.

 

As far as the assumption that a person buys a "hard shooting" gun and wants to fire light loads, that person is well, in nice terms very assumptive. But my first reaction is what an idiot.

 

I have full power buck that I fire. No problem as stated in my post.

 

I HAVE to shoot light loads at the range.

 

More details on the manners is that it fires a few rounds, about three, but at times more and at times less.

 

When the problem occurs, the fired round will not eject. It short cycles the action/bolt. Then I must re-cycle the bolt to eject the fired round to get a fresh one in and continue shooting.

 

Again, my question is, is there any way to make it cycle lighter loads.

 

The most helpful post so far has been to clean out the recoil spring tube and grease and polish it out.

 

I need more options though. My closest range that allows full power loads is 40 miles away.

 

The close range is 2 miles away, so you see the incentive.

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I have been shooting these three loads, all bought at Walmart for about $20/case.

 

Remington 2-3/4, 1oz, 6shot

Federal 2-3/4, 1-1/8oz, 7shot

Winchester 2-3/4, 1-1/8oz, 7-1/2shot

 

All cycle near flawless in my 11707. I have been shooting these for the past 3 years, literally thousands of rounds. I say near flawless because I have noticed if I get lazy and hold the gun loosely it will sometimes (very rarely) fail to eject. Not all 2-3/4 rounds are the same, but it is worth noting that 7 of these will fit in the extended mag tube.

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I have a semi-auto, M107 Long Range Sniper Rifle in .50 BMG and it doesn't cycle light rounds. I've been shooting .50 AE rounds (from my Desert Eagle handgun) in it, but it just doesn't cycle these light rounds.

Can anything thing be done to make my M107 cycle light loads?

The range I use is close buy and only allows the .50 AE rounds. I would have to travel 650 miles to shoot the .50 BMG rounds my M107 was designed for.

I need more options and I don't take criticism well... :p:p

My apologies for ruffling ERdept's feathers. Shoot a few hundred more high power rounds through your M4 and give the insides a healthy spray of Rem Oil before you start shooting the low wall range appoved ammunition. Many times the #7 rounds ranges use are reloads with questionable and non-reliable pressures.

Of course, I do have 44 years of watching folks buy hard shooting shotguns and then complain about why they won't handle light loads, accompanied by the usual swearing and jestering. It does get old after a while but hey, maybe you can only own one shotgun. Oops, their I go again making assumptions on why people do that. I'm a wicked, old mean woman.

So, how do I get my .50 BMG M107 to fire .50AE rounds?

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ER,

 

Like previously mentioned, I have shot light loads (typical 6,7,7 1/2 remington birdshot) and originally, I had the FTE, usually a stove pipe. After about a hundered rounds, it worked itself out.

 

I sort of agree with what some other folks have said in regards to something "not being right" about the guns operation, but there are a lot more intelligent folks on this forum in that area.

 

I do know they make a "Low Recoil" barrel for the M4. It has 4 gas ports instead of two. (literally, four little holes in the barrel near the pistons) I have seen them on gun broker etc..., but like everything else benelli, it costs a fortune.

 

If you have a lot of dough, this would be the route to go. If you only want to shoot light loads, I am sure someone would swap the barrel for yours at no cost. (I think people find the Low recoil barrel less desirable since if you shoot full loads, you can break stuff on the gun)

 

Good luck with it.

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I do know they make a "Low Recoil" barrel for the M4. It has 4 gas ports instead of two. (literally, four little holes in the barrel near the pistons) I have seen them on gun broker etc..., but like everything else benelli, it costs a fortune.

 

If you have a lot of dough, this would be the route to go. If you only want to shoot light loads, I am sure someone would swap the barrel for yours at no cost. (I think people find the Low recoil barrel less desirable since if you shoot full loads, you can break stuff on the gun)

 

Don't be fooled, the "low recoil barrel" is merely the old barrel design. M4s originally came with 4 gas ports, then the newer models switched to 2 ports because of some issues that they were having.

 

I think the people selling the "low recoil" barrels are people stuck with old stock that are trying to liquidate it.

 

So in essence, you would be trading your new updated m4 barrel for an older, outdated barrel. Not really an intelligent thing to do.

 

:\

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Duggan,

 

I am always willing to learn something.

 

The barrels were labeled "low recoil" stamped. I will not argue that they may have been old barrels, but do they cycle low recoil rounds?

 

And did benelli change the design becuase heavy recoil ammo would break parts of the bolt head/carrier?

 

Let me know what you know.

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I don't know why Benelli changed their barrel profile.

 

I beleive they changed from 4 to 2 gas ports to INCREASE cycling reliability. Again, this was before my time and I don't know specifics, this is only second hand. Call Benelli customer service and demand answers ... they will probably bend over backwards to help you.

 

As far as cycling low recoil rounds ... in my experience all m4s will do that. I don't know why yours won't.

 

My m4 has been shot 11,000 rounds now, and I'd say probably half of those have been #7-#9 bullsh#t light loads for training and target shooting.

 

My m4 eats light loads for breakfast ... it will also cycle almost all "low recoil" rounds, I think I've only found one low recoil brand that wouldn't reliably cycle in the gun, and of course all the stuff that says "WILL NOT CYCLE IN AUTOS" probably won't cycle in autos. :)

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Duggan,

 

I called Benelli, and I am happy to report that we are both right!

 

Yes, the original Benelli M4 came with 4 ports. This design worked well, but the 4 port barrel allowed the pistons to beat up the bolt carrier to the point that it began deforming the steel. (after many thousands of rounds) This caused the bolt carrier to bind up in the receiver when retracted to the rear. A high number of failure to cycle problems began to occur.

 

Benelli then went to the 2 gas ports (unclear of year, but maybe 2007?) and this reduced the issues that occured with very high use with heavy loaded ammo, but did not effect cycling reliability.

 

They still manufacture the four port barrels under the labeling of Low recoil.

 

It took a few folks at benelli to answer, but thar et is!

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Duggan,

 

I called Benelli, and I am happy to report that we are both right!

 

Yes, the original Benelli M4 came with 4 ports. This design worked well, but the 4 port barrel allowed the pistons to beat up the bolt carrier to the point that it began deforming the steel. (after many thousands of rounds) This caused the bolt carrier to bind up in the receiver when retracted to the rear. A high number of failure to cycle problems began to occur.

 

Benelli then went to the 2 gas ports (unclear of year, but maybe 2007?) and this reduced the issues that occured with very high use with heavy loaded ammo, but did not effect cycling reliability.

 

They still manufacture the four port barrels under the labeling of Low recoil.

 

It took a few folks at benelli to answer, but thar et is!

 

Hmm, interesting, I'm glad to know that actually.

 

Thank you for the clarification.

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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

ER,

 

Bignotti is on to something. But, you may be able to just get away with making sure your recoil tube is really clean and has a nice, light lube coat on it. Be careful about going with a lighter recoil spring. If you do, you may not have enough "oomph" to cycle the bolt forward again with a shell coming up on the shell carrier.

 

I had some of the problems you cite, and I just sprayed a &^(^&-pile of Gun Scrubber down the recoil tube, then used some BreakFree CLP to lube it. I store the gun with the bolt drawn back. That seems to "soften" the recoil spring just a little.

 

The other thing you might want to do is make sure your bolt carrier rails are really clean, and lightly lubed... you may even want to try some #5 or #6 metal polish very carefully on the bearing surface of the hammer, the BCG, etc., to make sure everything slides ultra-smoothly.

 

I shoot Estate target loads with 7/8 ounce #7 or #8 shot and I don't have any further problems cycling.

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  • 1 year later...

Took my new M4 out Thursday to shoot. Bought five boxes of Winchester Super Target 12GA, 2 3/4", 1200 FPS, 3 DRAM, 1 1/8 oz on sale at Cabelas long with some Remington 3" and Rifled Slugs. The Winchester ammo would not cycle consistently. Came home and started using the search feature of this site. Read many posts and decided to do a complete dis-assembly/Cleaning/Lube. Went back out yesterday withe a clean FULLY LUBED M4 and volla. No cycling issues with the Winchester rounds. Dad was happy and the kids had a great time. Thanks to everyone that posts on this site for the great info!

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If you buy a tank, you have to run diesel through it and you have to run it hard. You cannot expect a tank to tolerate regular 87 gasoline and dainty city traffic commutes.

 

If you buy a gun (M4) intended to shoot heavy loads, you should not be surprised to find that it doesn't reliably cycle birdshot. This has been the case WAYYYYY....back to the M1S90. Of course there are exceptions, but they are just that...exceptions.

 

There is no surprise that a gun designed for heavy loads struggles to cycle English Gentleman Quail loads.

 

If, as you say, you have to drive 40 miles to a range to run full-on loads, get a different Benelli model or buy a pump.

Edited by m4p226n
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I'll add one more thought to this...if your gun DOES shoot the light load stuff, you might have a slightly weaker spring from the factory that may subject your gun to more battering when you shoot the kinds of loads the M4 was intended to shoot. Just sayin.

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