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First shotgun time! Beretta semi-auto: old or new?


MikeT-23
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1 hour ago, Westley said:

Before returning to the thread, can I say that I have seen far more idiots with break open guns,  than I have ever seen with a semi auto.

With regards to your choice of gun. I would second the opinion to look at a good condition used Beretta 303. I use a 303 as an occasional break from my usual Browning O/U for clay shooting and would not use any other gun than an auto for my pigeon shooting. I have recently used a very old,  and much abused (not by me) 301 auto that I paid £100 for, for spares. I really only wanted the gun for pigeon shooting to preserve the mint condition of my 303 sporter clay gun. I first of all completely stripped cleaned the gun until it was gleaming, I replaced the bolt/recoil spring in the stock tube. Suffice it to say it now works perfectly even down to 24 gram cartridges. It is far easier to clean than ANY of the later auto models, I know, I have owned most of them at some stage. It takes some 20 minutes to clean using kitchen towel and a can of GT85. The catridges that I use are particularly clean and that does help. There are no fancy valve assembly's to make cleaning a pain, just the basic bits that make the gun function as it should. You could use the change from your budget to buy a lot of cartridges to practice with too.

Off the top of my head the only thing I can remember actually properly cleaning on my 303 was the piston. Brought it cheap to use when the weather was foul and stuck all sorts of loads through it Inc steel. 

I've seen some really nice ones up for the £500 + mark, whether they actually sell or not would be another thing. 

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Hi

I have a A300 in wood, had it for a few years now used for rough shooting, suits me well. It does not like really light cartridges so sometimes struggles to recycle them.

Easy to clean and maintain and I would buy another one for my shooting type but if I was after a gun for clays I would look for something that would take light cartridges, probably a U/O or SbS to be honest and that would eradicate that problem for good.

That said I imagine it would be a good gun for waterfowling.

Good luck on your choice.

Mick

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20 hours ago, Farmboy91 said:

Off the top of my head the only thing I can remember actually properly cleaning on my 303 was the piston. Brought it cheap to use when the weather was foul and stuck all sorts of loads through it Inc steel. 

I've seen some really nice ones up for the £500 + mark, whether they actually sell or not would be another thing. 

I paid that for my 303 BUT it is absolutely mint condition, hence buying the rough one to use for pigeon shooting.

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1 hour ago, Wingman said:

Personal opinion is a semi auto is not the way to go for a first gun especially if your inexperienced. I have seen at least 3 near misses with autos that could have ended up in disaster. Just my view but get an OU

Here we go Again  !       😂

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I had an A400 that came with a 10year warranty, it wasn't worth the paper it was written on, randomly the gun wouldn't fire when the trigger was pulled, they had it back 3 timess and for months in total, said there was nothing wrong with it. Sold the thing, I have an original A303, fantastic gun, faultless, for £350 that's where the sensible money is

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29 minutes ago, Westley said:

Here we go Again  !       😂

Round and round we go!

Anyhow, another vote for the A303 series autos. They are faultless, time proven and just about bomb proof. A mate has a brand new Maxus some years ago, but he’s terribly precious about his guns being marked in any way, so sold it and bought himself a A303 for the hide. He still has it. They really are good guns, and I’m not a Beretta fan. 

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I was lucky enough to pick mine up, he'd bought it new for his wife about 20 years ago, she shot once and decided clays weren't for her, sat in the cabinet, not even a scuff in the feed blade under the action,  couldn't believe my luck, I've put about 590 through it, immaculate condition

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37 minutes ago, retromlc said:

I had an A400 that came with a 10year warranty, it wasn't worth the paper it was written on, randomly the gun wouldn't fire when the trigger was pulled, they had it back 3 timess and for months in total, said there was nothing wrong with it. Sold the thing, I have an original A303, fantastic gun, faultless, for £350 that's where the sensible money is

There is a video on You Tube showing a Beretta guy strip cleaning a 400. There are more bits and pieces to remove and disassemble just to clean the bloomin thing, no wonder it kept breaking down.  I think I might have broken down as well as the gun  !

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