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1937 Beretta SxS update.


Velocette
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An update . There are couple of mechanical issues to deal with, re-hinging as its a couple of "thou" off the face and tightening up the bites a fraction but today it's a small repair to the stock under the trigger guard where one of the wood screws has stripped its thread. Straightforward but satisfying. I enlarged the hole a little, made a dowel the right size and about 1" longer than required, scored a groove along each side to let air out and glued it overnight with Titebond. The exposed bit of dowel I used as a sight, together with a couple of pieces of tape to make sure that I drilled at the right angle to get the screw sitting neatly in the metalwork. Trimmed the excess dowel away and drilled a new hole. Stained the new wood to match its surroundings, waxed the screw and that was that. I have left a touch of timing to tighten up on the screw to allow for any settling in future. More to come as it happens.

Beretta Stock repair 1.JPG

Beretta Stock repair 2.JPG

Beretta stock repair 3.JPG

Beretta stock repair 4.JPG

Edited by Velocette
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59 minutes ago, Velocette said:

An update . There are couple of mechanical issues to deal with, re-hinging as its a couple of "thou" off the face and tightening up the bites a fraction but today it's a small repair to the stock under the trigger guard where one of the wood screws has stripped its thread. Straightforward but satisfying. I enlarged the hole a little, made a dowel the right size and about 1" longer than required, scored a groove along each side to let air out and glued it overnight with Titebond. The exposed bit of dowel I used as a sight, together with a couple of pieces of tape to make sure that I drilled at the right angle to get the screw sitting neatly in the metalwork. Trimmed the excess dowel away and drilled a new hole. Stained the new wood to match its surroundings, waxed the screw and that was that. I have left a touch of timing to tighten up on the screw to allow for any settling in future. More to come as it happens.

Beretta Stock repair 1.JPG

Beretta Stock repair 2.JPG

Beretta stock repair 3.JPG

Beretta stock repair 4.JPG

Love it very neat.This is going to be an interesting thread I think.

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cheqering dosnt look too bad ..plenty of meat left ...should come up real good when re-cut............looking at the wood to metal fit...looks good ...and pleanty of meat on the wood to tidy it up.............good project

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  • 4 weeks later...

A little progress with the Beretta, stripping, inspecting and reassembling the action. Everything seemed in good order apart from some wear marks on the sear pivot pin which was easy to re-make and fit. The images show the separate pivot pin for each tumbler and what looks like a possibly replaceable firing pin end on it. Once I had made a new mainspring compressing tool ( from a section of Yew log which I rescued from a bonfire years ago ! ) it all came apart, and went back together, easily. The top lever spring was a small, button topped coil spring (blue arrow) and the bolt was secured to the top lever shaft it by a shaped screw in pin. It was very easy to remove the bolt without disturbing the top lever components. Whilst I was in there, I tapped out the hinge pin after removing the small retaining screw on the front of the knuckle. There was some signs of wear there as expected and the next job is to make and fit a larger one to re fit the gun back on face. Last of all will be to tighten the bites, probably by re making the bolt as I cannot find a laser welder nearby prepared to do the work. I just need to get the choked opened out and all will be finished. I have decided to leave most of the discolouration ( Patina !) on the metalwork and the knocks and dents on the woodwork as , to me , these reflect its history and passage through its 85 years.

A final note, does anyone know the function of the grooves on the standing breech pictured below. Some think its to do with preventing pierced primer blowback into the action but I'm not convinced.

Another question. When I was re fitting the sear springs I noticed, obviously, that as they were tightened the (trigger) pressure required to lift the sear was increased. Could this be a method of adjusting trigger pressure ?

Beretta action 1.JPG

Beretta action 2+.JPG

Beretta action 3+.JPG

Beretta action 2++.JPG

Beretta action 4+.JPG

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2 minutes ago, enfieldspares said:

They are gas vents, yes, you'll even see them on some best London guns. Not per se for pierced primers but for gas leak around ill fitting or loose primers IMHO. A pierced primer will leak direct into the action through the flash hole.

Yes, that’s more like it.

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27 minutes ago, London Best said:

Having said that, it occurs to me that I have never experienced or seen a pierced primer in over sixty years shooting.

I had a batch of Eley Impax around 40 years ago from which I had a lot of pierced primers.  I thought it must be the gun, so I took the gun (a Powell) and some cartridges to William Powell (Peter Powell then) and he found gun fine, problem with batch of cartridges.  Complained to Eley who replaced cartridges and paid for gun to be cleaned (by Powell) as it had quite a bit of sooty contamination.

My Beretta S57 has similar gas vents to those shown and AyA have them, but done from the disc set striker retaining screw, not the breech face.

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1 minute ago, JohnfromUK said:

I had a batch of Eley Impax around 40 years ago from which I had a lot of pierced primers.  I thought it must be the gun, so I took the gun (a Powell) and some cartridges to William Powell (Peter Powell then) and he found gun fine, problem with batch of cartridges.  Complained to Eley who replaced cartridges and paid for gun to be cleaned (by Powell) as it had quite a bit of sooty contamination.

My Beretta S57 has similar gas vents to those shown and AyA have them, but done from the disc set striker retaining screw, not the breech face.

I used thousands of Impax over many years but never had any issues. I must have missed the batch you had. 
I know at least one, if not more of my guns have gas vents, but offhand I cannot recall which one(s).

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Just now, London Best said:

I used thousands of Impax over many years but never had any issues.

Yes, I've used a lot - and had no other troubles than that time and Eley (when contacted by Peter Powell) seemed to accept that they had a batch problem.  It must have been late 1970s I think.

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  • 1 month later...

Another update. All the action work is now done and its as tight as a drum. The triggers were on the light side (barely 2lb pull on the RH barrel) and they are now both around 4lb which is similar to the Baikal 54 that I use regularly. I may have mentioned that the chokes are both nearly full on each side and thought that they would probably need opening out somewhat,,,,how wrong I was !!  I was out early this morning after crows on a new drilling and the gun was a revelation. Eley Select 30g No.6 at anything between 30 and 50yrds was absolutely mustard and came away with 13 for 20. Nearly all were shot after the first approach to the decoys when they circle higher up. Tight chokes are the future, if they pattern as well as these do !

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