FelixD
Active member
If you are looking for a simple, gas operated, semi auto that shoots everything, is utterly reliable, and costs under $1000, take a good look at the Beretta A300. It's not fancy. Plain plastic stock and fore end. 28 inch barrel with the Beretta Mobilchoke system. It is the gun I needed 40 years ago when I was sitting in a sunken septic tank in southern Illinois try to shoot geese.
I picked up my gun about 5 years ago at Rural King when it was on sale. Since that time I have shot a minimum of 5000 shells through it without a single failure. That alone is great, but not necessarily all that unusual today. A number of guns are available today that are capable of doing it. Usually though for a lot more money.
What really struck me was the A300 didn't show signs of the action slowing down after the first couple of hundred shells. It didn't show that need to be cleaned like my 11/87s do. I had shot 3 inch field loads, 2 3/4 inch clay target shells, and a mixture of hand loads from 1 oz. to 3/4. So, I decided to keep shooting it until it slowed or stopped. It didn't. When I got to 1000 I felt guilty so I cleaned the gun. It was surprisingly without the gunk and dirt we have all come to dislike in automatics.
So, I reassembled the gun and continue to shoot it. I stopped keeping count after 4000 more shells. It's still working and hasn't been cleaned in years. I've had several people complain that what I'm doing, in not cleaning it, is kin to a mortal sin and I'll go to hell for it. I see it as original research. Over the years I've seen far too many reviews on guns where someone spent an afternoon shooting a hundred rounds through something and then declared the item great because it didn't break. This is my contribution to the literature that I hope may help someone thinking about a new gun.
I picked up my gun about 5 years ago at Rural King when it was on sale. Since that time I have shot a minimum of 5000 shells through it without a single failure. That alone is great, but not necessarily all that unusual today. A number of guns are available today that are capable of doing it. Usually though for a lot more money.
What really struck me was the A300 didn't show signs of the action slowing down after the first couple of hundred shells. It didn't show that need to be cleaned like my 11/87s do. I had shot 3 inch field loads, 2 3/4 inch clay target shells, and a mixture of hand loads from 1 oz. to 3/4. So, I decided to keep shooting it until it slowed or stopped. It didn't. When I got to 1000 I felt guilty so I cleaned the gun. It was surprisingly without the gunk and dirt we have all come to dislike in automatics.
So, I reassembled the gun and continue to shoot it. I stopped keeping count after 4000 more shells. It's still working and hasn't been cleaned in years. I've had several people complain that what I'm doing, in not cleaning it, is kin to a mortal sin and I'll go to hell for it. I see it as original research. Over the years I've seen far too many reviews on guns where someone spent an afternoon shooting a hundred rounds through something and then declared the item great because it didn't break. This is my contribution to the literature that I hope may help someone thinking about a new gun.
