John W
One gun that I regret buying....
Wednesday, August 11, 2021, 14:43

A couple of years ago I got bit by the waterfowl bug. A group of friends convinced me to get a Benelli Super Black Eagle 3 for some duck and goose hunting.

So I bought one and thought I had the ultimate autoloading shotgun. This gun is supposed to be better than sliced bread.

I took it out and did some shooting but it did not seem to shoot as well as it should have. What I mean specifically is that the gun seemed to shoot awfully high.

Anyways. Prior to all of this pandemic nonsense we headed to Carthage NY along the Black River Valley for some goose hunting from coffin blinds.

If you have never hunted from such a blind it should be classified as a form of torture if you have back issues.

This was a two day goose hunt and needless to say I got one goose. It wasn't for the lack of trying but it seemed that I could not hit the damned birds. In addition I did have a jamb in the blind.

On the bolt release button if you hit it while the gun is in battery it more or less seizes up the action. I accidentally hit that button and when I shot the gun went off but did not cycle.

Again I kept on missing birds on top of that. So when I got back home I did some shooting at club raised pheasants. Again I kept missing some really easy shots. I decided to switch to Dad's Browning Sweet 16 lightweight. Well. Every shot taken resulted in a downed pheasant. Hmm. Something isn't quite right!

I did some patterning and even shot a slug out of the gun with the IC choke tube.

Hmm. Not good. The gun shoots a good 18 inches high and slightly to the left.

After some research I discovered that this is a big problem with Benelli's . They have tendency to shoot very high. So their answer is that you need to shoot below the bird.

Sounds like a cop out.

I became aware of another fact. This problem is large enough that at least one custom gunsmith works on this problem. He will do his best to get the gun to shoot on point.

Needless to say I would never buy another Benelli shotgun nor would I recommend one to another person.

So I am wondering if Gunbroker is the best route for me right now?