Beretta Blog

With the rapidly growing interest in shotguns for home defense, tactical use, and 3-Gun competition, buckshot loads are back in the spotlight and in demand! Until these trends took over, interest in buckshot was waning. Few states still allow bucks (actually deer of either sex, for that matter) to be taken with buckshot. Even in those that do, rifled slugs and slugs fired from rifled shotgun barrels, muzzleloaders, and rifles – even handguns – provide more practical and efficient tools to cleanly harvest deer under modern hunting conditions.

Without pictures, it didn’t happen. Unless you bring back a t-shirt, you didn’t go. And without skill and progress measurement, you can’t improve.

One way to exercise your skills and measure your progress is to practice with a structured course of fire. A good routine will “walk you through” a variety of skills like strong hand only, support hand only, two-handed shooting, draws from a holster, and magazine changes. While the shooting community has developed hundreds of such practice scenarios, you don’t have to look any farther than your local law enforcement agency to find one. While every agency differs in the details, most have a structured qualification course of fire that every officer has to complete on a regular basis.

I think those Simon and Garfunkel guys were onto something with The Sound of Silence. Even though shooting suppressed handguns isn’t anything like it’s portrayed in the movies, it’s a whole new experience that offers not only a whole lot less noise but more enjoyable shooting characteristics.

The thing about historical guns is that they tend to be present during history’s most significant events. As a result, they often come attached to stories, sometimes fantastic ones. As the world’s oldest firearms company (and the world’s oldest ongoing corporate concern of any kind), our products have many stories to tell about events that shaped the world as we know it.

I know, I know…boredom at the firing range? Perhaps boredom is the wrong word; perhaps not. But if you shoot enough, you want to go beyond just hanging a target and blasting holes in it. Sure, we all have to do that sometimes. There are basic gun handling skills that need to be developed and cultivated, and the best way to do that is through repetition. Repetition can be boring, but it doesn’t have to be.

My partner and I responded to a domestic disturbance in one of the local neighborhood.  We pulled up next to the suburban, middle-class home and approached the door not knowing what the situation was.  The door opened, and we were met by a young woman of about 35 and what appeared to be her son of about 15.  She frantically waved for us to come in and was  repeatedly said, “Hurry, he’s going to kill her…he’s going to kill her!” She led us to a closed bedroom door through which we could hear muffled, angry voices and rustling from some commotion.  As she opened the door, I’ll never forget the scene…

At this point, you might be thinking, “He's using the words precise AND shotgun in the same sentence? Is this guy nuts?”

Well, that depends. I’m talking about whether a shotgun can be “precise” or not. We won’t discuss my sanity just yet. The potential precision of your shotgun depends on careful matching of your particular gun, choke tube (if applicable) and ammunition. And when I say careful matching, I’m not talking about specifying a brand of ammunition. I’m talking about specifying a brand, shot size, shell length, and velocity / power factor - basically all the things that uniquely define a particular box of shotgun shells.

I was very fortunate to be invited to participate in Beretta’s 1^st Tactical Summit held at the elite Academi training facility in Moyock NC. Top gun industry writers from all over the country attended to get hands on training with the full line of Beretta tactical firearms. Just getting the chance to learn about these combat guns from the team from Beretta would have been amazing in itself, but in an effort to make this a fully experiential opportunity, Beretta brought in an exceptional team of top tactical instructors from all over the country to put us, and the equipment through the paces.  The result? An over the top, in depth, hands on full immersion into the nooks and crannies of these guns, the depths of real tactical training and the core of Beretta’s mission and values.

I recently purchased a Px4 Type “C.” For those not familiar with this variant, it is essentially a “slick slide” Px4 with a double action type trigger.

Shooting the Beretta ARX100 Recently I covered a “walking” tour of the Beretta ARX100. This time, let’s take a look at how it runs when you give it some gas.