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A buddy and I were e-mailing back and forth the other day and I was telling him how my wife's 20ga Beretta A400 Xplore would work with anything she's put through it except Winchester Super Target loads and the discussion led to my telling him how I decided to test the limits of my 20ga Winchester Super X3. Rather than re-type all that was corresponded I'll just copy and paste the discussion for you to read. As a note of interest my wife's A400 is kept spotless and cleaned and lubed thoroughly according to the recommendations of the manual. My SX3? Well you'll see! Not so much....LOL
Me:
We took part yesterday in a 50 target 5 stations memorial sporting clays shoot. 4 of the 5 were true pairs and the other a following(report) pair. The high score was a 39. I took second with a 38. Deb shot 22...we used our 20 gauge semi's. Ammunition was provided with the entry cost of $40 and they handed out Cabelas Herters for the 20ga and Challenger for the 12ga. The Herters is made by Winchester. Pretty sure it is the Winchester Super Target rebranded Jon. Debs 20ga Beretta won't cycle winchester super target for some reason but will cycle any other 7/8oz target loads with the same published velocity w/o any issues?? So I brought a few boxes of Remington Gun Club and Kent Elite Target for her and we just kept the Herters to run through my SX3 on the skeet field at our home club tonight.
Jon:
Frank what model is her Beretta 20 ga? I read something on that and will try to find it…
Me:
She has an A400 Xplore. Its funny when we first got it it would not cycle any target loads. Then I read in the manual it needed to have up to 250 heavy hunting loads run through it to break it in then it would run target loads without issue. So I took it out and ran 15- 3" steel loads through it and it cycled target loads no problem. I had bought her 5 flats of Remington Gun Club 7/8 oz 7.5's and 8's and Remington Clay & Field 7/8oz 7.5's. She fired those 5 flats through it at trap and a couple rounds of skeet no problem. When she was out of ammo all I could find was Winchester Super Target 7/8 oz 8's at the same published velocity so I grabbed 7 flats. Her gun has never ejected the spent hulls fully for trap, maybe 1 in 15 gets thrown out of the gun, the rest stay in the chamber as they short stroke. My SX3 spits them out all day long. She could not shoot skeet with them as they don't seem to have enough "oomph"to eject the first round and bring the second up. They are definitely softer than gun clubs or kent elite. My gun has a bit of muzzle jump and a bit of felt recoil with other brands and you can hear the sound difference even from behind the trigger and see the difference in the target hits. I smash them to tiny pieces beautifully when centred but in comparison the gun clubs make a black puff and the Kents absolutely inkball the targets. They are the only shell to date of all we have tried that won't cycle her gun. It throws spent hunting load hulls further than my SX3. It spits those Kent Fasteel hulls a good 20 feet!
Jon:
When I was having trouble with S Targets ejecting from the 1100, I did everything…..changed the recoil spring, extractor, mag spring, cleaned out the exhaust ports with a drill bit (by hand), steel wooled the chamber with a drill….nothing helped until I realized the chamber was just too tight. It needs to be reamed out. I bought the barrel on the net and there is something definitely wrong with it because nothing helped. I switched back to the full choke barrel and since then have had zero problems, it works flawlessly. Now that is my gun….When I was looking for possible solutions, there were countless threads about how much trouble people were having with S Target light loads in both 12 and 20 and I thought that was my problem since that is mostly what I shoot, but mine was the barrel….I also read that in the Beretta 20’s, they were experiencing a few problems with the exhaust port and simply pushed a drill bit through hole several times and it helped, it doesn’t take much to clog them up. With the Super Targets, some experienced problems extracting because the hull is a bit thicker than some others so they ran a drill with 000 steel wool through the chamber and it helped…(I do this regularly with my 1100 and it seems to help). Try the steel wool wrapped around a brass cleaner and give it a really good reaming out with a drill. Jon,
Me:
Thanks Jon, I'll give that a try. Jon as an experiment I never once stripped or cleaned my SX3 for the two seasons I have now owned it including hunting. It got so heavily carboned up it finally started jamming one night recently shooting doubles on skeet using super targets. To date I've shot 4 flats of super target it, a flat of Rem Gun Club, 2 flats of Rem Field and Clay and a combination of no less than 10-12 flats of 3" Kent Fasteel, Winchester Expert HV and Herters Steel loads plus 2 flats of Federal 2 3/4" waterfowl loads through it before the super targets failed that night. It was so heavily carboned I had to use a rubber mallet and screw driver to pry the barrel off. It took me over an hour with solvents and 0000 steel wool to clean all the carbon from the magazine tube, barrel shroud and ports. The trigger assembly looked like it had been tarred and dunked in a powder keg and there was a handful of chaff and straw stubble including a piece about 6" long inside the receiver. The build-up of crud at the rear of the receiver was so thick you could not see the rebound spring plunger cup or neoprene bushing! I just did itsaturday nightbefore the sporting clays shoot and my god what a difference in function!!' LMAO...Frank
Jon:
Geez Frank that is one hell of a torture test….I would never think an auto would go that long without cleaning. You should post that on Trapshooters!!!
Now I would never recommend doing this by any means and anyone who knows me knows my guns are meticulously maintained and cleaned but something in my head the day I put that gun together said "lets see how long and how many rounds this gun will go without a failure before stripping it to clean it". I wiped it down after most outings but never disassembled it although I did remove the forend a few times out of curiosity to see how grungy the gas system was looking. So by my calculations I had approximately 4000 rounds through the gun, 2500-3000 of which were heavy field loads by the time of the first fte on station 2 doubles on the skeet field using Winchester Super Targets. The gun would still cycle doubles no issue with Kent and Remington target loads and only experienced one fte on the singles targets when an empty Super Target got caught between the bolt and the ejection port when the action closed on it. In conclusion all I can say is the SX3 and the Browning Silver which are the same gun in a different exterior wrap are without a doubt the most reliable functioning autoladers I have ever owned. I had 1500 wal-mart Federal target loads through my 12ga 3.5" chambered Silver before it's first fte and complete strip down cleaning and I have never had a ftf in either gun. From here on in I'll keep the gun cleaned and lubed religiously as I should have from day one but it was a good experiment while it lasted and of course it's much nicer when you can just slide the barrel off easily by hand and not have to hammer and pry it off!
I should have gotten the wife to take pics of the cleaning process. My hands were the blackest I have ever seen them from the mixture of carbon and cleaning solvent and I used and threw out two complete steel wool pads and large rags. 
Me:
We took part yesterday in a 50 target 5 stations memorial sporting clays shoot. 4 of the 5 were true pairs and the other a following(report) pair. The high score was a 39. I took second with a 38. Deb shot 22...we used our 20 gauge semi's. Ammunition was provided with the entry cost of $40 and they handed out Cabelas Herters for the 20ga and Challenger for the 12ga. The Herters is made by Winchester. Pretty sure it is the Winchester Super Target rebranded Jon. Debs 20ga Beretta won't cycle winchester super target for some reason but will cycle any other 7/8oz target loads with the same published velocity w/o any issues?? So I brought a few boxes of Remington Gun Club and Kent Elite Target for her and we just kept the Herters to run through my SX3 on the skeet field at our home club tonight.
Jon:
Frank what model is her Beretta 20 ga? I read something on that and will try to find it…
Me:
She has an A400 Xplore. Its funny when we first got it it would not cycle any target loads. Then I read in the manual it needed to have up to 250 heavy hunting loads run through it to break it in then it would run target loads without issue. So I took it out and ran 15- 3" steel loads through it and it cycled target loads no problem. I had bought her 5 flats of Remington Gun Club 7/8 oz 7.5's and 8's and Remington Clay & Field 7/8oz 7.5's. She fired those 5 flats through it at trap and a couple rounds of skeet no problem. When she was out of ammo all I could find was Winchester Super Target 7/8 oz 8's at the same published velocity so I grabbed 7 flats. Her gun has never ejected the spent hulls fully for trap, maybe 1 in 15 gets thrown out of the gun, the rest stay in the chamber as they short stroke. My SX3 spits them out all day long. She could not shoot skeet with them as they don't seem to have enough "oomph"to eject the first round and bring the second up. They are definitely softer than gun clubs or kent elite. My gun has a bit of muzzle jump and a bit of felt recoil with other brands and you can hear the sound difference even from behind the trigger and see the difference in the target hits. I smash them to tiny pieces beautifully when centred but in comparison the gun clubs make a black puff and the Kents absolutely inkball the targets. They are the only shell to date of all we have tried that won't cycle her gun. It throws spent hunting load hulls further than my SX3. It spits those Kent Fasteel hulls a good 20 feet!
Jon:
When I was having trouble with S Targets ejecting from the 1100, I did everything…..changed the recoil spring, extractor, mag spring, cleaned out the exhaust ports with a drill bit (by hand), steel wooled the chamber with a drill….nothing helped until I realized the chamber was just too tight. It needs to be reamed out. I bought the barrel on the net and there is something definitely wrong with it because nothing helped. I switched back to the full choke barrel and since then have had zero problems, it works flawlessly. Now that is my gun….When I was looking for possible solutions, there were countless threads about how much trouble people were having with S Target light loads in both 12 and 20 and I thought that was my problem since that is mostly what I shoot, but mine was the barrel….I also read that in the Beretta 20’s, they were experiencing a few problems with the exhaust port and simply pushed a drill bit through hole several times and it helped, it doesn’t take much to clog them up. With the Super Targets, some experienced problems extracting because the hull is a bit thicker than some others so they ran a drill with 000 steel wool through the chamber and it helped…(I do this regularly with my 1100 and it seems to help). Try the steel wool wrapped around a brass cleaner and give it a really good reaming out with a drill. Jon,
Me:
Thanks Jon, I'll give that a try. Jon as an experiment I never once stripped or cleaned my SX3 for the two seasons I have now owned it including hunting. It got so heavily carboned up it finally started jamming one night recently shooting doubles on skeet using super targets. To date I've shot 4 flats of super target it, a flat of Rem Gun Club, 2 flats of Rem Field and Clay and a combination of no less than 10-12 flats of 3" Kent Fasteel, Winchester Expert HV and Herters Steel loads plus 2 flats of Federal 2 3/4" waterfowl loads through it before the super targets failed that night. It was so heavily carboned I had to use a rubber mallet and screw driver to pry the barrel off. It took me over an hour with solvents and 0000 steel wool to clean all the carbon from the magazine tube, barrel shroud and ports. The trigger assembly looked like it had been tarred and dunked in a powder keg and there was a handful of chaff and straw stubble including a piece about 6" long inside the receiver. The build-up of crud at the rear of the receiver was so thick you could not see the rebound spring plunger cup or neoprene bushing! I just did itsaturday nightbefore the sporting clays shoot and my god what a difference in function!!' LMAO...Frank
Jon:
Geez Frank that is one hell of a torture test….I would never think an auto would go that long without cleaning. You should post that on Trapshooters!!!
Now I would never recommend doing this by any means and anyone who knows me knows my guns are meticulously maintained and cleaned but something in my head the day I put that gun together said "lets see how long and how many rounds this gun will go without a failure before stripping it to clean it". I wiped it down after most outings but never disassembled it although I did remove the forend a few times out of curiosity to see how grungy the gas system was looking. So by my calculations I had approximately 4000 rounds through the gun, 2500-3000 of which were heavy field loads by the time of the first fte on station 2 doubles on the skeet field using Winchester Super Targets. The gun would still cycle doubles no issue with Kent and Remington target loads and only experienced one fte on the singles targets when an empty Super Target got caught between the bolt and the ejection port when the action closed on it. In conclusion all I can say is the SX3 and the Browning Silver which are the same gun in a different exterior wrap are without a doubt the most reliable functioning autoladers I have ever owned. I had 1500 wal-mart Federal target loads through my 12ga 3.5" chambered Silver before it's first fte and complete strip down cleaning and I have never had a ftf in either gun. From here on in I'll keep the gun cleaned and lubed religiously as I should have from day one but it was a good experiment while it lasted and of course it's much nicer when you can just slide the barrel off easily by hand and not have to hammer and pry it off!
I should have gotten the wife to take pics of the cleaning process. My hands were the blackest I have ever seen them from the mixture of carbon and cleaning solvent and I used and threw out two complete steel wool pads and large rags.
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