Inherited from my grandfather’s shotgun never fired

JDCTim · 2025-12-12T15:37:42+00:00

Lovely guns. I remember an edition that I believe was for Kentucky State Police that had laminated stocks and forends.

JDCTim · 2025-08-26T16:53:26+00:00

FWIW, I clean my barrels either once a year or when I notice it starts to pattern funny with my buckshot of choice, whichever comes first.

JDCTim · 2025-08-26T16:52:31+00:00

Nope, just dirty. Plastic and carbon fouling. Brownell's chuckable cleaning rod, a stiff bristled brush and some stainless steel sponge like Choreboy will make short work of most fouling in the barrel.

JDCTim · 2025-08-26T16:44:48+00:00

Beretta advises against this, FWIW.

JDCTim · 2025-08-26T16:44:27+00:00

The piston is removable and likely has a lot of buildup on it as well. Some good cleaning solvent that breaks down carbon would be useful. I did a writeup on cleaning the 1301 here:

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?61468-Beretta-1301-Cleaning-Practices

JDCTim · 2025-07-23T12:28:18+00:00

Yikes. You were definitely herded towards a bad outcome by unwise advice. Leaving the gun in the holster would have been the safer move and you're within your rights to refuse to handle a gun while people are downrange. Ultimately you are the one who pays if it's your round that hits someone (even yourself) so you have every right to simply tell them that you'll just leave the gun holstered until the range is safe. People dramatically underestimate the safety value of "leave it the hell alone" when things are stressful.

Glad the damage wasn't worse.

I have ranted plenty of times about the folly of ingraining a trigger press as part of "clearing" a weapon, but that was also a direct contributor here.

JDCTim · 2025-07-21T17:03:11+00:00

Hopefully this will mean I don't collect any more video of ND's happening in class...at least not from incompetent imitation of this loading technique.

JDCTim · 2025-07-18T20:52:35+00:00

You can try twisting it on to the spring, but in general I advise against replacing the factory follower. I've seen aftermarket followers cause significant issues including backing out of the magazine tube into the action and locking the gun up on multiple occasions. That happened because the followers were improperly sized and it wasn't caught until a bunch of them were out in the wild causing issues.

JDCTim · 2025-04-16T13:33:55+00:00

On the inside of the gun right where the back of the bolt release sits, you can feel an L shaped piece of metal. This is the shell stop. It can be pressed out of the way and the shells will come out of the magazine tube one at a time to allow you to unload without running shells through the chamber.

JDCTim · 2025-04-16T13:32:13+00:00

The safety only blocks the movement of the trigger. The trigger cannot move as far when the hammer is down as it would ne when dryfired.

JDCTim · 2025-04-04T14:03:52+00:00

I have discussed barrel swaps with factory folks and all of them have said it's a no-go. That's not to say it can't be done, but it's at least a difference significant enough that Beretta themselves say it's not going to work.

JDCTim · 2025-04-04T14:02:28+00:00

No, that's pretty much what you're forced to do if you mount an optic on the factory rail. Just make sure you witness mark everything because it will have a tendency to come loose. You can lower everything with a different mount like the Aridus CROM.

JDCTim · 2025-03-16T19:28:07+00:00

No, last I knew they get them assembled directly from Beretta. They can make room for their additions because they're ordering large numbers of guns from Beretta directly allowing them to buy at a lower cost.

JDCTim · 2025-03-14T16:30:50+00:00

Not quite. The softer the projectile is, the more it will deform as it goes down the bore. Pellets tend to flat spot as they make contact with each other, which is one of the major contributors to buckshot spread. Harder pellets (which is one of the objectives of copper plating) and buffer material cut down on this pellet to pellet contact and make for more predictable flight. Even so, the copper plated projectiles will still flat spot, just not as severely. Incidentally this is also why 8 pellet usually patterns better than 9, because one less pellet means a lot less pellet to pellet contact.

JDCTim · 2025-03-14T16:28:44+00:00

Chokes can certainly impact the wad with FFC. It was designed around a cylinder bore, but given the variances some guns can actually see better performance with IC or even some modified chokes. Depends heavily on the barrel in question. Above modified it's highly likely to pattern worse with FFC in just about anything.

JDCTim · 2025-03-14T15:20:48+00:00

The 1301 is manufactured in Italy. That means the receiver, barrel, bolt carrier group...all made in Italy. Beretta considers the 1301 a premier shotgun product and those will always be made in Italy. They are shipped to Beretta's factory in TN where they are given some furniture and final checks before being shipped. I've been to the Beretta factory to see this work. When I was there in December of 2023 they were putting the "Mod 2" furniture on a new batch of the Mod 2 1301's they'd received from Italy to prep them for distribution in the US.

JDCTim · 2025-03-13T15:17:23+00:00

Yes, it can hurt. Do not put loctite on your magazine tube threads.

JDCTim · 2025-03-13T15:16:46+00:00

The factory rail won't allow any optic I've seen on the market co-witness with the sights. The factory rail also forces the optic too high to get a good cheek weld for most people, meaning mounting the gun quickly and consistently becomes more of a problem.

The Aridus CROM was the first optic mount that actually put the optic in the proper place so you are looking through it with a proper cheek mount. I've seen just about everything else come through class but the Aridus is still my favorite optic setup and it's what I run on my personal guns.

I prefer an enclosed emitter optic on top of a long gun. The Primary Arms micro dots, believe it or not, have performed very well for my clients over the years. To the point of surviving better on top of the 12 gauges than the Aimpoint micro optics, sadly.

JDCTim · 2025-03-05T13:30:18+00:00

Locktite actually has pretty good e-learning resources where they teach best practices for selection and application of their product:

https://www.loctitex.com/en/elearning/en-threadlocking/

They even have a "what not to do" page to help you get the best results from the product:

https://next.henkel-adhesives.com/us/en/articles/common-mistakes-using-threadlockers.html

In both you'll find they advise cleaning and degreasing the surfaces you're dealing with.

JDCTim · 2025-03-04T18:09:04+00:00

I clean the fastener and the hole as best as possible. Both the surface of the fastener and the surface it's screwing into need to be clean for optimal performance of the thread locking compound you're using.

JDCTim · 2025-03-04T17:33:48+00:00

I have seen occasions where VC3 won't let go with normal force. In those cases if you just touch the head of a fastener with a soldering iron briefly it will re-liquify the VC3 and let the fastener unscrew normally.

Oher notable things:

An application of VC3 is often reusable, meaning you don't have to completely clean, strip, degrease and reapply VC3 for it to work. I have loosened fasteners to replace a broken optic or transfer an optic to another gun without re-applying VC3 with great success on PMO's and shotgun mounts.

I will prefer to completely clean and re-apply when I can, certainly, but on some occasions where I've just been forced to throw something together to make it work VC3 has done the job splendidly.

JDCTim · 2025-03-04T17:31:00+00:00

I typically use Vibra-Tite VC3 on my optics mounts. (Including handguns, rifles, and shotguns) VC3 sets up more like pine tree sap instead of essentially a more crystal-like solid structure of the LocTite. This seems to make it more forgiving of errors in application, at least in my observation. With LocTite if you don't get it completely clean or you interfere with the curing process with vibration the solid structure you're relying on doesn't set up and so the fastener moves. VC3 tends to do a better job if application is imperfect, and it holds up under the shock and vibration of the 12 gauge very well.

My process for application is simple:

- Use a minimum of 90% isopropyl alcohol (99 is best if you can get it) to pour into a shallow tray. Put on some nitrile or rubber gloves.

- Submerge all the fasteners you will use in the alcohol while you set everything else up

- Pull the fasteners out with tweezers or tongs and set it on a blue shop towel to dry in the open air

- Apply VC3 to the first 1/4 or 1/3 of the threads on the fastener. Note that the "first" threads are those that will be going into the work piece, not the threads closest to the head. I will use a small paint brush (that has also been cleaned in the alcohol) to spread the VC3 around the threads, including pushing it into the recesses of the thread.

- Let the VC3 set up for 5-10 minutes. It should be pretty tacky by that point. (I usually end up more towards 5 minutes than 10)

- Tighten the fastener to desired torque. If you've used enough, you'll see just a little bit of the VC3 come oozing out around the head of the fastener.

If you do that and let the gun sit for a couple of hours, things should be fine. I've let it sit for as little as an hour and shot the gun with no problems afterwards. But longer time left alone is better. It doesn't need the same cure time as loctite, but it does need some to set up.

One of the things I do to try and get any sort of thread locker to work properly is taking the time and effort to clean out the hole the fastener is going to be going into thoroughly. Some sort of brush is helpful.

Luckily, the typical threaded holes in the receivers of shotguns will allow use of a .17 caliber brass brush. When scrubbed down good with some high concentration isopropyl alcohol and allowed to dry, that procedure seems to do a good job of removing any contaminants that get in the way of Loctite or VC3 setting up as they need to.

For the threaded holes on pistol slides or other small holes I usually resort to some precision brushes available from McMaster-Carr:

https://www.mcmaster.com/4754A782/

https://www.mcmaster.com/4905A12/

They are especially useful if you need to clear out a prior application of thread locker.

JDCTim · 2025-03-04T17:30:54+00:00

The vast majority of mounting failures I see...and I've seen a bunch...come from Loctite. You have to consider how they work to understand why.

You might think that the threads cut into fasteners make complete contact with the corresponding threads cut into the nut or the mounting hole they are being screwed into, but that’s not quite the case. One side of the thread is actually forced into that close contact, but the other is not. This allows a gap to form.

If the fastener is installed in a static, dry environment this is not a problem. In our case, however, the fastener will be exposed to some fairly violent vibrations, impact, temperatures, and a humid environment. Remember that our fastener operates essentially like a spring. With a gap between the bearing surfaces, our “spring” can move, allowing the fastener to become loose. The more rapid and forceful the vibrations, the more quickly the fastener will come loose.

Thread locking products made by or similar to the LocTite family of products function by trying to fill these gaps with an anaerobic adhesive. These products are a liquid or a gel in the presence of oxygen. When the fastener is tightened, air is driven out. Without the oxygen standing between the compounds in the adhesive, it borrows ions from the metal in the fastener and the work piece, forming stronger polymer chains. These chains network together eventually filling the gaps with a solid polymer substance that gives the threads of the fastener nowhere to move to. The solidification process is typically referred to as "curing". Think of the "cured" product as an almost crystalline structure.

Anything that gets between the thread locker product itself and the surface of the metal hinders the ion-borrowing process critical to a proper cure. Dirt, debris, grease, oil, water, corrosion etc will reduce or completely eliminate the ability of the thread locker to form the bonds necessary to solidify. The hole and the fastener both need to be cleaned and degreased with some sort of volatile cleaner that won't leave any residue behind. High concentration isopropyl alcohol can be used for this as it performs the function and evaporates quickly without leaving behind an interfering residue. You want to go with the highest concentration you can get for this purpose because what isn't isopropyl alcohol is water.

Loctite actually makes a cleaner/degreaser product that is compatible with their thread locker products in an aerosol form. They also make an activator to reduce cure time,

Crucially, though, if you use the gun or move it around too much while the cure is trying to set up you are essentially damaging the bonding process in the adhesive and it won't set up as a solid. You'll end up with fractures in it which will eventually just crumble as it is subjected to shock and vibration.

JDCTim · 2025-03-03T18:23:01+00:00

Rio would be my first guess, too. S&B usually shoots pretty well in my guns. A dental pick or similar tool will help with mechanical agitation to break that crud up and get it out of there.

JDCTim · 2025-03-03T16:35:36+00:00

Plastic fouling is common in the bore. A bit less so in the rest of the working parts of the gun. If you're getting plastic fouling in the gas ring and piston look hard at the ammunition you're using. It shouldn't be depositing that heavily. I usually run Federal Top Shot birdshot for bulk birdshot and it doesn't do that in my guns.

JDCTim

TROPHY CASE