[CODB]

I had a buddy tell me that they banned importing benellis a long while back because of problems with them blowing up. I have not seen or heard anything else of this but figure it might ruffle some of you benelli fans feathers.

 

[tripleb]

Somebody ought to tell Benelli about that, as they are still moving the SBEII out of the gun stores about as fast as they can get them in.

 

[CODB]

They have obviously been allowed to import them again but I think there was a stretch of 20 years when they were outlawed. Going to start research on it now. Will let you know what I find.

 

[tripleb]

There was a time when Heckler and Koch imported them, then, if I remember correctly, H & K ceased being the importer. It may have been this short period of time between H & K's involvement and their being brought in by the next importer (which may have been Benelli itself). Perhaps this is what your buddy is thinking about.

 

[greybeard]

Please post up what you find out because I shoot one that was imported by H&K and have never had a problem with it. I've even got the E.Shaw fully rifled slug barrel to match.

 

[Darryl]

Yup...my montefeltro was imported by HK i believe.

 

[CODB]

Ok. I found out what the story was. My buddies grandpa is now deceased but he told my buddy that about 50 years ago there were too many problems with their gun blowing up and falling apart. I'm not sure if this was when Benelli changed who they were importing through. My buddy also said that Benelli would have probly gone out of business if it weren't for their side companies doing well. That is the reason not much was heard of about Benelli until about 10 years ago. At least this is my reasoning. I may be mistaken any other opinions are encouraged because I am curious about all of this.

 

[tripleb]

I also remember when the SBE's first came on the market here they had some problems with the chokes blowing out of the barrels with steel shot loads. After a couple of years they changed their choke thread pattern from a V shaped thread to the square thread that is still in use.