Benelli M2 or SB3

[Macintosh]

Did benelli ever fix the poi issues on the SBE3? We owned a couple and every single one I have shot had a messed up POI. I believe it was due to the stock, and benelli would never own it. It is a known problem. We all sold the SBE3s and went to Franchi without any regrets.

I’m curious what you experienced on this and what you did/what they said, because I’ve heard it referenced somewhat a few times. Benelli is part of Beretta, they’ve been making shotguns since the dawn of time, about as well as anyone in the world from a functional standpoint. I havent shot a benelli but they’ve all felt normal to me and no one I know personally has had an issue. So it’s surprising for me to hear this.
My guess would have been it was an issue with people not understanding how the shim system works or how to fit the gun (instructions are zero on my beretta, assume similar in benelli) and trying to shoot a grossly unfitted stock, sighting down a ramped rib, or if it was a gun problem maybe choke tubes threaded off kilter, or shims mismarked or assembled backwards, or a combination of several issues. But interested to hear more since Ive heard it enough about benelli but not about other similar guns that it seems there must be something to it.

 

[fishdart]

I’m curious what you experienced on this and what you did/what they said, because I’ve heard it referenced somewhat a few times. Benelli is part of Beretta, they’ve been making shotguns since the dawn of time, about as well as anyone in the world from a functional standpoint. I havent shot a benelli but they’ve all felt normal to me and no one I know personally has had an issue. So it’s surprising for me to hear this.
My guess would have been it was an issue with people not understanding how the shim system works or how to fit the gun (instructions are zero on my beretta, assume similar in benelli) and trying to shoot a grossly unfitted stock, sighting down a ramped rib, or if it was a gun problem maybe choke tubes threaded off kilter, or shims mismarked or assembled backwards, or a combination of several issues. But interested to hear more regardless.

Speculating here on the user's observed impact woes, so please, I mean no offense to anyone. Benelli rib/bead /bore setup is designed so that you align the bead BELOW your target, as opposed to covering the target with the bead, so compared to American guns, you will hit high if you are not accounting for that.

 

[Macintosh]

I did find this. https://randywakeman.com/TheDesignDefectoftheBenelliSuperBlackEagle3.htm which suggests its a accidental design flaw where the recoil-reducing stock was flexing and unintentionally altering the fit compared to when it was not under recoil. Then found this https://forums.benelliusa.com/topic/26414-are-the-sbe-3-poa-issues-fixed-or-not/ which suggests it's entirely intentional.

Regardless of whether its intentional or not, or if this is the entire problem, it seems there was some misalignment of design intention and customer expectation, and probably some stacking of these issues, but makes sense. I dont want to take the thread off topic, was just curious.

 

[Macintosh]

Speculating here on the user's observed impact woes, so please, I mean no offense to anyone. Benelli rib/bead /bore setup is designed so that you align the bead BELOW your target, as opposed to covering the target with the bead, so compared to American guns, you will hit high if you are not accounting for that.

That's at least in large part a symptom of people aiming a shotgun rather than pointing it, and patterning via aiming rather than patterning based on a dynamic mount, but it's nothing new--euro guns have customarily been more tailored and had higher stocks (which = higher poi) than US guns for over 100 years. A higher stock also manifests as requiring more cast. Both of which match the issue linked which was hitting high/left. Result is generations of US shooters have been trained since birth to use guns that shoot low and because of the low stocks require less cast to acheive right/left pattern alignment. Take that learned technique and apply it to a euro stock fit, and it's going to shoot too high/left every time. I would include the learned technique of US shooters as part of the fit expectation and resulting POI in what I meant by "customer expectation" above^.