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Practically Shooting

Beretta ARX-100 to be Introduced at NRA Show


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The page is mostly blank now, but will fill in after the official announcement I'm sure:

http://www.berettausa.com/arx100/

MSRP is supposed to be just under $2k and supposedly Beretta has been politely threatening distributors and stocking dealers to not gouge. Good plan. if you have the only non-gouge rifle, people will look. Actually it sounds like Beretta has quite the orchestrated scheme going here, claiming they have rifles "in the system" ready to go from show to sell in no time. Time will tell if that actually happens.

EDIT: The page is live now.

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P. S.

Is it just me, or hasn't the number of big announcements dropped off at SHOt but increased at the NRA show in event years?

The obvious hit me.

Introduce a new product at SHOT, and a few insiders report back to people like us. Introduce a new product at the NRA show, and it's in the magazine 3-4 million members receive, gets talked about on their radio show, gets on their Gun Of The Week website, and might get on one of their TV shows.

So yeah, that way of big things appearing at SHOT for the industry insiders in January, then us regular people getting a look at the NRA show in May after reading about them for the previous four months appears to be sliding toward being a thing of the past.

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Looks nice. Kind of reminds me of my CX4 Storm, but pumped up on steroids a bit.

Beretta has some nice features, and their tool-less take down systems are nice. My Storm is easily convertible from left to right hand (I'm a right'ie), but the clarity of thought and easy of service on my Storm are impressive. Seems like that concept played into this new rifle.

Multi-caliber is very easy on the ARX100.

However, the price puts me off. I just got a RRA-LAR for less than $1k brank new. Not going to pay 2x that for something that shoots the same thing with the same efficiency and accuracy. But then again, my Storm wasn't cheap either.

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  • 1 year later...

I shot one today.  More on that careful choice of words later.  

A buddy bought one recently and showed up with it when I crawled out to the range today.   I thought they felt awkward before, but this one felt fine.  I think the forend has changed.  

I was curious how they did the switch from RH to LH ejection.   It's pretty simple once you can see it all.   The extractors are self-sprung.  They are in T-slots machined into the bolt so they can slide fore and aft in the bolt.  (Not to work as extractors, but to work or not work according to RH/LH).  

They are held in normal position by a coil spring on each.  You can push them forward from behind the bolt.  Whichever position the LH/RH selector is in, it will contact one extractor when the bolt moves back.  That stops the extractor and the bolt continues on for that last 1/8-1/4 inch of travel.  That more or less disengages the extractor on that side.  With a central ejector, that lets the case pivot out in the selected direction.  

It works simply enough, but it's hard to say how it will hold up.  I would be most concerned about it being unable to eject a case until that last bit of bolt travel and how easily the travel could be fouled by a problem with either extractor.  

Anyway...

He offered to let me shoot it, and I accepted as usual.  
I locked the bolt open, planted my straight trigger finger outside and above the trigger area, pointed it downrange, seated a mag, released the bolt, and
BANG!
Hot stuff peppers my left hand, ammo and magazine parts fall to my feet, and poop was expelled by the two of us.  
Out of battery discharge (OBD).  

I am 98% sure it was his handloaded ammo.  I found several high primers in the ammo I picked up.  
We did find one loose piece of metal upon disassembly.  It looked like it could have made a fine firing pin.  I'm obviously not familiar with the internals of these, but couldn't find a place where it could have broken from.  I'm guessing it was left behind in manufacturing.  
Still, those primers were seated high.  

It is nice to know the upper receiver didn't blow apart.  I haven't witnessed it happening, but have seen one AR upper that was peeled open by an OBD.  
I wouldn't have gotten the light peppering if not for the LH ejection port and the charging handle being located right there.  

So there.  I've now fired one.  
I've yet to pull the trigger though.

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All I got was a very mild powder peppering on my left hand due to my hand being by the LH ejection port after releasing the charging handle.  

Thinking and remembering it later, I was present when an M1A had an out of battery discharge (but didn't actually see it happen) and have seen the results of a few with ARs.  All of those guns had really obvious damage.   This Beretta did not.  Granted, I'm unfamiliar with the Beretta and may not recognize when pieces are broken or missing, but nothing was obvious.  The owner is new to the rifle couldn't find anything except that small piece of mystery metal floating around.

 

I'm not saying the Beretta is stronger or safer in this regard.   I'm saying situations can differ in these events.  I think part of what helped here was that the cartridge fired WELL before being fully chambered.  The barrel design uses a barrel extension with locking lug collar similar an AR, and the blown case head was  stuck out at least 1/8" from this extension.  Enough of the case body was unsupported that it had ballooned out to fill the lug area before bursting.   That no doubt lowered the pressure a lot by delaying the big boom.  

 

And this is why we keep the muzzle not just downrange, but pointed at a backstop. 

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