The Benelli MP3S is a very rare pistol in .32 S&W, and a nearly unheard of one in 9mm Parabellum. Well, thanks to viewer Todd we have one of those 9mm examples to take to the range today – thanks, Todd! I figured it would be interesting to try it side by side with my standard Benelli B76 and see what benefit I could get from the extra bullseye features of the MP3S…
Aircraft MGs
M1915 Villar Perosa Video
The Villar Perosa is one of the first small machine guns developed and used by a military force. It was designed in Italy and introduced in 1915 as an aircraft weapon, to be used in […]
Light MGs
Vintage Saturday: Italians in the Snow
Italian soldiers on the Russian Front, with a Breda M30 machine gun and a Carcano carbine. Thanks to Max Popenker for the photo!
Semiauto pistol
Bernardelli P018S: A Hipster’s Service Pistol
Bernardelli is (was) an Italian firearms manufacturer in the Val Tromp dating back to the 1600s…but whom few people have ever heard of. They produced 1889 Bodeo revolvers between the World Wars, and after World […]
I wonder if the extra weight of the target pistol didn’t agree with a two handed hold? Something to do with the inertial locking system? As soon as he switched to a one hand hold, it was reliable.
Had it been an Inertia failure, he would have had a failure to eject, but the ejection was very strong and consistent. Probably, due to the right-handed grips, he inadvertently hit the slide-stop lever during the recoil, infact the gun didn’t fail to feed (like in the round hitting the ramp and being stuck there), but simply held open.
Good thinking! I wonder how sensitive the slide stop is?
Just a thought, but since the guns use an inertia action don’t they need the entire pistol to recoil a certain amount? That would explain why why the MP3S, with it longer barrel and extra weight, preferred 1 handed shooting? I wonder if gorilla gripping the M76 and really trying to fight the recoil would effect its reliability.
That would be very interesting. There aren’t many pistols of this type to compare it to. Maybe the opposite of limp wristing?
That was the speculation I read on another discussion of this pistol: that this action requires the whole gun to be free to move a bit. I can imagine an experiment of locking it in a vice (to reduce to near zero the amount of travel) and seeing if that causes 100% failure to cycle.
Ian- Any thoughts on this?
Had it been an Inertia failure, he would have had a failure to eject, but the ejection was very strong and consistent. Probably, due to the right-handed grips, he inadvertently hit the slide-stop lever during the recoil, infact the gun didn’t fail to feed (like in the round hitting the ramp and being stuck there), but simply held open.
I believe you are correct, my apologies for thinking failure to feed.
Even when malfunctioning the slide locked open on an empty magazine, which to me suggests a failure to feed rather than a failure of any inertial unlocking which presumably would be more along the lines of short stroking.
Seemingly, two hand hold prevents muzzle rise slightly for the whole pistol mass but the slide stop lever’s through weakened slide stop spring as resulting to catch the slide at its rearmost travel. Streghtening the slide stop spring will stop the malfunction. There it seems no relation with the operating system of the pistol.
Target pistols can be extremely finicky about how they are held, plus what ammo they are fed and occasionally will perform badly for no discernable reason at all. This generally does NOT apply to 1911 style pistols, especially custom ones, but is one reason .38 special autoloading wadcutter guns like the S&W model 52 are notorious for unusual malfunctions including doubling and full magazine dumps aka full auto for five rounds.