Guns Illustrated 2011. Dan Shideler
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Pete Dickey of the American Rifleman’s technical staff maintains that the Bronco ultimately failed because of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the transfer paperwork it mandated. Before GCA 1968, you could walk into a hardware store with cash in hand and walk out with a Bronco. After GCA 1968, you had to fill out forms to own a Bronco, and that hardly seemed worth the effort for a gun that retailed for under $20 for most of its life.
In my admittedly limited experience, the Bronco’s chief fault, aside from its hideous sights, is that its pivoting barrel extension and locating pin inevitably gather their fair share of slop, resulting in a loose barrel-to-receiver fit. This doesn’t help accuracy any, but my Bronco will still put fi ve shots into three inches at 40 yards despite the fact that its bore looks like the colon of a goat that’s been eating steel wool.
My friend Richard Clauss has what may well be the Rolls-Royce of customized Broncos. Richard filled the skeletonized buttstock of his .410 Bronco with hinged walnut inserts that conceal, as so many of Richard’s buttstocks do, a reservoir of shells. The pistol grip is decked out with checkered walnut panels. Richard also installed a beautiful walnut forend that conceals an integral laser sight. It would be a horrible offense against aesthetic principles to call any Bronco beautiful, but there’s no doubt that Richard’s is an attractive little shotgun. The idea of adding wood to the Bronco also occurred to the Rau Arms Corporation of El Dorado, Kansas, who refined the Bronco concept to what is certainly its highest evolutionary factory form: the Wildcat Model 500. (The Wildcat will be the subject of the next of these mercifully brief columns.)
So far I haven’t noticed anyone offering to trade their Model 70 collection for a Garcia Bronco. I suspect that to most serious gun fanciers, a Bronco isn’t worth the calories it would burn to throw one in the river. But there’s apparently a handful of die-hard enthusiasts out there who are willing to pay $200 to $300 for a Bronco in pristine condition. The combo gun is a real collector’s prize and may command a 25 to 50 percent premium.
The Bronco’s receiver, cocking handle and barrel assembly. Ain’t it purty?
As Garcia put it, the Bronco was “a work gun. A survival gun. A camp gun. It’s for the man who cares more about how his gun works than how it looks.” Admittedly, the Bronco looked horrible in its day. But to modern collectors, they look pretty good!
SHOTGUNS BY JOHN HAVILAND
Ithaca’s Mike Farrell his holding his company’s Phoenix 12-gauge over-and-under that is in production after a year and some of final development.
Except for hunting pronghorn antelope at long-range, a shotgun in various forms of dress works fine for every type of hunting in North America. With one receiver a hunter can clamp on a rifled barrel to shoot slugs and hunt big game from deer and elk to bears and hogs. That barrel can be switched out for a smoothbore barrel that accepts various screw-in choke tubes to hunt feathered game from waterfowl and turkeys to grouse and quail and stay tuned up on clay targets all year. Many of us, though, are not quite so utilitarian and like a separate shotgun for each shooting game. Let’s see what the shotgun companies have for both practical and particular shotgunners this year.
BENELLI
Last year Benelli built up the suspense to the unveiling of their Vinci shotgun with advertisements of fashion models running through the street, carrying an oblong parcel containing the shotgun and looking with concern over their shoulders like international secret agents were on their trail. Once Benelli opened the box in early spring I got my hands on a Vinci and I’ve been shooting it ever since.
The Vinci comes from the box in three pieces: barrel/receiver, trigger group/forearm and buttstock. The barrel/receiver mates with the trigger group/forearm and a turn of the forearm cap locks them together. The front of the buttstock locks into the rear of the trigger group/forearm and a clockwise partial turn of the buttstock fastens them. Once the gun is together its profile does have a rather bulbous belly forward of the trigger guard.
The Vinci action uses the In-Line Inertia Driven operating system. Its two-lug bolt is similar to other Benelli autoloaders. However, the bolt’s rearward spring and guide rod compress against a plate inside the receiver, instead of extending into the stock like the Inertia Driven system in other autoloading Benellis. The In-Line Inertia Driven system cycles very reliably and the Vinci fired several hundred 1- and 1-1/8-oz. target loads without a single blip, leaving just a slight amount of grime inside of the action after all that shooting.
Browning Cynergy Mossy Oak Breakup.
The Vinci’s ComforTech Plus recoil reduction system is gentle on the shoulder and cheek when shooting that many target loads and hunting loads. The smooth insert on the comb allows the cheek to slide during recoil. Vertical rows of gel inserts in the buttstock allow the buttstock to fl ex and absorb recoil and a soft recoil pad caps it off. Several days in the duck swamps I shot the Vinci with Winchester Xtended Range Hi-Density waterfowl loads with 1-1/4 and 1-3/8 oz. of shot. The recoil was much less than with my old Benelli Super 90.
Gail Haviland struts her stuff with a Beretta Tx4 Storm autoloader 12-gauge.
The Vinci weighs six lbs. 14 oz. with a 28-inch barrel. That’s fairly light for a three-inch 12-gauge, so I carried it into the mountains for blue grouse and along the creek bottoms for ruffed grouse. I shot handloaded 1-1/8 oz. of 7½s for the grouse and if I do say so myself, I shot rather well with the gun.
This year the turkey version of the Vinci is available. It has a SteadyGrip vertical grip stock and 24-inch barrel, camouflaged muzzle to toe.
On the light and handy side, Benelli’s Legacy autoloader is chambered in 28 gauge. The gun weighs fi ve pounds with either a 24- or 26-inch barrel with a carbon fiber ventilated rib. Benelli states it is the lightest autoloader in the world. Its walnut stock and forearm are covered with WeatherCoat finish to protect the wood from the rain and snow. An acid-etched bird hunting scene covers the lower receiver and an Aircell recoil pad soaks up what little recoil the 28 gauge generates.
BERETTA
Shotgun companies continue to develop mechanical methods to reduce the brutal recoil of 12-gauge 3½-inch magnum shells. My solution is to simply not shoot shells the size of a Roman candle.
Beretta’s autoloading A400 Xplor is for bird hunters who want a portable 3-inch 12-gauge shotgun, but with the option, if the silly notion ever overtakes them, to shoot 3-1/2-inch shells. The Xplor weighs 6.6 pounds, slightly less than Beretta’s AL 391 3-inch 12-gauge. To reduce recoil, the Xplor uses the Kick-Off system that incorporates two hydraulic dampers in front of the recoil pad and a third inside the stock bolt to check the slam of the bolt against the rear of the receiver. In addition to lessening the sharp stab of recoil, that third damper reduces wear on the internal parts.
Often a 3-1/2-inch gun has a difficult time cycling target loads. An elastic band on the gas piston in the Xplor, though, prevents propellant gases from escaping from the gas valve so all the gas operates the action. The elastic band also scrubs gas residue