Beretta A400 Xcel

I like Beretta semi-automatics. I own a number myself, and I’ve used just about every one they ever made. I am always amazed at how tough they are. Once again, all objectivity thrown to the wind! Benelli, Browning and Winchester, and Remington all make great semi-autos too, not to mention Fabarm, and the cut price Turkish guns now coming into Britain in increasing quantity, but the gun I use for clays and pigeon shooting is still my trusty old Beretta 303 with a ported 32” barrel (rare as hen’s teeth). The 303 was superseded by the excellent 390, then came the 391 and now we have the 400 series guns which are rather different, not least because they have a rotating bolt head (taken from the Xtrema Magnum model).

The Xcel

The test gun is a 28” barrelled Xcel sporter found on the shelves of the West London Gun Room (and my thanks as ever to my buddy Martin Chapman there). First impressions of the gun are, well… it is a very blue! I think it looks pretty snazzy with the brightly coloured anodized receiver, though. The technical specification is impressive too. An awful lot of thought goes into any new Beretta. The 400 was a very big project – the design of a whole new chassis, not just an evolution as the 390 and 391 essentially were.

Any gun company takes a big risk, moreover, when they launch a new model, the re-tooling costs are colossal let alone the R&D budget for a model like this. In their launch literature, Beretta noted that the 400 had taken three years of development of development, 8,000 hours of actual engineering, and 2,000 hours of testing (during which more than 100,000 cartridges were put through it). “The A400 Xplor Unico represents the Beretta revolution in semi-automatic shotguns and a major advance in technology, innovation and design.”

Does it? We’ll see. It certainly looks good. The action as discussed is most attractive and the general styling is pleasing – modern without being over the top.

Hi-tech Stock

Stock shapes were good too, with nicely finished wood and neat laser chequering. The new slim forend shape gets a thumb’s up from me too. I even liked the polymer trigger guard/plate because of its streamlined shape. There might have been a little more chequering on the pistol grip which, most intriguingly, has the capability to accept an electronic ‘Gun Pod’ in its extended cap which will tell you the outside temperature, the number of shots fired and the power of the cartridge on a scale rather similar to that on a mobile phone.

The stock proportions and dimensions pass muster as well. The stock came up for me well with drop measurements of 1 3/8 and 2 1/8” (but these might be easily changed with the usual Beretta shim system supplied with the gun). The svelte forend felt especially good.

Action

The gun has a self-cleaning piston which stays in the gas collar when you remove the barrel (you cannot assemble the gun unless it is in place too). As for the rest of the mechanism, a short steel cocking sleeve runs on the outside of the magazine tube and twin cocking bars (like an Xtrema) are welded to it. The mag tube, again like an Xtrema, has a protective plastic shroud. There is no hinged ‘rat’s tail’ connected to the rear of the bolt. The working parts are brought forward and back into battery by a large coil spring between the rear of the cocking-sleeve and the receiver.

The trigger unit has been reconsidered too and has, to my eye, elements of both the 391 and the Xtrema. The hinged carrier at the base of the action that you push down to load cartridges into the mag, is no longer plated steel, but stainless steel which is an improvement. There is a cut-off on the left hand side of the action which will hold the breech block back so you don’t have to fiddle with a catch at the rear of the carrier on the underside as you must with a 303 or 390.

Steelium Barrel

The 400’s barrel is made from Beretta’s new steel alloy ‘Steelium’ for which they claim great properties. If it is any better than the existing chrome moly they employ then it must be very good indeed. I can’t destroy the barrel of my 303 – though I have done my best over the years. The new barrel is made with a new profile too by a new process combining cold hammer forging and deep drilling. It is bored at 18.6 and is built on the Optima plan – wider bore, longer cone, and improved, thin wall extended chokes.

The barrels are made in a production line with no less than 9 hammering machines. They are also vacuum stress relieved which Beretta refer to as “Hyper Vacuum Technology” and claim makes the barrels even harder wearing. The 10mm sighting rib has a white bead at the front and was fine; there is also a white mid bead (which is not really needed on a sporter - I usually remove them).

Shooting Impressions

I liked this gun, but the truth is for all the design effort and gizmo potential, I still like the simpler 300 series guns just as much. This is a beautifully and carefully designed shotgun nevertheless with some very interesting features. One I have not yet mentioned is the ability to add weights to the forend to alter balance. The gun comes with a blue standard forend ‘nut’ which weighs 40 grams. You can add two more: a black one weighing 110 grams and a silver one of 180 grams. If you really want more frontal weight, I might also add that as well as a 30” barrel option there is a 32” 400 Sporter now as well. I had no problems at all with the handling with the standard weight fitted.

The big advantage of the A400 is the very wide of cartridges it will digest without adjustment – everything from light 24 gram loads to heavy payload 3” magnums. It is a most attractive gun. It shoots well and if I bought one it would be with a plain stock as tested.

My thanks to Paul Lewry of GMK, Martin Chapman of the West London Gun Room and Lyalvale Express for supplying the cartridges used in this test.

Brief History of Modern Beretta Semi-autos

The 390 replaced the 303 as noted. The 390 introduced a new gas compensation mechanism involving a spring and washer on the front end of the gas collar, but it was more complicated to disassemble than the simple 303. The 391, was conceptually similar to the 390, but its pressure relief mechanism was permanently mounted on the gas collar (unlike the 390) and did not need to be taken apart every time one removed the barrel and forend. The balance on the 391 was significantly different too, with a, new, lighter barrel.

The 391 Optima was a further refinement with a back-bored (18.6mm) barrel equipped with long, extended, thin-wall, Optima chokes just (as seen in many Beretta double guns). A larger bore diameter appears to reduce felt recoil and improves patterns. Long chokes are also beneficial. Many believe that they improve pattern quality too, they are certainly much easier to change in extended form, and hence more practical, than any concealed type that are flush with the muzzle and require a key to change.

The 400 was a new design project and was first launched a couple of years back. As well as adding a rotating bolt head, the A400 offered a new feeding system, faster cycling, Optima barrels made from ‘Steelium’ and, in several models special recoil reduction features involving hydraulic dampeners and balance variation capability in the Xcel models based on a variety of forend nuts of different weights. 390, 391 and 400 all have what is in effect a spring loaded safety valve to blow off excessive gas pressure and allow for the use of a wider range of cartridges.

PRICE: £1,555 as tested (or £1,645 for the Kick Off recoil reducing version)