Beretta S 58s. Traps - from Emmanuel Tabasso e Fabio DeRubeis. - Starting from the 70s / 80s, Beretta has peremptorily launched itself in the field of platform shotguns where it has rightly seen an alternative and integration to classic hunting shotguns. The increasingly marked constraints for Diana's followers have prompted many to attend the shooting ranges where a shrewd policy of dislocation, preparation, reception even for those who are not shooters, of various competitive specialties soon reaped the deserved fruits of lots of sowing. Today the percentage of hunters / shooters has significantly increased thanks also to the so-called Hunting Path, and many equip themselves with a specific rifle to highlight their skills obtaining the best results.
Let's take a step back and arrive at about ten years after the end of II GM: la Beretta it spans the hunting market by imposing its over-and-under products derived from the Mod. S. 55, 56 and 57, differentiated from each other by more or less elegant fittings with engravings on the receiver, and by higher-class woods. The typology of the two over-and-under barrels is in full development, in direct competition with the first national semiautomatics manufactured by Breda and Franchi: who pays for it is the classic shotgun, the partridge and hare hunter's shotgun, which is about to an undeserved obsolescence that will last several decades. We arrive at our S. 58: the desire to submit to customers a specific shotgun makes the Gardone company make the qualitative leap. Nothing transcendental, then it would have been unthinkable, but a fine work on the existing technical base, so appreciated for its unshakable robustness.
The technique
The system features a U-section receiver with thick sides and a particular profile of the internal curve connecting the back from which derives the proverbial strength of this decisive point; the two shaped pushers for arming the batteries slide in special seats on the bottom. Behind the hinge the grains of the half-pins are screwed while the upper line, again referring to the sides, presents an angle of about 45 ° borrowed from the studies of the first S.3 on which it had already proved very successful: we will observe its function related to the joints. The upper line of the sides continues after the recess subtended by the inclination of the profile and from here the curvature of the head starts with the insertion of the key, already of the integral pin type with the elongated and convex body and the elegantly rounded and knurled button .
The barrel joining system is based on the Beretta Monobloc, an idea of the company that, departing from the canons of classic harquebusery with the demibloc in the front row, had favored cost containment and a full-scale guarantee with this discovery, not new in itself, but innovative in the execution granted by the most recent machinery and by the Castolin welding, with a temperature well below that of brass brazing: the result was the maintenance of the molecular structure of the steel even in the delicate points of intervention such as breeches of the barrels, and the indefinite duration thanks to the elasticity of that silver alloy that does not harden even with the vibrations of the shot. The monobloc is therefore an integral piece in which the housing holes for the barrels and the details for seals and closures are made, consisting of the studs for mounting on the half-pins. The two center lines of the shelves are made up of the front and rear prismatic block interspersed with the recess in which the relief of the side of the receiver is positioned: thus the angle of the side profile is repeated, creating two inclined planes placed in contrast. An axial hole is made in the rear blocks, housing two conical struts for automatic play resumption, moved by the opening key and protruding from the side of the action. The forward thrust of the barrels is therefore contrasted by the half-pins and trunnions together with the inclined planes of the action and monobloc, while the rotation is inhibited by the struts: it is known that the geometry of the system is almost self-stable and therefore the two struts are an excellent guarantee essentially working little. The link between the breech of the barrels and the face is missing, but we repeat that the measures involved, and we are talking about thicknesses, steels and geometric arrangement of the forces, do not make us feel the lack of this structure: that U recalled at the beginning of these lines it does its job really well without any bending whatsoever.
The stock barrels were made from the well-known Antinit steel of the Austrian Böhler, but in this example we can observe the Excelsior proposed by the company as a more prestigious option. The weight, the drilling and the chokes are characteristic functions of the design of those years with the values respectively of 1.440 g, section in the shaft of 18,3 and 18,4 for the first and second barrel, with chokes of *** and * while the 12/70 gauge chambers do not change. A mention of the chokes with the three stars of the first barrel, useful for the charges of the time (36 and then 32 g of shot) with felt wad; the plastic containers and the subsequent decrease in charge to 28 and then 24 g will flatten the function of the bottlenecks towards the values of ** / * currently prevailing. It would be interesting to detect the connection cones with slopes and lengths, but we do not have the appropriate equipment: certainly the experimental test in the field allows, for those who are good, masterly breakages even at distances from the last resort. At the time, a length of 74 cm was already opted for when some money order manufacturers favored the wishes of shooters with 81 and even 86 cm. A point in favor is given by the authoritative mastery of today's 24 and 28 g cartridges, used respectively in the first and second barrel: a reverent thought and appreciation also to the manufacturers of cartridges who really work miracles to overcome the ballistic incongruity of firing. 24 g in a 12 gauge. There is also the 10 mm rib, shaded and placed on ventilated bridges: originally it bore the classic spherical brass front sight, kept safe and replaced by a prismatic one in red plastic: the owner's eye claimed this concession to modernity. FOLLOWS