An Extraordinary Week With Beretta Traveling Through Half a Millennia, Part 2
In this second installment of our three-part series, Michael Sabbeth gives us an “X-ray in words” of Beretta’s SV 10 fine shotguns (while capturing that Beretta magic).
The Industrial Heir: The SV10 Perennia
Jarno Antonelli, a brilliant man with a mind like a Google search engine, works in Beretta’s marketing department. He has assisted me with translations during my several visits to Beretta. He is clever, witty and has a preternatural poetic flair. Jarno, his effervescent fiancé, Gabriela, and I were dining at La Casa di Elvi, Via Dante, 106, Sarezzo, about 20 minutes drive from the Beretta facilities, sipping a local Franciacorta white wine. Elvira Antonelli (no relation) is the chef and owner. Elvira had been the private chef for the Beretta family for fifteen years.
Somewhere between the appetizer of smoked salmon surrounded by grapefruit, lettuce, potatoes, in a butter sauce and the main course of huge shrimp, squid, white fish and calamari and fresh anchovies, Jarno began to educate me on the SV 10. “The more you understand the SO10, the more you can appreciate the theory and quality of the SV 10,” he said. Much about the Perennia is revolutionary.
The Beretta SV 10 Perennia
I will highlight the key features of this remarkable firearm whose lineage springs from the elegant and high performance SO10. A redesigned safety offers a better grip and ergonomics, while a new locking system provides a more constant lock between the stock and receiver. It has deeper, and in my opinion, more elegant breech shoulders. One of its innovations is the first ever application of Kick-Off technology in a wooden stock.
The receiver, while maintaining the traditional Beretta locking system with trapezoidal shoulders and double longitudinal locking lugs, is characterized by arrowhead-shaped sideplates that stand out from the sides. The locking shoulders of the monobloc and their corresponding seats on the receiver feature new, larger shapes that are not only better integrated into the design of the sideplates, but also improve the efficiency of the lock-up. The styling refinements continue into the shape of the stock inletting, which now moves well forward into the sides of the receiver, consolidating the rigidity of the assembly.
The new profile of the barrels also unifies form and function: The tubes elegantly blend with the receiver and ensure excellent strength and durability. The top moldings integrate gracefully with the style of the receiver, while guaranteeing an improved field of view when sighting.
Machined from a solid steel alloy billet, hardened and tempered, the Perennia’s over-and-under receiver provides a low and elegant profile that allows the redirection of the recoil in-line to the shooter’s shoulder. This reduces the felt recoil and eases shouldering. The high-strength alloy receiver is treated with an exclusive, nickel based, protective finish that increases its durability and resistance to corrosion.
The hinge pins, the parts that tend to wear the most quickly, are well proportioned yet characterized by a significant size. Thanks to a new special internal reinforcement shoulder, offer the maximum resistance to the stress of years of use. Positioned as close as possible to the lower barrel axis, the pins allow the compactness, elegance and strength of the receiver.
The gun features a new fore-end iron. The fore-end, streamlined and elegant, features new ergonomic shapes that guarantee its optimal grip. The new fore-end iron boasts a new patented internal mechanism that maintains a constant barrel-receiver-iron fit.
This system further contributes to improve the strength of the locking system and the service life of the gun. Perhaps the most extraordinary feature is the Beretta Q Stock, which is a patented quick takedown stock.
The new profile Q-Stock features an exclusive attachment system to the receiver, patented by Beretta, which allows its disassembly in just a few seconds – for replacement, special work or access to the trigger mechanism – without having to remove the recoil pad.
This new Q-Stock design no longer requires the traditional internal through-bolt since it attaches directly to the receiver, increasing the solidity of the receiver-stock assembly. The result is a lock-up that is constant over time, also contributing to extending the life of the shotgun. The disassembly operation is executed using the included special key, inserting it through the grip cap which features an elegant and functional hinged coverplate.
The gun features a removable trigger group. Once the stock is removed, even the trigger group may be quickly removed in order to have access to all of its components for cleaning or maintenance. The disassembly may be performed with the same tool used to detach the stock.
Enhancing accuracy, consistency and durability, the Perennia offers a new barrel profile. Manufactured from the highest strength alloys using the exclusive process of cold hammer forging, which guarantees the perfect concentricity of the tubes, the barrels of the new Beretta Perennia are extremely strong yet, at the same time, extremely light. Designed to be able to withstand the rigors of steel shot, they feature a new internal Optima-Bore HP (High Performance) profile with a longer forcing cone which improves patterning and contributes to reduce felt recoil.
The Beretta SV10 Perennia
The bore and chamber are completely chrome-lined to guarantee maximum resistance to corrosion and wear, and to increase the velocity of the shot. The new profile of the barrels joins form and function: The tubes blend harmoniously with the monobloc, mating the streamlined profile of the receiver and, at the same time, ensuring excellent durability and strength. The external surfaces of the barrels are finished in a resistant polished bluing.
The remarkable Perennia boasts a new extraction system that has been described as ‘environmentally friendly.’ In the new Perennia over-and-under, Beretta introduces a new patented extraction system that allows the selection between automatic ejection or simple mechanical extraction of the fired shells. The selector is easily accessed by simply removing the fore-end.
Lastly, I mention the new Beretta Optimachoke® HP (high performance) choke tubes. The new flush tubes feature an internal profile to reduce friction and improving the density and distribution of the pattern. Manufactured from high-strength steel and finished in a nickel-alloy coating, the chokes guarantee significant corrosion resistance and ability to withstand the rigors of steel shot. One can reasonably conclude that the SV10 Perennia’s new patented technology truly redefines the over/under category.
(To read the first installment of in this series, please visit An Extraordinary Week With Beretta Traveling Through Half a Millennia)
Michael Sabbeth is a lawyer in Denver, Colorado whose practice emphasizes estate planning. He lectures nationally to bar associations on the ethics of rhetoric as a legal competence and a litigation skill. He also presents to private companies and civic groups on the use of rhetoric as a management skill. As a freelance writer he has been published in many of the finest shooting and hunting magazines, including Double Gun Journal, Shooting Sportsman, Safari Magazine and Sporting Classics. He is pleased to have written many of the most comprehensive articles on the Beretta family and its fine firearms.
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Michael Sabbeth is a lawyer in Denver, Colorado. He lectures on ethics and rhetoric to law associations and civic and business groups. He is the author of the The Good, The Bad & The Difference: How to Talk with Children About Values. Please visit his website at www.kidsethicsbook.com.
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