Anyone got experience with it? What little I can find on the web sound excellent. But it might all be marketing hype. A few things I like: It's a semi (yes, I'm still lazy). It's a Benelli, which (if the quality of their shotguns carries over) means that it's probably an excellent machine. You can get two barrels (for example the .30-06 and the .300 Win Mag), and have two guns for a little more than the price of one, and the training from one carries over to the other. And it looks really good. Disadvantages: Can't get it with a synthetic stock (which is ugly but practical). It might not feed reliably with really light loads (like the .30-06 125 grain, that's sort of useful for vermin like coyote, because any heavier load will make mince meat out of targets like that). Quite expensive. No idea how accurate it is. Discussion please. For a person who would own only one big rifle, and use it for everything from racoon and coyote to the occasional small deer (and mostly for practice and target shooting), might this be a nice combination machine?
ive heard good stuff about the r1 from benelli, and bad stuff and the occasional good news from the hunters, sure the semi automatic action is a good choice, but look around, if you can find a good used bolt action get it, i own a pre 64 model 70 that was given to me by my grandmother who killed many elk with it, it has the smoothest, fastest action i have ever shot, ive killed turkeys at 200 yards with it, i have a redfield widefield 2x-7x 30 mm, its a great gun, i use it for everything, it is a 270, i use it for everything, call it over kill, but ive used it for those pesky crows out at my deer feeder troph, i just sit it on the roof of the pickup and shoot from there, i have a cheap bi pod on it, it was only 15 bucks at cheaperthandirt.com, and a neoprene sling that was 20 bucks at academy, that gun is pretty heavy, it weighs 12 pounds, but ive packed it around for miles and its like its 7 pounds with that neoprene sling, but if you are still wanting an auto, go with a b.a.r. lightweight stalker, the sug. retail is 825, but youll get every pennies worth
I think the Benelli R1 is a nice looking rifle, the one I handled in the gunshop had a very nice feel to it and also had a pretty nice stock on it. The only experience I've had is what I've read in gun magazines. From what I've read, the accuracy was mediocre and not that great. I guess it was acceptable for big game but not outstanding. I prefer accurate guns and likely would not buy it myself for that reason. Maybe they just got a poor example for their test or just didn't use the right ammo, I don't know. If you are going to just get one rifle for everything as you say from small game to deer then I would research the accuracy thing a little more before commiting a purchase. For small game or varmint hunting you would want a rifle to be a little more accurate than would be required for big game.
Duncan I like a gun that weighs a little,it keeps the kick from being to bad and points better for me.Light rifle have there place but with long cartdriges I like 10-14 lbs.Drop-Shot
Also if the benelli is as expensive as I've heard I would spend that much on a sako Bolt action instead.Drop-Shot
