REVIEWS
HOT Gun
Benelli's long-anticipated Vinci is now officially "out of the box." And the initial results are impressive.
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The first time I shot dove in Argentina was nearly 10 years ago. We were using 20-gauge Benelli Montefeltros and M1s. In the days before the company introduced ComforTech stocks, the cumulative pounding from a 20 was significant. I was flat-out sore at the end of each and every day. To use anything larger would have been unthinkable. So when I was invited back by Benelli last March and told I was going to use a 12-gauge this time, I thought it was a cruel joke.
It wasn’t.
Upon arriving at Pica Zuro Lodge, about a 90-minute drive north of Cordoba, assorted editors and gunwriters were finally shown what Benelli’s rather intriguing “what’s in the box” teaser ad campaign for the as-yet-unveiled Vinci had been intimating since the January SHOT Show in Orlando, Florida—not a cosmetically tarted-up M1, Montefeltro or Super Black Eagle, but a brand-new platform. One that designers Marco Vignaroli and Maurizio Boccarossa had been laboring on for the past three years in a cloak of secrecy that would put the CIA to shame.
When Marco first popped open the Vinci’s sculpted case and withdrew the three modular pieces that make up the gun—barrel/receiver, trigger group/forearm and buttstock—it was a bit of a shock.
It would be an oversimplification to say that the Vinci incorporates everything Benelli has learned about inertia-driven autoloaders. Engineers have significantly tweaked—and simplified—existing features. The Vinci operates on what the company calls an “In-Line Inertia Driven” action, which has been shortened and has fewer moving parts. The entire operating system is contained in the receiver. The barrel/receiver assembly is a simple tube (the modified Inertia -Driven action is indeed “in-line”). Assembled, the Vinci bears a resemblance to the company’s R1 rifle—not pretty in the conventional sense of what a lot of guys would expect in a shotgun, but everything about it has a reason. You just have to shoot the hell out of it to appreciate it.
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