Posted: May 22nd 2010, 12:48 PM
Well, I finally had a chance to take my Beretta "Buck Rogers" Neos to the range today. Also took along my son's Browning Buck Mark. Put the two head to head. I put 300 rounds through each gun. 100 each of
CCI Mini Mags, Federal Match and Remington cheapo plinkers. Here's the results. And keep in mind, this was the first time the Beretta has ever been fired. This was its break in.
Failure to feed Browning = 6 (see below) Beretta = 0
Failure to fire Browning = 1 Beretta = 0
Failure to eject Browning = 4 Beretta = 0
Accuracy Browning = B Beretta = A
Browning Buck Mark
I know more than a few people who rave about the Browning. But if the pistol I used today is a sample, they still have a ways to go. And it didn't seem to matter which ammo I used. It malfunctioned on all of them. The numbers aren't terrible. But it failed more often than I like to see. And it was really fond of stubbing rounds, and bending them (see pic). An alarming trait which reminded me of the Sig Mosquito. I noted that this tended to happen on the last round of each magazine. Again, ammo didn't matter. It did it with all of them. Accuracy was good. It made a lot of 2 inch groupings at 7 yards. It seemed to do best with CCI's. Let's just say I expected better out of a Browning, especially given that the gun cost $110 more than the Beretta.
Beretta Neos
I recently heard someone say "Is anyone ever going to perfect the .22 auto pistol?" Well, Beretta may just well be there. I shot it as is, straight out of the box. In 300 rounds...zero malfunctions of any kind. Zero. It took in every single round and spit them down range without fail, regardless of ammo type. And it repeatedly made patterns under an inch. One magazine of the Federal match ammo produced one big ragged hole about the size of a quarter. And again, this was with no allowance for break in. It did that from the first round. This gun has sleek styling, 100% reliability and outstanding accuracy. And I really like the fact that the gun takes down quickly, with no tools. This is a big plus in my book. For $250, how can you go wrong? This gun definitely gets RevolverGuy's best buy award.
I did encounter one very minor problem with the Beretta though. Toward the end, when it was getting good and dirty, the disconnector had trouble reconnecting when the trigger was released. I took the gun down for cleaning afterward and checked the disconnector. I found that when it was clean, the disconnector had just barely enough travel to re-enage the sear. Add a little grime and grit, and it couldn't get a grip on it. I simply filed a bit off the disconnector hook to give it a little play. Problem solved. A very minor black mark on an otherwise outstanding gun.
