I noticed on Trapshooters.com you were looking for feedback on the Beretta
UGB25. I just completed my 10 day wait from purchasing the UGB from Able's
on 12/22/08. I have been shooting trap for about six months now and decided
to step up to a competition grade gun. I like Beretta's and have been
shooting my Silver Pigeon IV field gun with good success. I looked an many
O/U's and decided why not go all out and buy the new UGB25 since it was
advertised as the ultimate completion gun.
Wow! I'm really disappointed. I now have 400 rounds through the gun and
can say the breach bolt fork is a bad and cheep design. The gun keeps
jamming or locking every 20 to 30 rounds. I've called Able's and they
told me to just make sure I slam the action hard to get the fork to align
properly. Well that was 250 rounds ago and it's still jamming. I went to
a local gun smith and he said, after close examination, he thinks the breach
bold fork design is poor and will give more trouble as it begins to wear or
break-in. The bottom part of the fork is designed to push the bolt back as
you press down on the lock with your thumb. The trouble is the fork is make
of cheep steel and tends to bend or bow under pressure. If you don't slam
the action closed hard the bottom part of the fork lodges on top of the bolt
lever and jams. When it jams the fork bends against the trigger housing
causing the safety to jam in the fire position. You cannot move the safety
back until you have disassembled the action to un-jam the breach fork. What
a pain.
I'm hoping Able's will give me a refund or trade for another shotgun.
Tom
Up-date 12/30
Just got off the phone with Able’s manager. They were really nice and said they could not give me a complete refund because it’s considered a used gun but could most likely get 85% cash back. I asked about a trade down to the O/U SV-10 and they said that would not be a problem. The SV-10 is about $300 less than the UGB.
They are having many similar complaints about the UGB. Jamming connected to the breach fork is high on the list followed by broken breach lever issues and trigger safety issues. Although Beretta claims to have fixed the problems Able’s will no longer stock the UGB. Too many headaches and too many potential problems as the gun wears.
For me it’s back to a simple reliable O/U that’s dual purpose trap and field. I really like the SV-10’s ability to switch between auto shell extract or manual extract. The hunting club I belong to requires everyone to police their shells to keep the field clean. Not easy to do when my Silver Pigeon IV auto extract sends empty’s flying into the tall weeds. Seems when they designed the Silver Pigeon line they were competing to see how far their auto extract system could toss empty shells.
Any Feed back on the SV-10 would be appreciated.
