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Benelli Super Black Eagle

About the Benelli

Benelli brothers, owners of the Benelli motorcycle company, embarked on a new journey when they formed Benelli Armi S.p.A. company in 1967. The brothers were passionate hunters as well as fine engineers and with the help of Bruno Civolani, they developed an extraordinary hunting shotgun that used a simple inertia driven mechanism in place of a conventional gas-operated system. This mechanism turned out to be a revolutionary design, as it permitted the user to fire 5 rounds in less than a second, making it the fastest reloading action the world had ever seen. The company was acquired by the Beretta company in 1983. In 2002 they entered the rifle market which demanded the highest levels of mechanical precision and reliability. By the year 2007, 40 years after the company founding, they have already sold more than 2 million shotguns.

Benelli Super Black Eagle Shotgun Review

The 1st generation Benelli Super Black Eagle (often abbreviated to SBE) shotgun was designed and produced in the late 1980s and made available around the year 1990. It was advertised mainly as a waterfowl gun - one meant to be used for hunting ducks and geese, but it turned out that the gun was also appropriate for smaller game, such as squirrels, doves and pheasants. 2nd generation Super Black Eagle followed in 2004, with the 3rd generation being presented in early 2017 and launched soon after.

Current, 3rd generation of Super Black Eagle is available in 61, 66 and 71 cm (24, 26, 28 in) barrel lengths and with both, standard shotgun and pistol grip. It is chambered for 12 and 20 gauge.

Benelli Super Black Eagle

Figure 1: Source: https://www.benelliusa.com/shotguns/super-black-eagle-3-shotguns

Benelli Super Black Eagle

Figure 2: Source: https://www.proxibid.com/Firearms-Military-Artifacts/Firearms/BENELLI-SUPER-BLACK-EAGLE-12GA-SEMI-AUTO-SHOTGUN/lotInformation/46395488

Neither of the 3 generations of Super Black Eagle comes with pre-drilled mounting holes on the receiver. A gunsmith has to drill and tap the holes onto the receiver to mount an optical device on these shotguns. The most popular optical devices on these shotguns are red dot sights.

Our recommendation for mounts

We would recommend the users to first install Picatinny rail and then equip that rail with a mount of choice.

Help us build our riflescope mounts database

If you happen to own this or any other rifle, we would appreciate it if you could help us expand our database by sending us some photos of the rifle receiver (the bare mounting surface of the rifle without the mounts installed). For your help, our company offers a fair return in terms of practical rewards

Please send us an email for more information. You can contact us here: info@optics-trade.eu

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VIDEO

Introduction

In recent years we can observe that a trend of Picatinny rail has become widespread and global. It is driven by the NATO standardized rails, more commonly known as the Picatinny rail standard. Picatinny rail being the New Jersey Arsenal that developed it in 1995.

These mounting options are revolutionary. The biggest and best advantage being that the Picatinny rail can be used its entire length and not bordered to a few pre-designed slots like for example the Weaver rail standard was before.

The other main advantage is the ease of use and interchangeability. If a product is meant for a Picatinny rail design it will fit all Picatinny-rails, no matter the manufacturer or date of production.

Picatinny/Weaver Rail

Picatinny Rail and Weaver rail profile

Design

The Picatinny rail is almost exclusively crafted from a single piece of metal (in some cases aluminum). In this manner, the axis of the Picatinny rail is perfectly straight and aligned with the axis of the firearm. Therefore the rifle scope which is mounted onto this kind of configuration is certainly aligned with the rifle / gun and the trajectory of the ammunition.

Weaver rail design on the other hand is usually manufactured in two separate pieces, greatly increasing the possibilities for the axis to be crooked, overlapping, and out of line.

It is always harder to align two separate pieces to a third line than it is to align one piece to another. In this way, the lapping of two mounting rings on a single-piece Picatinny rail is no longer required.

The single-piece rail will assure that both rings are perfectly aligned to each other and that no unwished stress is transferred to the riflescope.  

Picatinny compare to Weaver Rail

The Picatinny rail itself is an evolutionary step forward from the older Weaver rail. The main difference between Picatinny rail and Weaver rail is the spacing of the slots. Picatinny rail design has them evenly placed exactly 5.23 mm from one slot to the other, 3 mm deep. For this reason, the mounting options are repeatable and the same as other firearms using the Picatinny rail standard.

Interchangeability was a major driving force in the development of the new standard as different NATO armies need to be compatible with each other.

Weaver rail has 3.8mm wide slots and these slots can be placed anywhere on the Weaver rail and in any number that the producer wished.

Advantages of Picatinny design

A big advantage for using the Picatinny rail design is the ever-present recoil stop. Furthermore, the manufacturing of the rail is not very technically demanding and can be done without the use of state-of-the-art machines which greatly reduces the cost of the finished product, making it very affordable.

The Picatinny rail is easy to mount and usually, this type of configuration does not transfer negative stresses and forces from the fired weapon to the rifle scope.

In addition, the Picatinny rail with its very long useable surface works well for mounting longer rifle scopes or to achieve optimum eye relief.

The durability and toughness are other big pluses for this solution.

Manufacturers of Popular Models

A majority of the Picatinny rings are fixed, but a number of best rated European manufacturers (EAW, MAK,..) have, in recent years, put a lot of effort into the development of detachable ring with100% repeatability, with which it becomes easy to remove the scope from the weapon without the use of tools.

No re-zeroing is needed with such mount options, but these models tend to be expensive

Weaver and Picatinny Rings

Picatinny rail and weaver rail share one more thing. It is possible to use the Weaver ring and the Picatinny ring on the Picatinny-rails, but it is usually impossible to use the Picatinny ring on the Weaver base. The reason being the above-mentioned positioning and spacing of the slots.

  • Picatinny mounts have a 5mm recoil stop that goes into the rail slot and since
  • Weaver rail only has 3.8mm wide slots such rings do not fit on Weaver rails.

Due to this reason, the Picatinny-rails are popular and prevailing on the market in recent years and eventually, these options will completely oust the Weaver rail from the market.