Explanation of my Conversion to Stoeger Shotguns...

 

What led to my conversion:

• Beretta owns Benelli owns Stoeger
• Benelli's patent on the inertia system expires
• Everyone and their brother in Turkey starts making inertia shotguns; some really good, some really bad.
• Very few of the Benelli imitations take Benelli or Stoeger parts
• Stoeger puts Benelli's exact system into its semi-automatic offerings
• Stoger's M3000 series (3 inch shell capable) takes Benelli parts & chokes
• Benelli performance + at 1/4 to 1/3 the price

What reinforced my conversion:

• Having a Stoeger M3000 general purpose (can be used for 3 gun) 28 in barrel 12 gauge and a M3000 Freedom model with a 18.5 in barrel - shooting the former in sporting clays and the latter on the range testing rapid fire 00 Buck and slugs.
• This "Nuttin Fancy" video review of the Stoeger M3000

Of course, as always, YMMV.

• The 7 year old blog post outlining performance of a good number of shotguns during very intense courses of fire re-posted below.

Emphasis mine;  edited for clarity and/or format.

Acronyms:

FTF:  Failure to Feed

FTE:  Failure to Eject

Stoeger M3000 torture test! (with gross pics!)

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By openclassterror,
June 11, 2014

Just got back from the MGM Ironman in Parma Idaho.  My first run there, and what an event! The primary reason for me going was to run an abuse test on my gear, and it delivered in spades.  From shooting inverted prone under wooden power line spools to fine sand blowing sideways at 25 mph, the conditions are hell on gear.  Add to that courses of fire that generate multi-hundred degree barrel temps, and most guns [will] show their weaknesses.  

I shot open class, and was squadded with open, limited, and trooper class shooters. There were 4 saigas, 3 VEPRs, a Benelli M2, a Benelli M4, one Mossberg 930 and 2 JaM Pros on our squad, in addition to my Stoeger. 

Basic overview of the shotgun performance in our group, with no account[ing] taken of owner care or maintenance, only functioning during the match-

Saigas - At least one major stage meltdown for each. One would not cycle slugs at all for half the stages, ran the same ones perfectly on other stages. Another went single-shot with ALL ammo for most of a stage. Magazines seemed to be a major influence, as one ran awesome through the first mag on every stage, then always started misfeeding after the first reload.

VEPRs - 2 of the three had severe accuracy issues with slugs, though all three ran well. One would not cycle slugs at all, though it ran with all other ammo. Likely a light load issue.

Benellis - 2  FTFs on the M2, both after difficulties with speed loaders.  Likely deformed shells. M4 had no issues, other than stock collapsing on the shooter partway through a stage.

Mossy 930 - A couple FTEs, mostly ran well.

JM Pros - One had an occasional failure to load a shell onto the lifter from the magazine, about once per stage. Empty ejected, bolt closed on empty chamber.  The other ran well for two stages, then began a string of malfunctions that resulted in a complete lockup on day two. The owner then borrowed her Father's JMPro, which had about the same rate and type of failures as JMPro #1.

Stoeger - Zero failures. None. 191 Federal Walmart #7-1/2s, 73 Remington High-base #6 Pheasant loads, and 52 Federal Truball 1300 slugs.  During a stage on day one I got the barrel so hot that when I turned the gun on its side to dump it, I burnt my thumb, leaving a series of blisters nearly an inch long (see pic 1). I noticed later in the day that slug accuracy wasn't as good as before, and I couldn't flip the 85 yard slug spinner. I pulled the barrel the next morning, and saw that molten plastic from the shot wads CAKED the first 10 inches of the bore! (see pic 2. Dark spots further down the bore are barrel ports). Apparently it was getting hot enough on some stages to melt the wads as they passed down the barrel. By far the worst plastic fouling I have ever seen. I swabbed it with shooter's choice and let it soak until I was the on-deck shooter, the patched it and re-assembled. While I had it apart, I noticed that the follower felt a little gritty coming out of the mag tube, so I stuffed a paper towel through it before putting it together and put a couple drops of Rem-Oil on the action bars. I also paper toweled the barrel extension, and dripped a little oil on the bolt runways. Ran it the rest of the match in that condition. I will admit, I brought along gun socks for all my guns and kept them wrapped on my cart until I was on-deck each stage. That really helped keep the sand intrusion to a minimum. But overall, I was VERY impressed with its performance. This shotgun is now over 5,000 rounds, and not showing any undue wear to this point. I will resurrect this thread and update if and when it starts breaking down.