EP 512. Benelli Shotgun Features and Performance

 

It’s All Real Work

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast, where today I’m going to introduce you all to my buddy, Brett Maffet, Benelli Senior Product Management. Brett, how the heck are you?

Brett Maffet: I’m doing just fine. Happy to be here.

Ramsey Russell: Good. I’m glad to have you. I tell you what, it hadn’t been an easy road pinning down Brett Maffet to come and do this story. You travel almost as much as I do, Brett, what keeps you so busy?

Brett Maffet: Well, this brand, man, it wears you out. It’s by far the coolest job I’ve ever had, aside from being a father. But it’s not as glamorous as everybody thinks it is. There’s still a lot of work that goes into it. We had a couple major strategic projects take place over this past summer that had me tied up heavily. I mean, I wasn’t able to take a family vacation until almost Labor Day because we had to pin it all down. And that’s where I was the last 2.5 weeks, taking some time finally to –

Ramsey Russell: The same could be said just about every job, I think on the world, especially in the outdoor industry, everybody thinks it’s all just going to shooting ducks and having fun. No, it’s all real work. Job.

Brett Maffet: Listen, at the end of the day, I could not feel more fortunate to be able to do something that I love to do. I’m one of the fortunate people who’s somehow, I guess, by the sheer grace of God and good luck, been able to transition a passion and a hobby into a career. But you’re right, it does not mean it’s not worked.  I laugh all the time because I go over to the factory in Italy a couple times a year and there’s always the friends and family members that are like, oh, you just get to go gallivant around Europe. You get to have this friend all the time. Listen, the experiences are amazing and God knows the food is out of this world. But you hop on a flight Sunday night, you get into Germany, like 05:30AM Monday morning, you hop another flight down to Italy, you drive 2 hours to the factory. If you’re lucky, you get an hour napping because God knows you didn’t sleep on the plane. You have a late dinner because that’s what Europeans do on Monday night, and you’re up and at it for 9 to 10 hours of meetings, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday before you drive back to the hotel by the airport and hop a plane early Friday morning, head back home.

Ramsey Russell: And when you say late dinner, what do you call late dinner 10:00, 08:00, 09:00?

Brett Maffet: We typically will go to dinner sometime between 07:00 and 08:00, but I’d say the majority of the time, I don’t get back to my room until midnight.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Which is 05:00PM your time. And that’s what gets me, especially what you’re talking about, a 3 or 4 day work meeting overseas is you land at whatever time you get to the factory at noon, which is 05:00 your time back home. You’re eating dinner at 10:00, which is 03:00 in the afternoon back home, and 3 days later, your body don’t say, I don’t even know what time it is, I’m just running with the flow. You don’t have time to get adjusted to it?

Brett Maffet: No, it’s a mess. Listen, it’s cool, it’s fun, I love it, but I just sort of laugh at people when they bring it up. I’m like, well, I’d be happy to send you over there for one of my trips if you want, I’ll just stay home on a normal schedule.

Ramsey Russell: You’ll get a vat near home.

Brett Maffet: Yeah. The worst part about it is, I don’t drink coffee for whatever reason, I don’t like it. So I have to bring my own tea bags with me to Italy because all they do is drink espresso and coffee, nobody there drinks tea. And if I don’t, then I get little to no caffeine all week, and it makes it even worse.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, man. I don’t know how you do it. I don’t know how you do it without coffee. I know how I do it, that’s lots of coffee. And that’s one thing I love about Europe, is espresso. It’s like coffee on steroids, man. Forgets your body clock and being 7 hours ahead in time zones, I’m on coffee and nicotine, I’m running.

Brett Maffet: Those guys drink it until like 04:00 or 05:00PM. And then they go to dinner and they have a coffee before they go home to go to bed. I don’t know how they fall asleep. It’s wild to me.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, man, I tell you what, Italy’s one of them countries I have not been to, and if I go, I’m a holler at you. I’ll go gallivant around a Benelli factory a couple of days. I think I would be like a child in a candy store.

Brett Maffet: I’d be happy to set you up with that. It’s one of those factories where you can literally, like, it’s so clean you feel like you could eat off the floor. Now I still wouldn’t, but it’s absolutely pristine. It has an incredibly high level of automation, it is super cool to see. I remember the first time I went over, I spent like 2 or 3 hours wandering through the factory with one of the guys that works there, and it blew me away.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Brett, do you identify as a duck hunter?

Brett Maffet: I do. That’s why my wife and I decided to buy this house when we moved up here for this job 6 years ago. Is I back up to a tidal creek that feeds into the Potomac. So I’ve got a duck blind in my backyard, not the prettiest thing in the world, but it gets the job done.

Ramsey Russell: I mean, you literally just walk out your back door down the hill, go step in a duck blind for a few hours.

Brett Maffet: Yeah, a lot of the time, I’ll go out before work for like, an hour and a half, I’ll just pop in a kayak down at the end of the road, I’ve got a couple little spots I pull into, might shoot a duck or two, what’s the worst that happens? You enjoy the sunrise and you come back. I’m at my desk by 08:30.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, every day if you want to. Man, that’s fantastic. What kind of ducks do you mostly shoot there? Any black ducks still?

Brett Maffet: So we have them flying around here. I’m in Virginia, the Virginia winters and duck seasons have been, not great the last few years. We have periods where it’s really solid. But the majority of the ducks I get back here are sea ducks, but also there’s a lot of geese, so I do a lot of geese hunting in the evenings.

Ramsey Russell: What does your spread look like then? Do you set up like a Canada goose spread, and just kind of run traffic with them, kind of going back and forth up and down the river.

Brett Maffet: So I set up around the bend from where they like to roost. And I don’t hunt it consistently, I don’t want to disrupt anything, but I go out, I’ll take a dozen full body Canada geese decoys and I’ll throw some mallards in there for fun and a couple ripplers of some sort. We do have mallards and wood ducks and some nicer, I guess, some would consider to be nicer sea ducks do come through.

Ramsey Russell: When you say sea ducks, what are we talking here? Common scoters or -?

Brett Maffet: We did a lot of mergansers.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Brett Maffet: Hooded mergansers. So common mergansers, hooded mergansers. We get canvasbacks late season.

Ramsey Russell: Heck, yeah.

Brett Maffet: But that’s always right on the fringe of season, closing out. So I’ve never had them back there when I could shoot them. We do get blue bills pretty thick down on the Potomac, but they only come up here once in a blue moon. But I actually have you go further up the creek, it’s like the wood duck mecca, which is pretty awesome.

Ramsey Russell: Isn’t that crazy?

Brett Maffet: Oh, it’s wild. So I’ve hunted wood ducks pretty consistently as late as end of January.

Ramsey Russell: I had no idea they stayed up that long.

Brett Maffet: Well, it’s like I said, the seasons have not gotten super cold.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, that’s true.

Brett Maffet: So it’s kind of ideal for them to step around up there. Plus the tides here because it is tidal, the tides and the mud flats and the marshes are very tricky to navigate. So no one really comes up as far as my house. Now, I spend a lot of time back there on canoes, kayaks, or a little John boat, so I know it very well. But the closest blind that I have to my house is about 1200 yards down river.

Ramsey Russell: I don’t blame you for moving there is what it sounds like.

Brett Maffet: That was pretty awesome. I love it.

Ramsey Russell: And it’s close to work. Hey, tell me this, did you grow up a duck hunter? Where are you from? What’s your background?

Duck Hunting from Younger Years

So I grew up in Connecticut, in a suburb in central Connecticut, which today we would not consider to be much of a gun hunting state. But what we forget in today’s world is that the Connecticut Valley was literally mecca for the firearms industry during its industrialization period.

Brett Maffet: So I actually didn’t. Well, I’ll tell you a funny story about that in a minute. So I grew up in Connecticut, in a suburb in central Connecticut, which today we would not consider to be much of a gun hunting state. But what we forget in today’s world is that the Connecticut Valley was literally mecca for the firearms industry during its industrialization period. So, every time we drove to see my dad’s office, we would drive down the highway past the old original colt building. And I think that’s part of what I think subconsciously, something about that drove home this affinity for the firearms world in me as a youth. But also my dad was, he was raised predominantly outside. That’s what him and his brother loved to do when they were younger. So I got my first BB gun, probably aged 6 or 7, much to my mom’s chagrin, which doesn’t seem that young these days, I suppose. But she had never seen a gun until she married or started dating my dad. So it’s kind of a clashing of two worlds. My dad’s family is from Georgia, my mom’s family is from Long Island. So my dad started taking me pheasant hunting up there in Connecticut. And when I was 11, he joined this absolutely phenomenal hunting club in the eastern part of the state. They’re actually the largest private landowners still in the state of Connecticut have right around 3000 acres. And it’s pretty unbelievable. So we have 5 pheasant fields up there. Listen, the reality is they’re all Penrose birds on the east coast at this point, or the vast majority are, unfortunately. But we would go out and we would pheasant hunt every year, Thanksgiving through Christmas. And I was raised with American Britneys, which I still have one of those today. And that’s just what got me, that and fishing and wandering around the woods is what got me into the idea of hunting and wanting to somehow migrate my way into this industry. Now, it is funny, I certainly would not say I grew up waterfowl hunting, but I have this one distinctive memory. I was probably 8 or 9, and I was very lucky because my parents, their property is only about a third of an acre, but we backed up to 120 acres of undevelopable swamp land that was run off for all the neighborhoods around it. And that, for whatever reason was, by the time I came around, unused by the youth in the area. There were all these remnants of tree forts out there that had been built 10 years before I showed up and subsequently been taken down or rotted out or fallen down. But that was my domain. And I’ve got this distinct memory of setting up some poncho that I found somewhere in the house, like to lean to on the swamp one day in a rainstorm and sitting there with my little pump BB gun and trying to shoot ducks that were just swimming around. And of course, this stupid little, God, you probably should have shot yourself in the foot and not broken skin, right? It wasn’t a red rider, but it wasn’t much more powerful than that. The ducks would just sit there, and you see them kind of, like, flitter their wings a little bit as they’re shrugging off this stupid little copper BB that hit them. And then for probably 20 something years I never really tried to waterfowl hunt again until I met my wife and her grandparents had a farm in Pennsylvania, and they had a pond on it. And so they very nicely let me go down there and set up and try to hunt geese and flash forward another 6, 7 years, and this job came out of nowhere, and another 6 years and here we are.

Ramsey Russell: There you are. When you go down to your little pond, your little duck blind on Potomac, what shotgun do you shoot now?

Brett Maffet: So I typically hunt with a Benelli Super Black Eagle 3-20 gauge.

Ramsey Russell: 20 gauge? Yeah. Absolutely.

Brett Maffet: I’m a big 20 gauge fan. I don’t know why, I just liked it. I think it’s kind of the ideal combination of power with today’s ammunition and weight. It’s very mucky back there. So there are times where even saving 5lbs between the weight of a shotgun and ammo in my bag, I’m not opposed to when I accidentally miss the proper place to step and I’m all of a sudden up to my hip in a drainage channel, every little town stand trying to get out.

Ramsey Russell: I shoot a 12 gauge more than any other worldwide, throughout the course of the year, just because it’s such a universal chamber, you know what I’m saying. There’s countries I’m just not going to buy, I’m just not going to find good, reliable 20 gauge, let alone 28 gauge or something ammo, it doesn’t exist to speak of. But I love the sub boards. And I’ve started to see wherever more and more people I hunt with are shooting the 20 gauges, the 28 gauges. Boss Shotshells. I’m a huge Boss Shotshells fan. But a lot of ammo companies have developed, their technological development has evolved so much since the late 90s when steel shot hit. You can shoot what you want to anymore. And I find a lot of advantage in shooting a 20 gauge or a 28 gauge, especially, what I find myself, I like to shoot is a 28 gauge. The Super Black Eagle platform at that. But when did Benelli come up on your radar throughout your story? I mean, did you always shoot Benelli? When did you kind of become a Benelli guy?

Brett Maffet: No, I actually always shot 20 gauge over unders. That’s what my dad had.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Brett Maffet: I don’t even know what model it is, but he had a 20 gauge Beretta over under, it’s not a Silver Pigeon. I think it was some random model they made at one point he bought it off a consignment sometime in the 90s. And I just remember, I had an old, what was old Mossberg pump action 20 gauge that he bought me when I was probably 11. And I remember walking around through the brush with him and just being like, oh, man, I want one of those guns one day. I idolized the thing. And when I turned, I guess I was 20, he was down visiting me at college one day. And we were wandering through this store, which I loved. It was like middle of nowhere, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. And we were wandering through there, and what turned out to be a Franchi over under caught my eye. And so we went and looked at it, and then he ended up surprising me with it for Christmas. So that’s what I shot until – I knew what Benelli was, right? Like, everybody knows Benelli.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Brett Maffet: But until I started working for Benelli 6 years ago, that was the only shotgun that I shot. Even do something in laws farm in Pennsylvania, I was shooting 3inch heavy steel waterfowl loads out of that Franchi Veloci 20 gauge, which I was actually, once I got this job, I was able to track it through the system in terms of when it was sold as manufacturer in 2003.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Brett Maffet: Yeah. Pretty neat.

Becoming Senior Product Manager of Benelli

But yeah, I had to do the coolest thing in the world, and that is, in my opinion, help people make experiences with their friends, family, and otherwise loved ones. I have all these amazing memories of hunting with my dad and him introducing my friends to hunting when I was young. 

Ramsey Russell: That is pretty cool. What life events led you to Benelli, to becoming the Senior Product Management?

Brett Maffet: I’m not wired for a normal office job. And so, like, I was that kind of a crossroads in my life. I was trying to figure out, I got to try to find, I was unhappy where I previously was. I had stopped finding it fulfilling, and so I was kind of at a crossroads. Am I going to go do something on my own and try to figure something else out, or am I going to find another job through for somebody else? And I just happened to find a job posting with Benelli out of Maryland. I was living in North Carolina, so it was a 6 hour drive, roughly. And I’ve been trying to get into the outdoor industry for 6 years at that point. And so I just sort of threw a resume into it, and I got a call back and I looked at my wife and I was like, so how do you feel about maybe moving to Maryland? And she was for it. And I kept going through the interview process and then was offered the job, and we packed up shop and moved what turned out to be a little over 5 hours north because we’re about 45 minutes south of the headquarters. But, yeah, I wanted to do something that, even if I was stressed, I wasn’t unhappy.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Brett Maffet: And I promise you I get plenty of stress in this job, but at the end of the day, I get to do the best.

Ramsey Russell: That’s best life, though. I mean, 10% of life is what happens to cause stress, and 90% is how you deal with it, you know? But if you’re in a field or you’re doing something you like or you’re good at, it’s just comfortable territory.

Brett Maffet: Yeah. And I’ve had no problem with that. But yeah, I had to do the coolest thing in the world, and that is, in my opinion, help people make experiences with their friends, family, and otherwise loved ones. I have all these amazing memories of hunting with my dad and him introducing my friends to hunting when I was young. And then later on, quail hunting is what helped me bond with the other side of my family, which we had never spent much time with because we lived on opposite sides of the east coast. And that’s how I ended up developing an amazing relationship with my great uncle. And then, his oldest son, who’s my dad’s age, and his oldest son, who is exactly my age, I’ve got this amazing memory of the 5 of us, I guess 5 of us going down to Newberry, South Carolina, where the family was from immediately after they came through Charleston in the mid-1700s and finding this old family cemetery in the middle of the woods back behind somebody’s farm, right that dated back to the mid-1700s. And that was built around a hunting trip. And so I get to help facilitate those types of memories for other people who are doing the same type of thing with their family and friends. And it doesn’t take away from the fact that I also think it’s cool as hell and I love to do it, but it’s a lot more fulfilling, it’s a lot more fun for me, and it makes all the stressful stuff worthwhile.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. But it’s a good job. It’s a great thing.  I got a text last night. I’m so glad to be on the phone with you. I love to meet with Benelli, but I got a funny text from a friend last night. I’ve known this guy forever, Brett, but he literally sent me a text about 08:00 last night and says, do you still swear by Benelli? I’m like, what kind of question is that? I grew up shooting Remington and Winchester or model 12 pump and just whatever was in the closet, and steel shot converted back into – well, steel shot came onto the scene and those 2 and 3 quarter inch guns wasn’t going to cut it no more. It bulged the barrel coming through steel shot and all that good stuff. Had to go buy a new gun, I bought a Super Black Eagle. Super Black Eagle, not Super Black Eagle 1, 2 or 3. A Super Black Eagle back in the day, it was and it revolutionized my life. And I have been shooting that since 1995, and it’s like I’m never going back. And my mantra is, it’s a cool shotgun. It fits me good. It shoots where it’s supposed to shoot, but superior performance, utter reliability. And I don’t treat my guns like boat paddles, you know what I’m saying? I rely on them too much for that. I take care of my guns. But, by gosh, you go duck hunting, enough things happen. I have fished it out of 10 foot of water and killed ducks shortly thereafter. I have been in a blind where it’s so dirty because of the stretch we’re in, and lubed it with water, you know what I’m saying? To make it go boom, boom. And I’ve had it so fully encased with mud, except for the barrel, you couldn’t believe it. And I stripped it out in the field, washed it in saltwater to get it clean in 6 inches of salt water, washed it off, hose it with a pipe, loaded it up, and finished my duck limit. That’s why I shoot Benelli.

Brett Maffet: I had a similar experience that this past January, actually hunting on the Bighorn River in Montana. It was about, I don’t know, that morning, it was probably just over 10° and we had an issue with where we set up – Well, actually, we had an issue initially getting into where we were planning to go, because one of the boat batteries had died overnight. And so we had to shuttle gear and people up on one boat while one of the guides went and bought another battery in town for the other boat. And then by the time we got set up and it lightened up, we realized we were directly under power lines, which I still am shocked were out there to begin with. And so then we had to quickly ford the river with all the stuff set up in the other bank. And in the process, I hit a part of the river that just caught me at the wrong sort of angle. And so instead of tipping over into the sub 0 Bighorn river, I decided to use the SBE 3 as a walking stick, and then finally got to shore and promptly found, as a bird was cupping in my face, that had completely froze up inside. So I had to field strip the gun, knock ice out of the springs, then put it back together, and it ran like the top afterwards. You’re right. Utter reliability, the simplicity, the genius of the inertia system, it cannot be overstated. To be able to do that with unbelievably cold fenders, no tools, on the side of a river in middle of nowhere, Montana, and then have a full hunt with full limits afterwards, unbelievable. You can’t do that with any other gun.

Hunting with Super Black Eagle 3s

 That’s why I choose Benelli. You know what I’m saying? It’s not a brand deal, it’s not a cool factor, this gun suits my lifestyle.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. To your point, one of my very best friends on earth, Mr. Terry Denmon, you know when I travel to Argentina, I don’t bring a shotgun, I bring 3 of them. That’s how many I can bring. And that way, if I need to swap over to a different gauge. I usually bring a 28 gauge and 2-12, this year, I brought 3-12 gauges. But if one gets too dirty, I need to swap over. But normally, what I do with them, I hand them out to clients. I hand them to clients. And I feel like a dope dealer, to be honest with you. Because you hand it to them. But they love it, man. They love those Super Black Eagle 3s. And I gave one to my buddy Denmon this year. We got into some shin deep mess for about 100 yards. And I look back and my best friend on earth is using the Super Black Eagle 3 I gave him his walking stick and I said, Denmon, what are you doing? He goes, it’s a Benelli, ain’t it? Let me tell you what, he killed the hell out of ducks with us that week. And it was as simple as just literally hosing it off, boom, we’re done. That gun hadn’t hit a lick, it’s just going to, like it’s supposed to. That’s why I choose Benelli. You know what I’m saying? It’s not a brand deal, it’s not a cool factor, this gun suits my lifestyle.

Brett Maffet: They are pretty cool, though.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, they are cool. Yeah. And I’m cool shooting it.

Brett Maffet: But it’s great, man. It’s funny, I was sitting there and the guys I hunt with out there, they’re close personal friends at this point. One of them looked at me and goes, dude, do you just want to use my gun? He said, what are you doing? I’m like, no, I’m going to fix this damn thing because I know it can. And then it’s going to run perfectly. Sure enough. Flawless. It was great.

Ramsey Russell: It’s flawless. I can’t get enough of them. Let’s talk a little bit about Benelli shotguns. They came on the same back when. They’ve evolved, they have evolved some kind of good. But I want to talk about – I’ll start with this right here. I want to talk about the different platforms, but within the Super Black Eagle 3, which is my go to platform. Earlier, you were talking about shooting the 20 gauge back in the day, back when I got started shooting Benelli back in the 90s, you had the Super Black Eagle, which was to address a 3.5 inch 12 gauge solution. And slowly but surely, now I can take my beloved Super Black Eagle 3 waterfowl platform and I can shoot it in 12, 20 and 28. That’s just living proof. I mean, I know you all didn’t just think of that. I mean, that’s demand. That’s demand for sub gauges hitting the market right now, is it not?

The Demand for Sub Gauges by Hunters

And so we sat down and decided that, hey, the SV3 platform itself is really the pinnacle of waterfowl guns, the nicest waterfowl gun on the planet. 

Brett Maffet: No, you’re absolutely right. The market is, I’d say the last 5 years, especially, there’s been this almost insatiable demand for sub gauges, for whatever reason. I don’t know what started. I have to assume it is just the improvement in shot shell technology, right? And you talked about some brands earlier, and I could go on and on about my favorites, but it’s unbelievable what they’ve been able to do the last decade to improve overall performance. And that’s not to say that people aren’t still shooting 3.5 inch, because believe you me, they are. But we saw the trends in sort of the day to day business activities of 20 gauge. And so we sat down and decided that, hey, the SV3 platform itself is really the pinnacle of waterfowl guns, the nicest waterfowl gun on the planet. Why wouldn’t we make this available to the people who want to hunt with the sub gauge? And there’s no reason why we wouldn’t. And so that’s when we decided to migrate it into the 20 gauge, which we launched in 2021. Extremely successful. And it’s funny, you go to consumer trade shows, and it’s remarkable, like, everybody who should have ever possibly wanted to shoot a gun left handed or with 28 or 410 or something comes out of the woodwork and they wanted to talk to you about, why don’t you do this? Why don’t you do that? Why don’t you make more left handed guns?

Ramsey Russell: That is a big question, because 10% of our shoots left handed. But we’ll get into that, go ahead.

Brett Maffet: Yeah, that’s fine. So we were getting even beyond that, a larger subset of the consumer show population that seemed to be asking about 28 guage and 410. And so that’s why in 2022, we launched the 28 gauge Super Black Eagle 3. And I got to tell you, man, the demand for that done has been nothing short of astonishing the last 3 years. People cannot get enough of it. We knew the demand was there based on the research we had done, the conversations we had had, industry analysis. We knew the demand was going to be there, but our expectations were even blown away by how well those have sold. Which is really cool to see because they’re fun little guns, man.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, they are terribly fun. I think the only reason somebody does not shoot a 28 gauge is because they have not shot a 28 gauge. I showed up out in, we were shooting sea ducks, scoters, out on the shoot out there in Washington state, out on the peninsula. And my host suggested I pack a 12 gauge next morning because we’re shooting, these ducks are tough, I shrugged and said, no, I’ll be fine with that 28 gauge. And the next morning we’re loading the boat and he gets just a little more intense about it. Go ahead and pack a 12 gauge, I said, no I’m bringing a 28 gauge, I’m all in. I love this little gun. I got that little Super Black Eagle 3 and I said, no, I’m all in on it. And I was shooting factory mod at the time, and he didn’t like it. I’m going to tell you right now, he didn’t like the idea of me bringing that. Let me see one of them shells and I showed it to him, he did not like that at all, until I started killing bird. Now, the thing about a scoter, they’re fast, but they’re low. So when you’re shooting behind them in yarn, you know how to adjust. So it took a couple shots later, I’m on them and he looked at him, said, you’re right, a number 4 pellets is a number 4 pellet. Then I go, that’s all it is. It patterns so amazing. And like, I shoot a shot cam, Brett, and people have shown me iPhone videos or their shot cams, and I can tell you right now, I go, that’s 28 gauge. They go, how’d you know? I go, because it looks like the bird’s been hit with a pool cue. It’s just such a great little pattern. It’s just like, blip, blip, it’s amazing. And I mean, because the number 4 pellets are the number 4 pellet, it don’t matter, you know what I’m saying, what gauge is coming out of.

Shooting Birds No Problem

 So, really and truly, I’m not the only fan of a 28 gauge in that platform. I mean, the world loves it.

Brett Maffet: You’re going to shoot birds with that, no problem. Obviously there’s less shot in the air, so you’ve got to be – I wouldn’t say it’s for the novice, necessarily, but it’ll kill even late season geese, no problem.

Ramsey Russell: No problem at all. So, really and truly, I’m not the only fan of a 28 gauge in that platform. I mean, the world loves it.

Brett Maffet: Absolutely. We had high expectations for it based on the work that we had done before launch, and it blew us away, and it has not slowed down since. It’s awesome. It’s super cool to see.

Ramsey Russell: There’s some countries that, it’s just very impractical, or some destinations, it’s impractical to pack your own gun. And that’s okay, because it’s surprising how many people around the world, how many outfitters around the world choose to shoot Benelli.

Brett Maffet: Oh, yeah.

Built on the Back of a Benelli 

 I’m going to tell you right now, everybody listening has heard of Cordoba dove hunting everybody’s heard it that industry was built squarely on the back of a Benelli shotgun.

Ramsey Russell: I’m going to tell you right now, everybody listening has heard of Cordoba dove hunting everybody’s heard it that industry was built squarely on the back of a Benelli shotgun. And when you go to these lodges, that’s all – they might have another brand for just a persnickety guy that shows up for whatever reason. But, buddy, you better believe they got walls full. And you ask them why. They said, because no other shotgun out here will take this kind of abuse.

Brett Maffet: I mean, you know this, right? It’s usually like a wall of Montefeltros and M2s. They run. It’s funny you say that, I just had to put in a major parts order for an outfitter, or I had to facilitate one through Benelli army over in Italy and their distribution arm. But, yeah, every year, we get a few different requests from outfitters down there, and they’re like, hey, I need a bunch of parts just to have on hand, right?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Brett Maffet: And it’s usually a huge order because they have trouble getting them down there, and they want to make sure they have adequate supply. But, yeah, you get the serial numbers and you look them up, and these guns are 10, 15, 20 years old.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Brett Maffet: And they’ve been running flawlessly in probably the worst conditions you can hunt because of the sheer volume of shooting. And they don’t wear out the mat.

Ramsey Russell: The math is pretty easy to do, just because what we’re talking about. I mean, we got a lot of avid duck hunters that go, wherever they go to duck hunt around the United States. But when you start stepping up into Cordoba, or let’s just say Argentina dove hunting because Cordoba is not what it used to be nowadays. But at the same time, the average guy that goes on one of them high volume dove hunts in Argentina is going to shoot 20 boxes per hunt or per day. Let’s do the math here, we’re talking a thousand rounds minimum a day. You know what I’m saying? For 200 days a year, that gun’s being used. 200,000 rounds per year, and you’re looking at a gun that’s what you say, 20 years old. It’s unbelievable. I can’t think of another shotgun on earth that would do that.

Brett Maffet: No, absolutely not.

Ramsey Russell: I can’t think of another gun.

Brett Maffet: They’d stop running after, like, 2 days. Just the gas systems would be so clogged up.

The Benelli Legacy: Durability and Performance

And they’re big on the super sports. I got to tell you, that is a sharp gun. To be handed a gun that feels and looks and handles like brand new that I know for a fact is 20 years old is amazing.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. But beyond that right there, so I will take – What I was trying to say is, I will sometimes leave my Benelli at home to go shoot one of their Benellis. And in doing so, it would shock you, the makes and models I come across in the Benelli world. You know what I’m saying? I mean, Montefeltro, I’ve got an outfitter down in Mexico just where he’s located, it’s difficult to get a gun in. And just because of their import process and the port you come in and he said, no problem, I got a couple of Benellis, and I show up, and he’s got first incarnation Super Black Eagle. Not super Black Eagle. Super Black Eagles. And they run like a top. And I’m like, I can’t believe this gun is – we’d be going back to mid 90 or early 90 hair band, rock and roll by the time when that gun hit the market, and it’s been used to shoot white wing doves and ducks and brant his entire life, and it hasn’t had an easy life and still, that’s the gun I choose to shoot because it works. I would challenge anybody to say, do you got a gun that really takes that kind of abuse up? A thousand rounds a day for 200 days, 200,000 rounds a year. I mean, how could you possibly argue with it? But I’ve come in contact with a lot of platforms. I shoot the Super Black Eagle 3. But we go down to Mazatlán, Brett, they have got name, a make model, serial number of Benelli that’s ever come out that’s all they shoot, that’s all they’ve ever shot for a quarter century. And they’re big on the super sports. I got to tell you, that is a sharp gun. To be handed a gun that feels and looks and handles like brand new that I know for a fact is 20 years old is amazing.

Brett Maffet: Yeah, they are. So our flagship is obviously the Super Black Eagle platform, right? But I got to tell you, the Supersport is, I’d say, probably one of the more iconic platforms that we’ve ever launched. That look is very unique, it’s very spelt very Benelli. And once again, they absolutely run. We upgraded it a couple of years ago to the ethos platform, and then we actually just launched it this year with the new advanced impact barrel technology.

Ramsey Russell: Let’s talk about that.

Benelli’s New Ballistic System

So what that is, is that’s really a reengineering of a shotgun’s internal bore. 

Brett Maffet: The new ballistic system that we’ve introduced. So what that is, is that’s really a reengineering of a shotgun’s internal bore. So it’s devilishly hard to describe. When you pick it up, you’ll think this 12 gauge barrel is actually a 10 gauge because the barrel diameter is noticeably thicker. And the reason for that is because of the way the contours of the barrels bore are cut. So it’s not just a forcing tone that then opens up to a choke. There’s like different contours within the mid length of the barrel where it narrows down with an extra long forcing tone, and then it opens up a little bit again, and then the choke chokes it back down.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Brett Maffet: Right. And so what it does is it consolidates the shot string, which almost gives it – the best way I have to describe it is think about stock car racing when you’re drafting behind somebody else. Like, I’m convinced the pellets are almost drafted against each other, which increases velocity just past the muzzle by about 4% using the same shot shells, compared to a standard 12 gauge. And then that again, the best way I have to describe it is drafting effect actually allows the shot to maintain velocity, like a greater velocity further out, so it doesn’t increase velocity per se further out, but it increases velocity compared to a standard 12 gauge barrel further up, so it helps maintain velocity longer. And so what that then does is it increases the energy on, or it maintains energy on impact further out. And I got to tell you, Ramsey, that’s what I was shooting at Montana in January, and I’ve never seen birds drop like this before.

Ramsey Russell: Really? That’s a standard feature on all Benellis now, all Benelli shotguns.

Brett Maffet: It is not. We launched it this year within our performance shop lineup of products on the Ethos platform. We launched it with the Ethos Cordova performance shop, the Ethos sport performance shop, and the Ethos supersport performance shop. And so you have the advanced impact barrel tied into the receiver, obviously, and then it comes with a number of different advanced impact chokes. I wish I had one here. But compared to a standard choke, which is that long, events impact choke is going to be about that long.

Ramsey Russell: Half, again, is long. Yeah.

Brett Maffet: The contours have to be incredibly precise to let it work.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Brett Maffet: And this is a patented technology, actually.

An Advanced Impact System Technology for Shotguns

Ramsey Russell: I was online recently looking at the Benelli USA website, and I noticed you all had these performance shotguns, and that’s what it’s getting into. It’s getting into this new advanced impact system technology.

Brett Maffet: It’s pretty wild. And again, it’s hard to describe. It’s one of those things that –

Ramsey Russell: You got to be a rocket scientist or engineer.

Brett Maffet: For sure. But yeah, you can appreciate it and you can understand it, but it doesn’t really hit you until you start to see it in the field. I mean, we had some birds that – well, we had some weather patterns one day that were not cooperating. We had a very, we’ll say, interesting morning goose hunt. We were in a carefully scouted field, had a beautiful setup, previously, tuck cornfield, had a great couple groups of Canadian geese that came in. And then we had another group of electric power trucks that came in to place telephone poles throughout the middle of the field.

Ramsey Russell: That’s interesting.

Brett Maffet: All right.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Brett Maffet: Oh, yeah. That was weird. So we hunted until they got too close for safety’s sake. And when I say hunt, I mean mainly watched them and laughed at our misfortune because no birds wanted to land anymore. But the guides were phenomenal, they were able to find us an afternoon duck spot down by the big horn, and we scrambled to set up in time, backing up to this sort of rock face probably 100 yards up or so. The wind was perfect, right? It was blowing off of this wall. So the first few groups of ducks were cupping in to the spread just absolutely beautifully. And then the wind changed, and so they couldn’t land from that direction anymore, so they’re having to come around us trying to come over our heads, but the wind blowing into the rock face, then blowing up was preventing them from being able to land. So you get birds trying to come in, and then they would just be pushed, like, 50 yards back up or something. And so eventually, the guys were like, all right, guys, clearly, this isn’t working anymore. We can pack it up, or we can sit here, and you guys can take shots that you think you can make.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Well, that new technology gave you a slight edge, didn’t it?

Brett Maffet: It did. And so I was off on the rightmost side of the blind, and I had one come in, and it started to blow up. So I took the shot, just dropped it at probably 50 yards, right? Stone dead. And the guy that lost his mind, and Andy runs out there to get the bird, and we have another group come in and do the exact same thing, and they get blown back up. And so I dropped another one, probably 55, 60 yards almost landed right on his head. And he’s just laying there behind some sagebrush, being like, who is doing this? This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. And of course, he gets back to the blind, and then he just wants to play around with the gun and take some shots for himself. And he’s like, dude. He’s like, I don’t really know what you were talking about when you told me you were coming out here with these things. He’s like, but I need to have one as soon as they’re available. He’s like, this is wild.

Semi-Auto Benelli Shotguns: Upland vs Waterfowl Guns

So, if you’re looking at guns from just sort of an aesthetic, traditional hunting use standpoint, you really have kind of an upland sporting wing and then a waterfowl wing, and I faction them off in that manner, really, just because of the stocks and the foreigns. 

Ramsey Russell: Real quickly, before we get off subject, I want to talk about these semi-automatic Benelli shotguns. I think we can all agree Super Black Eagle is the gold standard, that’s the benchmark. But you all do have other models. What are the differences between some of these different models? How would you describe the differences, the key points of the different platforms in Benelli’s lineup?

Brett Maffet: Sure. So, if you’re looking at guns from just sort of an aesthetic, traditional hunting use standpoint, you really have kind of an upland sporting wing and then a waterfowl wing, and I faction them off in that manner, really, just because of the stocks and the foreigns. I mentioned to you earlier, I’ve used my old over under to hunt waterfowl a decent amount, but I wasn’t walking out through a swamp or in a tidal creek or taking out a kayak or anything like that. So what I would consider to be today’s waterfowl guns are going to utilize polymer stocks and fore ends because you’re not going to destroy this beautiful walnut. Whereas upland guns I would consider to have, again, these are the rules, not these exceptions. Everybody’s different in terms of what they want to do. But upland guns I would consider to have walnut stocks and foreigns. On the upland side of things we have our Montefeltro platform, which is really an entry level upland or sporting gun. Has very nice walnut stock and forend, aluminum receiver, aluminum single piece receiver, excuse me. And then just standard blue barrel. Those duns come with 3 chokes and a standard recoil pad. The Ethos features an offering with 5 chokes. You also get progressive comfort recoil reduction, which is a proprietary patented recoil reducing function that fits into the stock. And then it has a soft cheek piece as well, so it greatly mitigates the felt recoil both against your shoulder and your face. The Ethos is also a 2 piece receiver, which gives it an incredibly attractive aesthetic feel that is just epitomous to the upland, beautiful shotgun world. And both of those feature the easy lock in inertia bolt. So, as the original inertia bolts, they should accidentally get locked out of battery if you accidentally knocked it backwards, or if one of your friends wanted to be a jerk on a duck blind thinking he was funny. So in 2012, when we launched the Ethos, we solved that problem with the easy lock inertia bolt. They also feature the easy loading shell latch. So it’s a 2 piece shell latch as opposed to a single, which is what the original guns were. And so it’s a lot smoother and seamless to load the shells up into the magazine and there’s no pinching of your thumb as your especially loading sub gauge shells up there. Over on the waterfowl side functions much the same way, we have the new M2 platform, which we relaunched last year, that features similar feature set to the relaunched Montefeltro. There is just a standard recoil pad on it comes with 3 chokes, single piece aluminum receiver, standard barrel. Now, let me actually edit that statement slightly. Both the Montefeltro and the M2 barrels are cryo treated.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Brett Maffet: So all Benelli barrels are cryo treated. So when I say standard, I mean you don’t feature any of the elevated protection technologies like Cerrito or the Benelli best treatment. So you just have a matte blue barrel or a camo barrel. So the M2 would be offered in camo or black with Matt blue in the Super Black Eagle, much like the Ethos, is the pinnacle of the waterfowl world with the comfortek three retool reduction in the stock, as well as the combtech system, which is the extra soft cheek piece. Again, those recoil reduction systems, both from do absolutely amazing things for your shoulder and your face.

Ramsey Russell: It’s really unbelievable that the technology of that comfort recoil system. I mean, as somebody that does pick up some of those 20 year old shotguns that doesn’t have it, you like, wow, that new system really makes a difference. It really makes a difference.

Brett Maffet: It does. It’s an amazingly iconic look for Benelli at this point. Those chevrons in the stock you look at and you’re like, okay. I could see newcomers being like, how much of a difference does this really make? Until you picked it up and start shooting it and shoot it a lot, and then you’re like, all right, this is a big freaking deal.

Ramsey Russell: It’s a big freaking deal. Yeah.

Brett Maffet: So that’s a huge part of the Super Black Eagle. Then you have, again, crouch free barrel, comes with 5 chokes, as well as the easy loading and the easy locking features.

Ramsey Russell: Now, I want to talk about this. I’m excited because I’ve got a new Benelli shotgun coming, it’s an 828 U.

Brett Maffet: Yes, sir.

Introducing the New Benelli Shotgun

So for somebody like me, who’s a left handed shooter, because I’m left eye dominant, I can buy an 828 U out of the box, just flip it over. So that is casted left handed. 

Ramsey Russell: And I am a huge Super Black Eagle fan for the world to know, heck, yeah, I’m still fired up about them. But I’m going on a trip. And the UK does not allow semi-automatics. In fact, I got to reading some paperwork online, some government paperwork online, and in great big, bold red letters, it says, we don’t have a right to bear arms like you all do or something like that. And you cannot shoot a shotgun that’s capable of holding or being made to hold more than 2 shells. So I’ve got this 828 U, and the minute word got out, a friend of mine wrote me and said, tell me about this new 828 steel. I said, ask me in a month when I get my hands on it. Tell me what’s going on with 828. I want to hear all about it, and I want to hear about this new steel equation that he’s talking about.

Brett Maffet: Sure. So the 828 U was a very innovative new over under platform that we launched in 2015. So Benelli set out to make an over under shotgun and decided, really consistent with the Ethos of the Benelli brand and driving technology and innovation forward in the firearm space, that they were going to not just make a standard box lock style over under, we were going to reimagine what it could be and improve upon it. So what the 828 U is, is an aluminum chassis, which is amazing for a couple different reasons. The first of which is it allows you to adjust the stock with a shim and cast system the same way you would any of our other semi auto shotguns. So for somebody like me, who’s a left handed shooter, because I’m left eye dominant, I can buy an 828 U out of the box, just flip it over. So that is casted left handed. And then I have a perfectly fitting shotgun to myself. Now, beyond that, what they did is they developed the steel locking plate system. So instead of having a monoblock receiver that just mates up against the back of the receiver, where the barrels made up against the back of the monoblock receiver, what they did is they created a locking system that actually interlocks when you close the barrel into the chassis. What that does is, it doesn’t allow any of the stretching that will naturally occur with the standard over under. So what nobody really understands is most over unders, over time, the pins will stretch forward a little bit.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Brett Maffet: And that’s because the barrels, they get pushed forward a little bit every time that they’re fired. Now it’s like micro microscopic stretching. And I’ve had my over under for 20 years. Like, there’s no issues with it. It’s going to be some time, but eventually, if you shoot over unders enough, you can shoot them out, because it gets to a point it won’t lock in place anymore. And so what Benelli did is they created this steel interlocking system that negates that. So it’s impossible now for any stretching to occur. So that gun can literally shoot forever without ever having to be retired.

Ramsey Russell: Fantastic.

Brett Maffet: It’s pretty remarkable. It’s a very unique look, which has, I would say, a great deal of a set of beauty to it because of just how it’s sculpted. And then it also features the progressive comfort recoil system, which gives better recoil reduction than any other over under in the market.

Ramsey Russell: There’s a lot of people just in the United States that I know that are, they’re just two shooter fans. That’s just what they shoot, that’s what they grew up shooting, same as you. And they don’t want to swap over to semi-automatics. I’ve traveled with quite a few of them that they bring a two shooter, most recently in Africa. Guy brought his own two shooter, he just don’t want a semi-automatic. For a company like Benelli, that is reputedly the top semi-automatic sporting gun out there? Why the over and under? What precipitated the development of such a work of functional art like the 828 U?

Brett Maffet: It’s a natural fit for us. We are, to your point, the undisputed leader in semi auto shotguns. And we got a lot of requests for, hey, you guys ever considered making a Benelli over under? Like, people just trust the Benelli brand. They trust us to innovate, they trust the performance to be there, and they trust the reliability. And in a lot of ways, well, not a lot of ways, that is what we brought to the table with an 828 U when compared with traditional over unders. And listen, I’m not knocked in traditional over unders, they’re some of my favorite guns in the world, that’s what I grew up with. But Benelli improved upon a design that hadn’t improved upon in centuries, effectively. Bringing our own design and style and flair to it in the process, and solving problems that have played over under shooters for generations. In terms of, if you previously wanted to have a shotgun fit to you, you had to go to a gunsmith and have the stock warped.

Ramsey Russell: Well, how adjustable is this 828 going to be? What all can I adjust on it?

Brett Maffet: There’s 40 different adjustment positions.

Ramsey Russell: Wow. And how do a guy like me that’s always shot Benelli Super Black Eagle 3 type shotgun, how am I going to know exactly how to tune and adjust that thing? How do I go about this? How do I approach getting this gun customized for me with 40 adjustments?

Brett Maffet: It is a trial and error type deal. You should go to a gunsmith that does adjustments, and they can help you with it in terms of looking at you, but a lot of it is, and we actually have some incredibly helpful tutorial videos up on YouTube that cover this subject. There’s both a short form and a long form version, but it’s essentially you go through the different shims until you get one that, in your natural aiming, just motion. So you don’t want to aim it, you just want to pull up like you would in the field, you get the right sight picture down the rib of the shotgun.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Brett Maffet: And from there, I would suggest going outside and just patterning it and shooting it until you like repeating that, until you get the pattern that you want. Whether that is 50-50, 60-40, whatever your preferences.

Ramsey Russell: I’m a 60-40 guy. That much I do know.

Brett Maffet: Excuse me for coughing, I haven’t talked this much in a while. Hard coming back from a vacation and hopping on a podcast.

Ramsey Russell: That’s all right, man. You’re doing fine. I’m excited to get this new 828. Trust you me, the whole world will know about what I think about it when it comes out. But I can tell you this, just having seen the photo, it is a gorgeous gun. It’s going to be the most beautiful shotgun I own.

Brett Maffet: It’s so light, too, man. You’re going to walk around the field with that thing, and you’re going to forget you have it. It’s unbelievably comfortable to carry around. Now, back to your original question as to why we did the steel, that was for the shooters who wanted more of a hybrid gun that could double as a field gun as well as a sporting gun.

A One Gun Dude

You mentioned about one gun guys, and I’ve got more than one gun, but it’s funny how I keep defaulting to one gun. I reach in and grab the same Super Black Eagle 3 every single time. 

Ramsey Russell: Right.

Brett Maffet: So there are a number – Look at that, the wife’s always listening in the background with more water. Moved up to Virginia with me, bringing me water, she’s quite the gal. But the gun was, it was provided a solution to people who were kind of one gun dudes, right? Like, they don’t want to be switching guns out all the time. They want to have what they know, they want to shoot what they know.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Brett Maffet: And the only complaint we had ever received with the 828 U was it is so light, if you take that onto a sporting place course or a trap course or you go out shoot 100, 200, 300 shells in the afternoon, you’re going to feel it even with the recoil reduction system. And so the steel will help naturally mitigate the effects of the recoil just because it’ll absorb some of that shock.

Ramsey Russell: Sure will. You mentioned about one gun guys, and I’ve got more than one gun, but it’s funny how I keep defaulting to one gun. I reach in and grab the same Super Black Eagle 3 every single time. And it’s like guys will ask about bringing guns to other countries or whatever like that, I’m like, yeah, bring your own gun. Because here’s the deal. You and I walk into a gun store, and you buy the SBE 3 on the left, and I buy the one on the right. I don’t want to shoot your gun, especially as time goes on down the road, all things equal, I want to shoot my gun. Because I know what this gun does, and it’s my gun. And so I get that.

Brett Maffet: I do it. That’s one of the tougher, I’m going to say this, and I’m sure people will be rolling their eyes in the back end, but to this point, it can be a tough part of this job, right? Because I have to go out and demo guns, and it’s not based on what I own and what I like to shoot.

Ramsey Russell: Right.

Brett Maffet: It’s what we are marketing at any given time. And that is why I don’t own a left handed gun.

Ramsey Russell: That’s funny. We were going to talk about left handed guns. That’s a question I got last night. The reason the guy wrote me that text, because I was sitting there thinking, what’s he asking me about Benelli for, he shoots Benelli. Well, he’s trying to get a new hunter outfitted and was calling to ask me questions about him. And she’s left handed.

Brett Maffet: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And I said, and I don’t know, it’s like 10% of the world is left handed, of those, the ones that I hunt with, most of them shoot a right handed shotgun. I got a funny story. I took my uncle down to Mexico, he’s left handed, has been long as I’ve known in 58 years. And I said, hey, they got left handed Benellis down there, if you want one. He goes, yeah, put me down for one. He shot at one time. He came back, said, can you get me a right handed gun? Because he grew up shooting right handed shotguns left handed, and he didn’t want that left handed gun, it was too confusing for him.

Brett Maffet: So I love the left handed guns that we make, and we have quite a selection of them. But it is, when you shoot right handed guns a lot, the controls are kind of weird.

Ramsey Russell: Kind of weird. I can’t imagine.

Brett Maffet: If I were just shooting for myself and that’s all I did, I would 100% have a left handed semi-automatic. But because I have to shoot right handed guns all the time, I don’t want to rewire myself to confuse the heck out of, how I shoot when I’m out on company business. So that is why I stick with right handed guns, even when I’m hunting here in the backyard. But once you get going on them and you get past the initial kind of, well, this is weird, right? Stuff isn’t where it’s supposed to be. And the worst for me is the safety, because the safety is reversed. It’s pretty awesome to have.

Ramsey Russell: I’ve got to ask you this last question to the heart of the text I got last night. I started my sons and daughter on a Benelli, what they called at the time, a short stock. It had a short stock, very short, and a short barrel. It was light, it was reliable, and to this day, quarter century later, it is everybody’s favorite gun, of course, the boys have outgrown. It still fits my daughter like a glove and my wife, for that matter, she’s a grown woman. Is that type gun still available through Benelli?

Brett Maffet: So we offer quite a number of compact shotguns that are ideal for shorter stature individuals. So we have some compact offerings in the Montefeltro, as well as the M2 platforms. And then we actually launched some this year in Super Black Eagle 3 in 12, 20 and 28 gauge.

Ramsey Russell: Fantastic.

Brett Maffet: Oh, it’s pretty awesome. Benelli has a reputation, I think that’s well deserved, of providing a level of comfort for shooters that is unmatched. And the heart of that was obviously the shim system, which Benelli pioneered and has now been co-opted by plenty of other brands on the market, and that’s fine. But we offer a number of left handed solutions. We offer a number of compact solutions. We try to provide shooters with the tools that will allow them to go out and make the memories they want to make in the most comfortable way possible.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Brett Maffet: And it’s to your point, they say 10% of the population, 12% of the population is left handed. And so from a business standpoint, does it always make the most sense? No, but we’re going to go that extra mile to give the consumers what the want and what they need. And it’s funny. So I want to talk about that for a second. We touched on this earlier. You go to trade shows, right? And every left handed person in the world and his mother comes out of the woodwork to talk to you about left handed guns. So I have a little theory, and it actually starts kind of at home with me. I think we’re past the point of it being a left handed thing.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Brett Maffet: Right. So I don’t know what it was like for you growing up, learning to shoot, but basically, my dad handed me a gun. He put it in my right hand because I’m right handed.

Ramsey Russell: Same way.

Eye Dominance or Hand Dominance for Shooting?

One of the first things they do right is do the eye dominance test. I think more people are discovering that they’re left eye dominant as opposed to right eye dominant, and that’s what’s causing them to shoot left handed.

Brett Maffet: And he said, there you go. And in 2021, I decided that I was going to switch to shooting left handed because I knew I was left eye dominant, and I was tired of having to close an eye every time I shot. So I retaught myself to shoot left handed with rifles and shotguns initially, and then later on, a couple years later, I retaught myself to shoot pistols left handed. I think as we now live in a world where it’s less people going on the back 40 or in the backyard or on your uncle’s farm or something with a gun to hunt and it’s less of a more casual teaching and more of a people are going to get actual education and take safety classes and all that stuff. One of the first things they do right is do the eye dominance test. I think more people are discovering that they’re left eye dominant as opposed to right eye dominant, and that’s what’s causing them to shoot left handed. So I think we’re actually going to see a continued growth of the proportion of the population that shoots left handed versus right handed. And I think it’s begin to be because more of the eye dominance than it is the hand dominance.

Ramsey Russell: Fantastic.

Brett Maffet: So I’m a cross dominant guy, and it’s funny because you look at my dad, he did it wrong when teaching me, but he didn’t know any better. He accidentally did it right when teaching himself because he’s left handed, but he’s right eye dominant, and his dad taught him to shoot right handed, so it’s perfect for him.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I’m no shooting instructor, I taught my kids to shoot the same way I was taught to shoot, here’s a shotgun, shoot where the birds going, not where he’s been. Keep swinging and you’ll get the hang of it. But I guess it helped that I was right handed, right eyed dominant. It helped a lot. But I sure wish I had had that compact little shotgun, because the gun I grew up shooting was much heavier and it was an obstacle to overcome. And I have loaned that shotgun that my sons and daughters shot, that little compact, I have loaned that to so many starting hunters that had a small frame that it’s unbelievable. I think it’s one of the best semi-automatics you can hand a new hunter. I really do. A small hunter, I should say.

Brett Maffet: You know the other beauty of the Benellis, because it’s an inertia system, it’s naturally lighter.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Brett Maffet: And so that also helps, smaller stature shooters who need a compact type gun.

Ramsey Russell: Yes. We’ve talked several times about the aluminum single piece receiver, that kind of sort of is what Benelli sunk its teeth into. It’s one of the big selling points. Because it was lighter. Is that essential? Is that a matter of it being lighter because of comfort, is that a matter of it being an inertia shotgun?

Brett Maffet: Both.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Brett Maffet: Right. So half of our platforms have single piece receivers, half of them have two piece receivers. So there’s a lower receiver that the bolt slides into, and then there’s a top cover that goes over on top of it, which depending on the gauge and the length of the chamber, may or may not be attached to the barrel itself. And that’s a material thing. The beauty of that is it’s easier to clean and maintain.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, yeah.

Brett Maffet: Right. So that’s why that two piece features is an added benefit that’s used on our flagship platforms, like the Ethos and SBE 3, compared to the M2 and the Montefeltro. But you are right, there is a weight component of this that doesn’t really matter when you’re playing into the 12 gauges, especially not the super magnum 12 gauge, 3.5 is. But when you get into the sub gauges, especially the 28, this is where that weight is essential. So when you looked at the Super Black Eagle 3, both chamber size 3 inches or both chamber sizes in 12 gauge have 3 shell magazine capacity. So 3+1, same at the 20 gauge. When you get down to the 28, you’re going to notice that it’s only a 2+1. What you also don’t know is the bolt is made with a different material. All of that is done in order to provide a weight that will allow that gun to reliably function. Because an inertia gun doesn’t function purely off of the shell the way a gas system does. It functions off of the movement of a shooter’s body. So if I took a 3.5 inch Super Black Eagle 3 and 12 gauge, if I held it up against this wall with the highest powered shell you can find, and I pulled the trigger, it would not cycle. That’s because that wall doesn’t move. All right. Got a buddy named Eric, if I took Eric, handed him a 28 gauge SBE 3, he’s like a Viking, right? He just loved that build and gave him a light shooting shell, probably wouldn’t cycle. And that’s because his body doesn’t move. Nothing wrong with the gun. The gun functions perfectly. But some people who were just, frankly, too big can’t shoot a 28 gauge. A 28 gauge inertia. And that’s why we don’t, and we will never make a 410 gauge it’s impossible to cycle. From a physics standpoint, it’s impossible to get the gun light enough.

Ramsey Russell: I always wondered about that.

Brett Maffet: And that’s why with the 28 gauge, why it’s a shorter magazine, why the bolt is a different material, and why all 28 gauges use a carbon fiber rib. Because we have to get those ounces out to guarantee the reliability of the gun.

Ramsey Russell: Fantastic. Brett, I sure appreciate you. That’s been some great and helpful information. Even as a longtime Benelli shooter, I learn something every time I mate with you all. I learn stuff. And I love it. Yeah, I love it. I appreciate you taking time, I know you’re a busy man. I appreciate you coming on board.

Brett Maffet: I’m glad to be here. I appreciate you having me.

Ramsey Russell: Hope we can jump into a duck blind one day.

Brett Maffet: Give me a call, I’ll hop on a plane.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. I guarantee you. Thank you, Brett. Folks, thank you all for listening to Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere Podcast with Mr. Brett Maffet, Benelli Senior Product Management. Hope you found this episode as interesting as I did. I shoot Benelli for its superior performance and utter reliability. See you next time.