The SO4 was indeed a thickly wooded target gun with minimal engraving, and is normally priced very attractively on the used gun market because of its plain finish. The only drawback to the SO4 is that it is normally made with a selective trigger, just another thing to go wrong with a gun that is difficult to service. However, there are SO guns of the same and other eras that are more suited for use as game guns. My little SO2, made in the SO4 era, is a well decorated 28" gun with my preferred trigger on such a gun, Beretta's non selective single trigger. Rather than referring to it as a "game gun", the often used term for such a gun is "light pigeon gun". It has a competition style stock similar to the SO4 Skeet, and 28" tight bored barrels, a configuration popular in Italy and other parts of Europe for competition box bird guns. SO guns of that configuration in the modern era are rather rare since we in the US don't subscribe to the game gun configuration for clay targets or pigeons and the SO was a bit pricey for a hunting gun. I was lucky to rescue my SO2 from a Beretta USA photo shoot when they were contemplating putting it back in their high grade catalog after an absense of many years. Apparently, the reintroduction of the SO2 in the US catalog was cancelled and the gun became surplus. Lucky me.
