About four years ago I picked up this 20ga Beretta S56E with 28" barrels from Jaqua's for $749. It was like new but with the ugliest wood you ever saw! This was from a short period of time when Garcia had stopped importing the BL series and was importing on their own. Mine was made in 1974.
There were several nice surprises with this gun, the first being the bore was quite large for a 20ga Beretta per my past experience (a BL3 I should have kept and friends guns) and the top measured .627, the bottom .625. The next nice surprise was that due to the poor quality of wood, it was under six pounds. 5lbs 10oz to be exact. The downside was that it was ugly and didn't fit me, so it was to be a project. To be exact, it was to be my "bespoke" grouse gun for the next ten years that I would have children in college.
So off to a very skilled craftsman it went. To say I lucked into Dave being able to do the work is a very big understatement. His career has since kept him too busy to continue and he was/is a very gifted artisan.
We decided on a custom wood butt to bring the LOP to where it needed to be, and to keep it light. I had used spacers for LOP and patterned the gun at 16 yards, shaving the comb till I got it where I wanted it prior to sending it off. I also stripped the finish off...what a chore, but underneath was some pleasing grain.
The first step was creating the shape. We talked about grouse guns in general and came to the conclusion that a semi-pistol is much easier to carry one handed than a straight grip, at least in the experiences the two of us have had.
Dave was great about updating me and his eye for "shape" was exquisite.
The finished product was more than this middle class upland hunter could have ever hoped for.
While the stock was with Dave, the barrels went to Mike Orlen and were opened to Skt and Mod. This has worked out very well and I like not having tubes to mess with.
So it might sound like this was a wrap, done, complete. Not so. My first season with it was a disaster. It was very inconsistent in firing the top barrel, sometimes the bottom barrel as well. I was loosing birds and I just couldn't figure it out. After season I tore the action down and found it had only one cocking lever return spring, the other may have not been functioning as well. A call to Coles confirmed it was supposed to have 2 and I may have found out why this gun had not been fired often during it's first 35 years! So I ordered two of them and I can not say enough about Coles and the smiths who work there. Turned out getting them in was a real bugger, and I had to make two small tools to line everything up just right. The triggers as well were both heavier than the gun itself, and it took hours to get them just right. As many of you know, a light gun with heavy trigger pulls is a horrible creature! With the action work complete, everything was was done. Almost two years after the purchase.
Being such a light gun, though the balance is a cm ahead of the hinge pin, I found I was not as consistent with it as I wanted to be. So starting last winter, It has been the only gun I've shot, with just a couple exceptions, and that has paid off handsomely! I load 3/4oz loads with Green Dot and PB and can shoot 100 rounds with no problems at all with recoil.
I don't know that putting this kind of thought into a middle grade O/U is common and would love to see others examples. Mine has been quite the journey, but money could not buy it from me.
