Gas guns are the preferred machine not because of reliability, but because of they way the soften apparent recoil. To be brutally honest, recoil problems are not caused by the gun so much as by poor mounting technique. They do break down during shooting, and shooters spend a lot of time cleaning them compared to the time I had to spend maintaining my SP II Sporting. But, most patrons still insist on shooting them.
Beretta semis are deadly reliable. They require only a fraction of the cleanliness of most gas guns to keep working. I have a 390 that I use for the absolute worst duck hunting conditions. I just don't have any idea how many rounds it would digest and eject/feed properly without cleaning, because I can't make myself go that long without cleaning it. Benellis are tough, if not quite as reliable under volume shooting conditions, and the recoil from them is more bothersome to most, under high volume conditions. They are not a gas gun. They're inertia operated, with a rotary bolt, which is the source of most Benelli failures to fire. They require more oil to keep running than most modern semis, and the tiniest piece of trash will keep that bolt from going into battery.
The most frequent failure in high volume shooting is failure to eject properly due to plastic buildup in the chamber. The barrels get so hot that it seems to accentuate this issue. A semi really needs to be broken down to get a good stiff chamber brush in there to clean it. When the 687 gets sluggish, or fails to eject, I can hit both barrels with a chamber brush in just a few seconds, and it's back up and running.
SRH
