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Beretta BRX1

Gamikatsu

Private
Minuteman
Oct 28, 2020
33
87
Monaca, PA
Well,

For starters... Wow.... This rifle absolutely rocks! Also, this full review is ALSO posted over on 6.5creemoor forums.

I recently picked up a gun I've been drooling over for a while. A Beretta BRX1 Straight pull. It's a fully modular system. Can be swapped Right and left bolt, right or left ejection, and the barrel can be swapped to change calibers. I chose mine in 6.5 CM of course. 8 twist, 22 inch cold hammer forged barrel.

The rifle is splendidly accurate. Multiple factory loads printing a 3/4" group between multiple shooters (Albeit all shooters are active PRS competitors, so not your run of the mill Range Jockeys). We were using a Vortex Strike Eagle 1-6 as it felt appropriate on this speedy rifle.

The action is smooth, and fluid. Tighter than you would expect looking at it. Cycling it sounds like a fine pump shotgun. It uses an AR-15 style Rotating star bolt , so you DO have to run the bolt like you mean it or you CAN insert some malfunction.

The Stock is stiff, and strong. NOT your typical Injection Molded kit that comes with budget and even mid tier rifles. The stock is actually multiple pieces. The rifle has a upper and lower receiver similar to an AR-15. So the stock has a fore end and a butt stock. The grip has swappable grips available from Beretta.

The trigger is kind of adjustable? It's crisp and sharp, and works beautifully. It is not immediately adjustable but has 3 preset adjustments. You can chose heavy, medium, or light. The light setting is about 2.5 pounds and all the competition shooters than handled the rifle found the trigger to be excellent at this rifles price point.

The rifle isn't exactly light, but isn't heavy either,Listing at 7.3 pounds.

The scope rail, is attached to the upper receiver. Which to my knowledge has the Barrel threaded into it, similar to a barrel extension, like the AR-15. Seems Beretta took a huge amount of input from the AR platform. The scope is a Mil STD picatinny rail

The magazine is a 3D printed polymer, bright orange. It is a double stack design which holds 5 rounds for both standard and Magnum calibers. Someone over the pond designed a AICS mag kit for this rifle, I don't know who however. The magazine is absolutely intuitive the way it was designed. Instead of having one release tab, it has 2. And BOTH have to be released together to drop the mag. Should just about completely resolve an accidental magazine release. It's also an AR style Top load, just press the bullets in. Instead of the push down and slide in style like AICS.

The barrel is cold hammer forged. Something pretty common these days. What's NOT common is they also cold hammer forged the chamber. Ricardo Olivieri from Beretta explained to me the mandrel they use for the barrels, has a perfect chamber on it, which helps with accuracy and concentricity. My testing at the range shows it seems to work lovely. The barrel is a medium profile, and IS threaded for a Brake or Suppressor. I shoot mine with a rather nose heavy Dead Air Sandman S. It would do me well to invest in a Titanium Ultralight hunting suppressor.

Caliber change kits to the sound of a Barrel, with included scope rail and upper receiver, a magazine, and a Bolt Face, should be for sale around June, to the wallet damage of 775 beans. The whole rifle from Euro optics is 1500 beans. The barrel swap is about a 3 minute process. Ejection or bolt handle swapping is a 60 second process once you figure it out. Trigger is a modular kit that drops out and installs in seconds. Basically the only real tool you need is to swap the barrel, a 6mm Allen wrench (one included with rifle)

I hope you found my review interesting. I would love to answer any questions you may have!










 
FYI, the ammunition we tested was as follows
Hornady American Whitetail 129 Innerloc - about a 3/4" group between a few shooters.
Federal Blue box 140 PSP - about a 3/4" group
Federal Premium 120 Barnes TSX - about a 3/4" group
Hand loaded 143 Hornady ELDx (no load workup, picked a load about 8% lower than book max to "break in the barrel" shot great at 2600fps) - 1/2-3/4" groups.
Hand loaded 140 Speer Gold Dot Personal Protection Bonded. This was a hand loading from a Tikka Rifle I had. They were loaded At book max, and got respectable velocity. - this printed a half inch group a few times, and will be my hunting load of choice for this rifle. - 1/2" group

I WILL say... this barrel has about a mile of free bore.... a 143 ELDx loaded to 2.850 basically magazine length... was jumping .123" per my Mitutoyo Caliper using a Short Action Customs Bullet Comparitor kit, and a Hornady Bullet OAL gauge. I would expect VLD style bullets to get picky about hand loading...
 
one thing I forgot to mention. the Safety... its.... weird to say the least, and definitly takes some getting used to... you "push, and pull" at the same time... you PUSH in the safety, and kind of down, and then let the spring pressure push the safety rearwards... kind of pulling the button backwards. It is 3 position, Safe, bolt lock, Safe, bolt free, and Fire. Seems to work well, but Definitely a shock to me.
 
Is there anyway to adjust the angle of the bolt handle? It just looks awkward. I would think the bolt on the Savage Impulse might lend itself for smoother operation.
 
Akila made an upgrade kit for the BRX1 so you can install any AR15 compatible grip or buttstock the also offer the buttstock part separately as well as the foreend part. Here is the link to the full kit:
 

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