Bummer on your Beretta. I hope their CS treats you well. I haven't been pleased with their CS regarding a trigger issue with my Tikka, but that's off-topic.

Seldom do auto's hold up to the pounding that competition shotgun shooters provide (and expect) their tools to withstand; let alone with minimal servicing. Quality stack barreled guns do provide this. Nice choice in the Beretta.

I was in Argentina last week, and we shot Breda shotguns (20 ga) for doves (which appeared to be a Benelli clone). While I was impressed with the gun on my first day as there were no FTF's, on the 2nd and 3rd days there were WAY too many FTF's. The day I killed 1000; the first 2 hrs I was alternating between 2 of them as I was melting both of them down. Pieces/chunks of metal were falling out of the actions...but there's no telling how many hundreds of 1000's of rounds those guns have had ran through them? The guns were cleaned every evening by the bird boys, and I'd stop by the range room in the evening to assist (not needed though), but they had a well-established cleaning program. Both of my buddy's Breda's functioned fantastic though, so I figure I just had some bad luck with older guns.