News Brief – 10/5

Fabbrica d’Armi Pietro Beretta S.p.A., best just known here as Beretta, is celebrating their 495th birthday on October 3rd, tracing the company’s entrance into the firearms biz to 1526 when Maestro di Canne (master gun-barrel maker) Bartolomeo Beretta sold 185 arquebus barrels to the old Republic of Venice for 296 ducats.

They’ve updated their design since then and are still going strong.

They will probably be pushing new models of the Beretta 92 in the 22nd Century, at which point you will probably just print it out while you eat your protein pills. We recommend the spaghetti-flavored ones. 

Check out the private collection in Beretta’s in-house museum, which has 1,500 guns on hand, many priceless.

Because it’s good to be in the firearms game for five centuries, that’s why.

Most serious shooters have heard of Nosler bullets and ammo components, but the Oregon-based company has also been marking in-roads into the rifle market that have largely flown under the radar.

Now, with the Nosler 21 series, they have something superb for the 21st Century. If you want semi-custom features, the gun has it, coming from the factory with a spiral fluted, one-piece, Nitride coated bolt made of 4340 Chrome Moly steel and a Shilen match grade barrel.

The Nosler 21 also has a TriggerTech single-stage adjustable trigger and lightweight stock that keep everything in the 7-pound range.

Calibers are mostly in the company’s impossible to find high-performance types (22 Nosler, 26 Nosler, 27 Nosler, 28 Nosler, 30 Nosler, and 33 Nosler) but also include 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.5 PRC, 280 Ackley Improved, 308 Win, 300 Win Mag, and 375 H&H for those with more mid-shelf tastes. 

MSRP is around $2,300.

Somewhere in New Hampshire, Sig Sauer probably has their engineers locked in Level 16 type blocks and only lets them out for exercise if they come up with a new gun design.

That would explain why Sig introduces new installments to existing lines seemingly every week.

This week’s catalog addition is Wick-level SIG Custom Shop Spectre treatments for the P320 XCarry and P365XL.

Both run TiN gold barrels and flat-faced triggers. Other features include X-RAY3 Day/Night sights and other Custom Shop tweaks.

One of only two publicly traded gun companies– with the other being Ruger– S&W is by far the oldest, dating back to 1852.

For almost all that time their core factory has been in Springfield, Massachusetts, but, due to a promise from local lawmakers backed up with legislation to block the company from making black rifles in the state, Smith announced last week they are moving 750 jobs, mostly from BoSox territory, down to Tennessee where they are building a new $23 million factory.

Also caught in the crossfire is a logistics hub in Missouri and an injection molding plant in Connecticut that S&W is closing and shifting to the Volunteer State.

About 1,000 or so jobs will remain in Springfield, where Smith will keep making wheelguns as they are more politically acceptable there.

The NSSF has a list of companies that have made similar moves in recent years, typically leaving dark blue states for purple to red ones.

Besides the obvious political optics, what isn’t mentioned is that the moves almost always come with free money and tax breaks from the new state while at the same time the company is benefiting from cheaper, non-union labor.

Bottom lines, after all. 

Springfield Armory has a thing about way too long pistol names and their newest piece, the “XD-M Elite 3.8 Compact OSP 10mm” lives up to past tropes.

However, once you wade through the title you realize that this handgun has some serious EDC potential if you like 10mm Auto and can get past the fact that it’s an XD.

It runs 11-shot mags with optional 15s, has an optics cut, an accessory rail, and a size comparable to the Glock 29 but with better ergos and the ability to add an MRD.

The asking price is $600ish without optics or $800ish with Springfield’s curious HEX Dragonfly MRD.

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