Benelli .22 Buffer Question

[Julie Sanders]

Hi all,

I have a shot a Benelli MP90S for around 17 years, love the pistol it suits me much better than a Pardini.

Could someone please explain to me what the buffer does?

I had a supply of red buffers, was told to keep the unused ones in the fridge until needed to stop them from crumbling, they still crumbled. Presently I have a blue one in there and for the life of me I can't remember where it came from. It has started to get a small indentation, could this cause stove pipes and failure to ejects?

My husband wants to make me a buffer out of a nylon(?) chopping board, but not understanding totally the function of the buffer and how it exactly works I'm not sure if this is a good or bad idea.

Any help would be much appreciated.

[Gwhite]

In the USA, the importer for many years got tired of the factory buffers crumbling, and he had an injection molding company make new ones out of a fairly stiff polyethylene or polypropylene material. I've never had a problem with them, and I have to maintain a total of 23 Benellis for my myself, my daughter, and the collegiate team I help coach. There are others who claim the US made ones disintegrate quickly, which makes me suspect they got factory ones, or a bad batch. The material is not as hard as a nylon cutting board. The factory ones are definitely softer.

I think the buffers serve two purposes:

1) They cushion things a bit so the pistol doesn't beat itself to death.

2) In terms of cycling/functioning, I think the cushioning they provide may prevent rounds in the magazine from sliding forward under the jolt of the bolt hitting a hard stop. Pardinis also have buffer system, and I think the cycling problems that occur when their buffers go bad may be from that effect. I've never seen cycling problems with Benellis that I could trace to a bad buffer. I replace them when the pieces start falling out of the pistol...

I don't think the exact material is super critical. Some shooters who don't like the US made ones have fabricated their own from "key fobs" that are often given away by auto dealers. The material is about the right thickness, but it is softer than the factory or US made buffers.

Stove pipes & failures to eject are more likely to be either carbon build up in the chamber, or a worn/bad extractor setup. I've posted info on both issues.

[j-team]

My husband wants to make me a buffer out of a nylon(?) chopping board...

I suspect that nylon will be too brittle. You need to find some industrial urethane, it comes in different hardness, sometimes it's colour coded so you know which grade you have. Skateboard wheels are made of it, if you google make your own skateboard wheels, you can use that technique just modify it for pistol buffers.

[Julie Sanders]

Thank you both very much for the information.

I get the occasional stovepipe lately (the buffer probably has 10-11 bricks of SKK pistol ammo on it) but more common lately is the empty case jammed perfectly pointing forward and caught in the chamber.

I've always known if I had a good shot before scoping if I got hit fair in the face with an empty with my Benelli.

My husband cleans my pistols and he cleaned the Benelli this morning and it was pretty dirty, so I hope that alleviates the issue. I can deal with it easily in the precision series, but its putting me off in dueling and I'm developing the habit of quickly looking at the chamber between shots which as you can imagine is not a good habit!

Thanks again

[Gwhite]

I'm in the middle of a bunch of experiments on chamber cleaning. I have used a .25 caliber rifle brush for years (http://www.targettalk.org/viewtopic.php ... 96#p186896) on the theory that it would do a much better job than a 0.22 caliber bush, especially one that had been through the bore a few times...

A lot will depend on how your pistol is cleaned & how often. What I've found with a fairly minimalist approach is that over time, I STILL get hard carbon building up in the chamber, and that can cause the kind of jams you describe. Once your husband thinks it's clean, run a wet patch with BreakFree CLP, RemOil or Benelli Oil on it through the bore, and let it sit overnight. Then brush the chamber, and run some patches through the bore. I suspect you will find a LOT of carbon that was loosened up by letting it sit. None of the commercial carbon removers that you are supposed to let sit for only 10 or 15 minutes are nearly as effective.

I was having problems with my own Benelli, and had jams like you describe, even after my normal cleaning process with the .25 caliber brush. I had a new borescope, and found the chamber was still badly fouled. I tried all sorts of things, but once I finally got it clean, I torture tested it by putting 1100 rounds through the pistol before it started acting up again.

[Julie Sanders]

I'm in the middle of a bunch of experiments on chamber cleaning. I have used a .25 caliber rifle brush for years (http://www.targettalk.org/viewtopic.php ... 96#p186896) on the theory that it would do a much better job than a 0.22 caliber bush, especially one that had been through the bore a few times...

A lot will depend on how your pistol is cleaned & how often. What I've found with a fairly minimalist approach is that over time, I STILL get hard carbon building up in the chamber, and that can cause the kind of jams you describe. Once your husband thinks it's clean, run a wet patch with BreakFree CLP, RemOil or Benelli Oil on it through the bore, and let it sit overnight. Then brush the chamber, and run some patches through the bore. I suspect you will find a LOT of carbon that was loosened up by letting it sit. None of the commercial carbon removers that you are supposed to let sit for only 10 or 15 minutes are nearly as effective.

I was having problems with my own Benelli, and had jams like you describe, even after my normal cleaning process with the .25 caliber brush. I had a new borescope, and found the chamber was still badly fouled. I tried all sorts of things, but once I finally got it clean, I torture tested it by putting 1100 rounds through the pistol before it started acting up again.

Thank you