The unusual Benelli B76: initial thoughts and observations

What awsome pictures op. Nice write up too.
Very professional.

Walkalong said:

Yes, fixed it.

I load these for it, but it shoots lead ones superbly.
View attachment 1093815

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Yes it’s a great bullseye gun. Very accurate

The design is straight blowback, which works great for low powered calibers.

Thanks for sharing

Here in Italy they can be found at cheap prices (around 250 euros). Over the years I have personally seen numerous examples for sale at my LGS, all in excellent condition. Unfortunately they were chambered in 7.65mm Parabellum (.30 Luger), an increasingly expensive and increasingly difficult to find cartridge. Unfortunately at the time they were in production, the 9mm Parabellum for civilian pistols was banned in Italy, so only the .30 Luger and 9x18 Police ones were available (I saw a few in this caliber too). I don't know if they even existed in .380 ACP. Unfortunately, I don't think they ever made them in 9x21 IMI which is the most popular pistol caliber in Italy. They are certainly very beautiful and well made pistols, as well as interesting from a mechanical and constructional point of view. If I happened to find an example in .32 ACP caliber or, if it exists, in .380 ACP caliber, I would certainly consider purchasing it.

5-SHOTS said:

Here in Italy they can be found at cheap prices (around 250 euros). Over the years I have personally seen numerous examples for sale at my LGS, all in excellent condition. Unfortunately they were chambered in 7.65mm Parabellum (.30 Luger), an increasingly expensive and increasingly difficult to find cartridge. Unfortunately at the time they were in production, the 9mm Parabellum for civilian pistols was banned in Italy, so only the .30 Luger and 9x18 Police ones were available (I saw a few in this caliber too). I don't know if they even existed in .380 ACP. Unfortunately, I don't think they ever made them in 9x21 IMI which is the most popular pistol caliber in Italy. They are certainly very beautiful and well made pistols, as well as interesting from a mechanical and constructional point of view. If I happened to find an example in .32 ACP caliber or, if it exists, in .380 ACP caliber, I would certainly consider purchasing it.

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After Benelli stopped making these guns, they eventually sold some of the remaining inventory on the US market. Like 5-SHOTS says, these all seemed to be in 30 Luger, which here, like in Europe, is far less common than 9mm Para, and which no one seems to make with modern hollow point bullets. So, to encourage sales, Benelli included a spare 9mm Para barrel with every gun. This did not help a whole lot, because changing the barrel on a B-76 is a job for a gunsmith, very few of whom are familiar with the gun. I wonder if any of the spare barrels ever get sold back to Europe, to people like 5-SHOTS who might actually use them? I suppose most collectors here want to keep their specimen complete and ANIB.

Some years after that, BTW, Simpson's LTD in Galesburg, IL (and maybe other dealers too) got ahold of some Benellis in 9mm Police / Ultra. These had actual wear on them, and seem to have been issued to some police or security force somewheres. Some of them had black plastic grips, which I have not seen on other Benellis. They sold fairly quickly, as the Benelli was had acquired collector status by then, despite the fact that 9mm Police is much harder to get than even 30 Luger. I pity the cops who had to carry them instead of the much smaller Walther PP Super or the 9mm Police version of the SIg 230.

I add some considerations.

By now I do not believe that any 9 Parabellum barrel for Benelli B76/B80 will return to Italy from the United States and not even any complete pistol because in my opinion there is no real demand here for these pistols and also because there are many bureaucratic issues to be deal including a new transition to the Banco Nazionale di Prova (National Proof Bench).

From this year the 9 Parabellum caliber has finally been made legal for Italian civilians and therefore the pistols in this caliber can finally be imported and sold but again I don't see great prospects here for the Benelli B76/B80 even as a collector's pistol and even if is a very very nice pistol.

What I wonder is why Benelli never thought of reaming 2mm deeper those 9 Parabellum spare barrels to chamber the 9x21 IMI caliber. They probably felt they would sell the remaining .30 Luger pistols, adding also 9mm Parabellum spare barrels, more easily to the US market instead of the Italian market and so they did.

It is strange how, here in Italy, the .30 Luger pistols that had considerable sells before the 9x21 IMI was available, are now sold at very low prices. My father himself had a Browning HP35 specially factory built for the .30 Luger, with thinner barrel and modified slide that could not be both modified for the 9mm Parabellum and then he also had a Beretta 92FS .30 Luger. I think the low prices for .30 Luger pistols is caused by .30 Luger's ammo cost and poor availability which, again, is very strange given the high number of pistols sold in Italy in this caliber.

As for the 9 Ultra (aka 9 Police) Benelli B76/B80 I can confirm that also the examples I saw at my LGS had black grips even if I don't know if they were made of plastic or bakelite. The sights were fixed steel ones with the classic white vertical little rectangles typical of Benellis.

"OK, so far there’s nothing really unusual about the pistol"
I have to disagree, as I have one also (B80, 7.65 Parabellum) and I feel it is a good deal different from any other gun I own. The frame is welded together from two stamped parts, well, so is the original Ruger standard model, but the inertial lock is brilliant, and I've said before, full well knowing people would flame me, that the breech block toggled down into the frame's recces is a lock that can be released only after the frame and slide are slowing down.

As long as the recoiling pistol is accelerating backwards (Exactly proportional to the bullet's simultaneous acceleration the other direction) it is impossible for the breech to open. It can only begin to open after the gun begins deceleration, after the bullet is outside the barrel.

I believe this is a fact that could easily be proven with a high speed camera, and I sure wish someone would either prove me wrong or right on that. It would require a method to measure the velocity of the frame during firing both during acceleration and deceleration while showing when the breech block begins to open, and I believe the breech block only begins to open when downward pressure of the toggle lightens up as the frame begins to slow down.

As long as the pistol is accelerating backwards the rear of the breech block is cammed under force from the toggle (Which is pressured downward by the slide's resistance to recoiling at the same rate as the frame), and the only way higher pressure, as in a +P+++ round for instance, would force it to open the breech block while the bullet is accelerating would be if something broke, just as in any locked breech pistol.

The best argument I can imagine against it being a locked breech is if someone said it is a difference without any possible distinction, because the breech block cannot begin to open while the toggle is under pressure from the inertial resistance of the slide lagging during recoil against the toggle after pressure has dissipated (And simultaneously acceleration from the bullet's acceleration ceasing too, of course).
I'm not trying to be argumentative, but the mechanics of the locking mechanism are quite clear to me and a few others, but perhaps it's not easy to see how impossible premature unlocking really is as long as of the laws physics remain in effect.

Sometimes it seems difficult to distinguish a delayed blowback system from a locked breech system.
In my opinion there are two simple ways to distinguish them: the first, and most immediate, is that in delayed blowback systems, when you manually operate the slide, the barrel chamber and the breech face of the slide/bolt immediately separate from each other because there is nothing that keeps them locked together. The second way is to observe that in delayed blowback systems, an external force is needed to make the delayed system work. For example, in the HK P7 delayed blowback system, gas action is required. In the MAB PA-15 delayed blowback system it is necessary the rotation force of the bullet in the barrel. In the HK P9S and Benelli B76 system I would say that the backward push of the case on the breech of the bolt is required to make the system act. In the absence of these external forces, the delayed blowback systems work like a straight blowback system.
On the other hand, in locked breech systems, barrel and slide remain locked together for a certain travel regardless of whether the cycle is performed manually or during live firing.
This is why in Italy we talk about pistols with stable closing (in the case of locked breech systems), pistols with labile closing (in the case of the straight blowback system) and pistols with labile closing with opening delay (in the case of the delayed blowback system).

5-SHOTS said:

Sometimes it seems difficult to distinguish a delayed blowback system from a locked breech system.
In my opinion there are two simple ways to distinguish them: the first, and most immediate, is that in delayed blowback systems, when you manually operate the slide, the barrel chamber and the breech face of the slide/bolt immediately separate from each other because there is nothing that keeps them locked together. The second way is to observe that in delayed blowback systems, an external force is needed to make the delayed system work. For example, in the HK P7 delayed blowback system, gas action is required. In the MAB P15 delayed blowback system it is necessary the rotation force of the bullet in the barrel. In the HK P9S and Benelli B76 system I would say that the backward push of the case on the breech of the bolt is required to make the system act. In the absence of these external forces, the delayed blowback systems work like a straight blowback system.
On the other hand, in locked breech systems, barrel and slide remain locked together for a certain travel regardless of whether the cycle is performed manually or during live firing.
This is why in Italy we talk about pistols with stable closing (in the case of locked breech systems), pistols with labile closing (in the case of the straight blowback system) and pistols with labile closing with opening delay (in the case of the delayed blowback system).

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Yes exactly

I mentioned this earlier in the thread. A locked breech design does not need to be fired to have the barrel and slide locked together.

All the Benelli pistols are blowbacks, in my book. Some are straight blowback, while the more powerful rounds are delayed.

Dragonfly said:

Perhaps it’s just semantics, but to me, since the breechblock is locked in place until the slide moves rearwards I consider this a locked breech action. It’s not night and day different from the FN FAL’s tilting bolt action.

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I respectfully disagree. It is not a semantic question, it is a conceptual question. To affirm that a system is of the locked breech type, it is necessary that barrel and slide/bolt are locked together. Think of the Glock: if there were no locking block in the frame, to tilt the barrel down at some point, slide and barrel would continue to recoil together precisely because they are locked together. In delayed blowback pistols, the moment you retract the slide, barrel and breech separate from each other. The fact that in some delayed blowback systems the bolt moves slightly with respect to the slide is irrelevant because in any case these systems do not keep barrel and slide locked together. This is why, I repeat, in Italy we use the "labile closure" concept for blowback and delayed blowback pistols. In this regard, I will tell you a story that I think is interesting. Around the end of the 1990s, Tanfoglio marketed a South African-designed pistol called Tanfoglio P25 in Italy. It is the same gun that was marketed a few years ago by Wilson Combat and which was called Wilson ADP, if I remember correctly. It was a 9x19 caliber pistol that worked on the same principle as the HK P7. In order to be marketed in Italy, the chamber was reamed 2mm deeper to be able to fire the 9x21 IMI as the 9x19 was still banned. Do you know what happened? It happened that, as the 9x21 case closed the gas hole which was slightly forward the 9x19mm case, the slide moved back quickly for about 2mm, then the gas hole was finally released, the gases entered the hole and the slide closed again against the barrel and then opened again and finally completed the firing cycle. All of this is to say that without that hole, those kind of pistols are just blowbacks.

Returning to the Benelli B76, there are some interesting videos on how it works. You can clearly see how the bolt movement is a simple tilting in place but above all you can see how, when fired, slide/bolt and barrel separate virtually instantly because they are not locked together.





Notice that in the Forgotten Weapons video, the word "locked" is pronounced but it is not referring to the bolt/barrel lock because that lock simply does not exist.

Semantics and mechanics can get involved, but I agree that the Benelli is delayed or retarded blowback.

Trivia: Tanfoglio showed guns on the FAR - Fast, Accurate, Reliable - system.
The gun is pure blowback, no trick mechanics at all.
The ammunition is different. The cartridge case has a very thick head, with case length of 23mm but internal volume of a 9mm P.
So when the shot is fired the slide starts to blow back immediately but by the time the thick head is out of the chamber, the bullet is gone and the pressure dropping fast.
Note that Mr Pedersen designed the Remington PA51 for the internal breechblock to set back the thickness of a regular .380 case head before slide movement started.

I'm sorry to say so explicitly but the 9mm FAR is the typical example of a solution to a non-existent problem. Tanfoglio simply tried to propose a 9mm blowback pistol that fired a very expensive ammunition due to the very expensive case.
History has instead shown that, if you want, you can easily build blowback pistols that fires the cheap 9x19 cartridge without problems.
The last excellent 9mm blowback pistol was the Italian QS Armi which offered a 1911 blowback series of pistols which however failed because the prices were very high and the italian market was rather limited.
Some pics from the web:


QS Armi is also the inventor of the 7 Penna cartridge which was also a flop along with the pistol designed to shoot it.
Some pics from the web:


Returning to the 9mm FAR, here is a very detailed article which, however, seems to me to get too involved in the emphasis of the then novelty and focuses more on marketing than substance. Unfortunately, it is something that often happens with news: you get fascinated only to discover that not all that glitters is gold. Obviously you will have to use google translate to easily read the article:
http://web.tiscali.it/armimagazine/FAR.html

I am familiar with the 7mm Penna (and the 7.92 VBR) to which I would refer whenever the subject of "Why don't THEY make a .32 Super?" Well, THEY did, and now we have the .30 Super Carry, all of which have sunk without a trace.

Have you got a source on the QS Armi blowback 9mm P?

I think they were in cahoots with STI at one time. You could get a lot of 7mms in a 2011 magazine.

5-SHOTS said:

Tanfoglio simply tried to propose a 9mm blowback pistol that fired a very expensive ammunition due to the very expensive case.

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Kind of like the Gyrojet; expensive rockets, cheap launcher.


Google Translate is pretty good. That article was very optimistic... in 2001. Where's the beef?

I have some reviews from italian gun magazines, both of the QS Armi 9mm pistols (9x21 IMI in Italy) and the 7 Penna pistols.
Yes, for the 9mm pistols they used STI 2011 double stack polymer/steel frames and some all steel double stack 1911 frames that I can't recognize.

The 7 Penna pistols have an italian made Ergal 7075 frame with glued wood panels. The hammer on the 7 Penna pistols can be decocked by pushing down the hammer spur and it is cocked again when you push down the thumb safety.
They also developed an Ergal slide model designed to shoot a super light 7 Penna bullet.

Dragonfly said:

Perhaps it’s just semantics, but to me, since the breechblock is locked in place until the slide moves rearwards I consider this a locked breech action. It’s not night and day different from the FN FAL’s tilting bolt action.

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It’s not locked together though. A locked breech keeps the slide and barrel locked together as the slide gets moved rearward. The Benelli doesn’t work like that.

They are blowback guns. The slide moves rearward completely separate from the barrel. This is true of the straight blowback small caliber models and the delayed blowback 9mm and 30 Luger models.

5-SHOTS said:

I respectfully disagree. It is not a semantic question, it is a conceptual question. To affirm that a system is of the locked breech type it is necessary that barrel and slide/bolt are locked together. Think of the Glock: if there were no locking block in the frame, to tilt the barrel down at some point, slide and barrel would continue to recoil together precisely because they are locked together. In delayed blowback pistols, the moment you retract the slide, barrel and breech separate from each other. The fact that in some delayed blowback systems the bolt moves slightly with respect to the slide is irrelevant because in any case these systems do not keep barrel and slide locked together. This is why, I repeat, in Italy we use the "labile closure" concept for blowback and delayed blowback pistols. In this regard, I will tell you a story that I think is interesting. Around the end of the 1990s, Tanfoglio marketed a South African-designed pistol called Tanfoglio P25 in Italy. It is the same gun that was marketed a few years ago by Wilson Combat and which was called Wilson ADP, if I remember correctly. It was a 9x19 caliber pistol that worked on the same principle as the HK P7. In order to be marketed in Italy, the chamber was reamed 2mm deeper to be able to fire the 9x21 IMI as the 9x19 was still banned. Do you know what happened? It happened that, as the 9x21 case closed the gas hole which was slightly forward the 9x19mm case, the slide moved back quickly for about 2mm, then the gas hole was finally released, the gases entered the hole and the slide closed again against the barrel and then opened again and finally completed the firing cycle. All of this is to say that without that hole, those kind of pistols are just blowbacks.

Returning to the Benelli B76, there are some interesting videos on how it works. You can clearly see how the bolt movement is a simple tilting in place but above all you can see how, when fired, slide/bolt and barrel separate virtually instantly because they are not locked together.





Notice that in the Forgotten Weapons video, the word "locked" is pronounced but it is not referring to the bolt/barrel lock because that lock simply does not exist.

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Yeah I’ve watched that video multiple times. Ian does a nice job reviewing it, but it’s definitely a delayed blowback design.

Jim Watson said:

Have you got a source on the QS Armi blowback 9mm P?

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I did an internet search but found no reviews on QS Armi 9x21 IMI caliber pistols. There is only a few sales announcements.
The only review I found that is readable with google translate concerns the pistol 7 Penna caliber and is an archival article from an Italian guns magazine:
https://www.armietiro.it/qs-armi-102-kp-calibro-7-mm-penna-1-innovativa-in-tutto-armi-2389

That archive is pretty interesting even if there are only few pistols of the ones they reviewed over the years:
https://www.armietiro.it/prove/pistole-automatiche

Among the reviews there is also that of another interesting Italian pistol, the Pardini GT9:
https://www.armietiro.it/pardini-gt-9-calibro-9x21-armi-625

I saw one of these Benelli pistols in a Florida gun shop in the early 2000s, beautifully made, if I had known how cool it was I probably would have bought it.

bc1023 said:

Yeah I’ve watched that video multiple times. Ian does a nice job reviewing it, but it’s definitely a delayed blowback design.

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I would like to point out that in the Forgotten Weapons review the role of the push force of the case (pressure) on the breech face of the bolt is clear. The reviewer speaks of two opposing forces (which are precisely the push force of the case as opposed to the resistance of the slide to retract, given by the mass (inertia) of the slide itself, by the recoil spring and by the hammer spring). Without the push force of the spent case on the bolt's breech face (which causes the 8-shaped toggle lever to hold down the bolt for an instant), the bolt would simply move upwards dragged by the slide with minimal resistances given above all by the lower step between the bolt and the frame. In fact, manually retracting the slide, the pistol will act like a simple straight blowback.

Jim Watson said:

I am familiar with the 7mm Penna (and the 7.92 VBR) to which I would refer whenever the subject of "Why don't THEY make a .32 Super?" Well, THEY did, and now we have the .30 Super Carry, all of which have sunk without a trace.

Have you got a source on the QS Armi blowback 9mm P?

I think they were in cahoots with STI at one time. You could get a lot of 7mms in a 2011 magazine.



Kind of like the Gyrojet; expensive rockets, cheap launcher.


Google Translate is pretty good. That article was very optimistic... in 2001. Where's the beef?

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Wait - 30 Super Carry has ALREADY sunk without a trace?! When did that happen? I did not get the memo, gosh darn it!

Nice video and beautiful weather

I actually never found it a great shooter and agree with some of your observations. They are just cool and interesting. Check out a Pardini GT9 sometime for an awesome shooting Italian pistol.