This evening I got to shoot my Beretta 71 with 3 extra mags: a Bersa 644 magazine, and two Triple K mags made for the Beretta Model 76. I neglected to count how many rounds I put through the pistol tonight but it had to be 200 - 250, all Remington Golden Bullets of recent manufacture. I didn't have any ammo-related issues, although I did notice that the gun tends to spit unburnt powder more with the Remington GBs than with CCI ammo.
The Bersa 644 mag worked very well. It's a snug fit in the Beretta 71's magazine well, but worked fine loaded up to its 10 round capacity, for at least 50 rounds. I had one failure to chamber that was fixed by bumping the back of the slide with my hand.
The two Triple K brand mags were made for the Beretta 76, which has a longer grip than the 71, so they stick out a bit. They also functioned well, although a couple times I had feeding issues on the first round in the mag when it was presented to the chamber at the wrong angle. Paying closer attention on my part to how the mag was loaded would alleviate this. Otherwise, they functioned just fine for at least 50 or 60 rounds through each magazine.
Now that I've confirmed that the Model 76 magazines work, I plan to make spacers from Nylon or Delrin to go around the magazine bodies between the end of the pistol grip and the mag floorplate. They should be pretty easy to make with my mill and a file.
I have two Triple K mags made specifically for the Model 71 on backorder, and two Excam GT-22 mags that I plan to modify to work with the Beretta.
Now that I've put a few hundred rounds through the Beretta Model 71 I can see why it has a it of a cult following. It's a nice, reliable, compact .22 autoloader that's plain fun to shoot.
