by JOHN T. AMBER
The AL-2 gas- operated autoloader (make in 12-and 20-gauge) has some new touches this year. Buttstock and fore-end show more checkering, in a new pattern, treatment of the now capped pistol grip has been improved, and the fore-end offers a wider, more hand-filling form. Field guns show new de luxe engraving, with additional amounts on Skeet and trap models. Easy and virtually complete disassembly of the AL-2 permits quick cleaning and inspection, a much-neglected job with some other autos. Extra barrels are readily exchanged, too, without tools or initial factory fitting.
The AL-2 offers extra safety, too—live shells can e removed from the magazine without shuffling them through action, and a heavy, hardened steel block cams the firing pin back until the bolt is lully home.
The rest of the large Garcia-beretta line continues in production—there’s an inexpensive single-barrel folding gun in 12 or 20; another single made in 12 gauge only, the TR-1 or TR-2, and an excellent buy in a trapgun at its low $160 cost($185 for the vent-rib TR-2); the fine Beretta BR series, a range of side-by-side doubles in 12- and 20-gauge, I consider Best Buys in their type class: the GR-4, made with single selective trigger, ventilated rib, auto ejectors and a semi-beavertail fore-end, is an especially good value.
The Beretta SL-2, a recrently-introduced pump 12 bore that exhibits numerous excellent features, appears to have been taken off the Garcia list, perhaps pro tem.
Beretta will be delivering a single barrl trapgun before long, Dick Wolf has told me. This will be on the BL frame, their boxlock gun, and the tentative designation is the Mark II.
