Beretta A300 Ultima Patrol Review (vs. Beretta 1301)

Today on TFB TV, you're getting a full review of the brand new Beretta A300 Ultima patrol shotgun. If you want the dedicated video on the 500 round burndown torture test for this shotgun, there should be a link up there, I think in that corner and in the description. So go check that out if you want to see just the burndown. One of the biggest success stories in the gun industry over the past few years has to be the Beretta 1301. The Gardone Valtrompia powerhouse has turned out a semi-automatic 12-gauge tactical shotgun that's quickly dominated the tactical shotgun market. Lighter, less expensive than a Benelli M4, while dishing out the same level of performance, the 1301 is like a tangy, ripe marinara compared to the more robust, buttery M4 Alfredo. The 1301 has been so dominant that many of us out there forget that a Gen 1 version introduced in 2013 was kind of meh. However, Beretta, a surprisingly agile company for being half of a millennium in age, tweaked the 1301 Gen 2 into the virtually perfect semi-automatic shotgun, but prices for the 1301 have started creeping up with inflation, increased production costs, and certainly increased demand, even though Italy's turning out as many of these shotguns as they can. That means that 1301s are getting harder to find, and they're going across the gun counter for more than their $1,500 MSRP, even though now, to be fair, they're being packaged with seven-round shot tubes installed, which used to be a $150 or $200 upgrade you had to get from Nordic Components. Now, while all that's going on, the semi-automatic tactical shotgun market's being flooded with cheap Turkish shotguns, including Benelli M4 clones, one of which I've reviewed before, the SDS TAC-12, and it was, frankly, an abysmal failure. However, I think 80% of the Turkish clone M4 market is purchased purely as Call of Duty LARP, so who gives a shit if it works? But you also have a capable competitor in the Mossberg 940 Tactical with excellent features like micro red dot mounting capability with co-witness and an extended shot tube. The 940s can be found for under $1,000 and are a fantastic bargain and easier to find. Thus, with the 1301 pricing approaching Benelli dollars being harder to find, it's a wise move for Beretta to introduce an option for shooters who want to stay under a $1,000 budget, and not only that, but get a complete and ready-to-run shotgun right out of the box that's typical Beretta quality. Now, the stage is set for the Beretta A300 Patrol, which is going to be made in the United States, and it'll bring the price down considerably. It'll also be a little bit different using what Beretta calls an angular gas system, as well as a non-rotating bolt head, while the 1301 uses the extremely fast and reliable Blink operating system, a polished rotating bolt head. This gun will use pretty much the same controls as the 1301 in the same furniture pattern, so do you get this, the A300 Ultimate Patrol, or do you spend a few more bucks for the 1301? Even though the A300 Patrol is going to be made in the U.S., it feels like a Beretta. What I mean by that, fit and finish, top-notch for a semi-automatic shotgun. I know some of you out there are going to be disappointed with the polymer furniture and the polymer mag tube coupler here, which is understandable, but guys, this is a tactical shotgun. It's not against the rules here. Go back to shooting parrots or whatever with your Brazilian nutwood stocks. I think the furniture is great, and I must say Beretta should strongly consider packaging this forend with the Beretta 1301, because I think it might be better. It's got great grip checkering on here, very aggressive, three M-lock slots at 3, 6, and 9. You can see my setup on my 1301. I've got a flashlight pressure switch taped to my 1301 OD green handguard, like my name's Bubba Salvatore, and obviously I can't swap the handguards, because then my beautiful green machine becomes something impure with a different colored handguard. The Patrol forend also feels slimmer and is ergonomically fantastic, although barrel heat could become an issue with the thinner A300 grip, because during the burndown, I could actually feel the heat through the handguard and through my gloves. However, it's not a really realistic scenario of shooting hundreds of rounds back to back to back to back as quickly as possible. The 1301 and the Patrol both feature a 19-inch barrel with interchangeable chokes, if that's important to you. Can't remember the last time I've changed a choke on a tactical shotgun. The A300 comes with a custom-cut Velcro loop segment, you can see right here, for the left side of the receiver, for the installation and use of Velcro shotgun cards. I've done a number of videos on shotgun cards in the past, but they're superior, in my opinion, to hard side saddles in nearly every way. So what I love about using shotgun cards is seven-round shotgun cards will load up a tube in your A300, and they're pretty much the exact same size as a loaded AR-15 magazine, or an empty AR-15 magazine, duh, but you get what I'm saying. So that means if you have an M4 like this Blue Force Gear split rig, this is the 10-speed split rig, made for AR mags, look at that. Works perfectly with shotgun cards. It's kind of cool that Beretta includes this little Velcro sticker as a bonus. And another area where the Patrol excels, this beveled, enlarged feeding port. My god, it's excellent. So much easier to load than the 1301, which is already pretty good, but the Patrol is pretty damn close to top tier. You're gonna have to go to tier and tactical, or get something better like a gamer gun or something, match, three-gun match shotgun, in order to get a better feeding system than this. Loading is really easy. It actually really is with this loading port. Fantastic touch. Would love to have this in my 1301. Super easy loading this thing, really it is. Little bit of a side note, I'm one of those guys that suffers from thumb pinch. That is, I get my thumb caught between the lifter gate and the receiver, right here in the mag tube, when I'm stuffing shells into the tube. Still happens to me with either the 1301 or the Patrol, but using the Patrol, that problem's pretty much non-existent when I'm wearing gloves. The gloves I'm using in this video are the 5.11 High Abrasion Tac Glove. 5.11 sponsors the program, and these gloves are excellent. You guys know me, I wouldn't say that if I didn't mean it, but in typical 5.11 fashion, they're already being discontinued, it looks like, and they're on sale for just 18 bucks, with only a few sizes left. So I think I would go buy them at the link that I've got in the description. Ready? We shot 500 rounds through this blazing hot shotgun, and we were still able to execute fine manipulations needed with those gloves on. And that's the other thing, the controls are pretty much identical to the 1301, meaning they've got possibly the best bolt release in the game. Bags of soil, fronzia bladders, Beretta oversized bolt releases, the three funnest things to slap outside of Man's Venus. The oversized cross bolt safety here is easy to manipulate on the fly, and the charging handle is proper Goldilocks size, not too big, not too small, about the same as the 1301. The sights are definitely better than your standard rifle sights or a bead. You've got a ghost ring rear aperture here, and you've got a replaceable fiber optic front sight with protective ears. I've got to mention that with my 1301, my rear sight, which looks identical to this one, actually came loose during a Thunder Ranch shotgun course, but we used red loctite on it, haven't had an issue since. It might not be a bad idea to do the same thing if you get the A300 Patrol. There are, of course, some advantages for the 1301 over the Patrol. Again, the 1301 uses that rotating bolt mechanism, and it's got the fast and reliable blink gas operating system. Beretta claims that blink shotguns can fire 30% faster than the competition. In my experience, probably true. Additionally, the blink gas system is a self-cleaning system, and I've run the blink system again for over a two-day shotgun course with the 1301. Over 1,200 rounds fired at Thunder Ranch, no issues. I'm not telling you that the Patrol is more or less reliable. I just know that the self-cleaning blink system works really well. The operating internals seem different as well. The two-piece Beretta bolt in the 1301 has what seems like a slick surface-treated carrier and a polished chrome bolt head inside of a polished, probably chromed chamber, while the A300 has a standard unpolished chamber and what seems like a standard phosphated bolt. Coincidentally, the A300 Patrol has a smooth, polished lift gate, while the 1301 does not. The 1301 shoots fast, but in my opinion, only expert shotgun shooters are going to be able to outrun the Patrol. Second, the 1301 is specced at 6.5 pounds, while the A300 is listed at 7.1 pounds, but unless my scale's busted, it's showing that the A300 Patrol is actually 6.8 pounds. My fully rigged 1301 with its metal shot tube extension, an optic, a light, and a sling is 7.1 pounds, so weight's probably pretty similar among the two. Point to the Patrol is that you can get it in this sick-ass tiger stripe, too. I'd love to see a Vietnam green and black tiger stripe in the future. Come on, Beretta. Make it happen. Let's do it. Range review. Long story short, we ran 150 rounds of bio-ammo number three birdshot and 350 rounds of random assorted buckshot and slug, including 50 rounds of federal LE buckshot. Not one single issue with reliability. Note that Beretta says the Patrol is optimized for federal LE buck, and boy is it ever. We're going to try this three-inch rated shotgun today with a smorgasbord. I hate that word. A cornucopia, if you will. You guys can see we've got Red Star Ordnance, our good friends from Serbia. We've got a bunch of random Russian shit. We've got bio-ammo, which I've always loved, biodegradable casings, no lead, and actually, very interesting, this is federal LE buckshot, which this gun is optimized for. So we're going to start with 50 rounds of federal LE buckshot. Not exactly the best way to say nice to meet you, right? All right, here we go. All right, I mean that was pretty easy for being like law enforcement buckshot. Could have been a lot worse. That's 50 rounds down already. A relatively pleasurable 50 rounds, I have to say. This really, for shooting full power law enforcement buckshot, really not bad at all. Look, so far so good. Barrel's hot. We've had no malfunctions whatsoever, and really, I can tell that it's optimized for this buckshot because it's doing a very good job of handling, managing that recoil, where it's not too extreme, notwithstanding the fact this is full power buck. For being personal defense buckshot, the federal LE was incredibly easy to shoot through the A300. I wholeheartedly recommend picking up a box or two because that is the ammo this gun is optimized for, and if you're going to use it for self-defense, very easy shooting, very reliable, and of course, we all know that federal buckshot is about as good as it gets. We beat this gun like a rented mule, ran it as hard as we could, all 500 rounds, as quickly as we could possibly load and trade off, getting the barrel so hot that, as I said, I can feel it through my gloves and also through my skin when I accidentally touch the barrel with my forearm, and I gave myself a pretty nasty second degree burn, but I do it because I love you guys. I should mention at this point that sometimes European 2.75 inch shells are not really two and three quarter inches. That's because those poor bastards aren't on the superior imperial measurement system, and they can't nail down the right units exactly, probably, but the European buckshot and slugs we used would only give us about six rounds of capacity in the tube. See, it's doing it again with this stuff too, where something about this European buckshot, where it's like, seems like it must be longer than what we have in the U.S., because some of these, I'm cramming the tube all the way full, but it only gets six, and then the seventh one, just barely, we're talking like a couple tenths of an inch, won't go all the way in. So, all right, we'll just go ahead and shoot it like this. It's going to pop. This round's going to pop right out, but here we go. Yep, the last round would almost go in, but just be like a tenth of an inch or two tenths of an inch off. That's not a knock on Beretta. It's not their fault. That's an issue that I've seen quite frequently, actually, with European buckshot and slugs. This was no exception. Uh-oh. And of course, for the federal buckshot, we easily got all seven in the mag tube. Handling with the controls, just perfect. Great balance. We knew it was going to be great, because the essentially copied the 1301's homework. The trigger's great. Reloads are easy with this new loading port. Furniture's excellent. Not exactly perfect, though. You've got QD points on the left and right side of the barrel clamp up here, and one at the bottom of the stock. I've read some complaints about some QD sockets not working with the QD points on the patrol, but my Blue Force Gear QD sling mounts work just fine. The barrel clamp's plastic, and it did actually work its way loose during the burndown, probably while we were doing barricade drills, almost off the end of the barrel. I think maybe aluminum or metal would probably be better. I'd recommend maybe tightening this clamp as part of your maintenance procedure, maybe using a little bit of light thread locker on the screws every range session or so. In short, yeah, I like my 1301 better than the A300. Got it right here. And I think generally the 1301's a better shotgun, although the A300 does have this superior loading port, a polished lifting gate, furniture with M-lock slots and QD sockets, so you aren't taking it a true step down from the 1301 when you go to the patrol. I guess your main differences are going to be the blink gas system in the 1301, some of the more superior surface treatments in the internals of the 1301, and other than having a slightly slower operating mechanism, the patrol feels, operates similarly to the 1301. And in spite of what the spec sheets say, they're also similar in weight. The 1301 is made in Beretta's HQ in Italy. The patrol's made in Tennessee. Even if I think my 1301 is superior, which I do, damn, if I were in your shoes and I didn't have either one of these, I were in the market right now, I'd say it might be hard to drop anywhere between an extra $400 or $600 on the 1301. So again, make sure to check out that burndown video if you want to see the gritty details of the A300's performance on the range, getting hot as hell. This is a fantastic shotgun. I was incredibly impressed. Now, of course, this is going to cannibalize some 1301 sales for Beretta, but I think it was also important for them to come out with this to compete with the less expensive sub $1,000 options, and they did that masterfully. In my opinion, really the only shotguns, semi-auto shotguns you should be looking at under $1,000, I'm thinking are the A300 patrol and the Mossberg 940 tactical, because both of those are fantastic. Just get whichever one you want. But man, I got to say, once you factor in the Tiger Stripe, maybe a slight edge goes to the A300 patrol. Guys, thanks a ton for watching this video. Thank you to our sponsor, Ventura Munitions. If you need to get 12 gauge shotgun shells, go check out the boys in Vegas, Ventura Munitions. Also, if you're looking for a shotgun, hopefully they have them. I don't know, Top Gun Supply, they may have the Beretta Ultima Patrol. Go to their website, check them out, support them because they support us, your online shooting sports superstore. But as usual, thank you so much for watching and take care.