I recently ordered a Benelli M4, its currently about 20 days away from delivery to my LGS. I didnt do as much research as I should have before I bought it, and now after looking around it seems that it cant reliably cycle target loads, or loads under 3 drams. My dilemma is that I often use cheap target loads as my main practice round for shotguns, and I certainly cant afford to do a 2-day class with 600 rounds of buck/slug at $1 a piece.
So, for those of you with M4’s, how reliable are they with underpowered target loads? I understand people say to break them in with up to 1000 rounds of full power loads, but out of the box, how should it perform?
Most regular birdshot loads are acceptable for a class, and will cycle an M4. The gun was designed around, and the gas system optimized for fullpower loads. You may find that light loads will cycle the system after you’ve put a 100 rds of real ammo through it.
For the 1st hundred rounds I used a combination of 00 buck, slugs and # 4 & 5 birdshot. Following that I went through a brick of cheap Walmart #8 trap loads without a hitch.