Review: Beretta BRX1 magnum

The Beretta BRX1 straight-pull rifle is a lovely piece of engineering — solid, quick and innovative with a propensity for superb accuracy.

There is a long list of clever design details building on each other to create an efficient rifle that works extremely well and, if you’re a bit of a gear-head like me, the thoroughness of its engineering will impress you.

Watch us test the BRX1 in this video

Just some of the really cool things about the BRX1 are the fact that you can changes calibres in about five minutes, that you can swap it from right- to left-handed in about a minute, the flush-fitting five-round magazine, its thumb-operated three-position safety, and all the advantages of a genuinely modular design.

I’ll expand on all those points in a moment, but let’s first look at the essential design and how it works. I really like this bit.

The Beretta’s straight-pull bolt-action design provides fast cycling first and foremost. The whole concept is based on an aluminium chassis incorporating the action’s bedding, the magazine well, the bolt rails, mounts for the two-piece stock and a separate trigger assembly.

Beretta BRX1 rifle test — The Beretta’s aluminium chassis is the solid central pieces around which everything else revolves

The bedding area up front is solid, with a large recoil lug in the middle. Two action screws are held captive in it, and they pull the receiver and barrel assembly tightly into angled sidewalls that centre and secure the receiver in a way that virtually guarantees accuracy. Beretta specifies a whole 10Nm of force on the two screws, a significant amount; I had to put away the gunsmithing torque wrench and pull out the one I use on machinery!

With that kind of bedding security, the only strength you really need to worry about is the action lock-up. No worries there. This is one of a few straight-pulls with a rotating bolt head, which means it needs only a cam and guide to turn the head and lock its lugs into battery to achieve solid lock-up; it doesn’t rely on an extra movement of the bolt handle to activate an expanding locking mechanism like in some other straight-pull styles.

The bolt head for this magnum-calibre BRX1 has 16 lugs arranged in two rows around its full 360 degrees; standard calibres lack the rear row of lugs. The extractor claw is set inside the recessed face so there’s no interruption in the steel ring around the cartridge case. The contact face of each lug is 3.5mm wide and 2.5mm high, so total contact area adds up to 136mm2. It appears to be a very strong and safe setup.

The BRX1’s receiver is far removed from the traditional design. It consists of only the front receiver ring, which is 69mm long. The barrel is inserted about 40mm into it, and the receiver’s rear end is machined to accept and lock the bolt head.

The head inserts into a huge carrier 18cm long and 3.5cm wide, made up of a steel inner assembly wrapped in a matte-black plastic outer. It slides on rails on top of the chassis, much like a semi-auto pistol’s slide.

The trigger assembly sits underneath in the chassis, with a hammer inside it. When you pull the bolt back it rides over the hammer to cock the action. Slam the bolt forward again and it strips a round smoothly from the magazine — even the belted .300 Win Mag. On the way, a spring-loaded recoil lever (which resembles a second hammer and sits right beside the real hammer) is released to give the bolt carrier an extra push forward before the bolt goes into battery; you can really feel the effect, too. Now you’re ready to shoot.

The safety is similar in operation to the decocking system on, say, the Blaser R8 in that you slide a large button up and down at the back of the bolt. It isn’t a decocker, though. When it is engaged, it hooks directly into a notch on the hammer, holding it down and disengaging it from contact with the trigger. It’s a three-position safety, and in the rearmost spot it also blocks the bolt from opening. Thumb it forward a few millimetres until a white bar appears and you can open the bolt with the safety engaged. Push it all the way forward and the hammer is released to sit against the trigger sear and a red ‘fire’ indicator appears.

If you hold the trigger back when you release the safety on a cocked rifle, the hammer will fall. Doing such a thing goes against all the instincts of safe firearm handling but it is possible, so there you go.

If you want to change calibres, undoing the two action screws releases the barrel so you can attach another; calibre kits consisting of barrel, bolt head and magazine are available. The bolt head comes out by just pressing down on the spring-loaded guide tooth projecting from the carrier’s cam slot. As for the magazine, dropping it is simply a matter of grasping the release tabs on either side of its body and out it comes.

The magazine is great: all polymer except the spring (yeah, some people don’t like plastic, but it seems tough) and with a top-loading, double-stacking design that takes five rounds — even if they’re magnums — yet still mounts flush with the stock. And you’ll never lose it with that bright orange body.

As for being ambidextrous, the BRX1’s bolt head can be reversed, so the ejector flings cases the other way. The bolt handle is held in by a sprung pin so comes out in a second before you slot it back in from the other side. The whole process takes about a minute.

You will not lose zero when switching barrels or changing handedness because the scope mounts to a rail fixed to the receiver, and there’s no need to remove the scope.

The Beretta’s modularity means you can have a synthetic stock for those wintery, damaging hunts in the High Country as well as a pretty timber one when the aesthetics are important. The butt and fore-end each attach with a single bolt to the chassis, and the very rigid fore-end leaves the barrel free-floating for maximum accuracy.

The stock has coarse stippling on grip surfaces and nice, grip-enhancing profiles throughout, along with perfect symmetry for ambidextrous use. The pistol grip has a slight palm swell on each side, and a medium-profile curve that I found very natural when the rifle was shouldered. The test rifle came with its 12.5mm thick spacer fitted to produce a length of pull 37cm long.

It’s a nice, slim sporter stock with no awkwardness or surprises, and should fit all but the smallest shooters. Even firing the .300 Win Mag was no great chore, partly for the decent recoil pad and especially because the butt’s comb is angled quite steeply upwards towards the rear, with 13mm of rise from toe to heel, so the recoil makes it fall away from your face. This substantially reduces felt recoil.

It meant shooting groups on the bench for accuracy testing wasn’t nearly the punishing experience it can be on lesser rifles in .300 Win Mag. In the field, it was no problem, all the better to take advantage of the BRX1’s very quick cycling so you can get back on target rapidly for a follow-up shot.

On the bench, the BRX1 achieved fantastic accuracy with some factory loads but wasn’t so good with others, as the table shows. I think you’ll have no trouble with it, especially with handloads. I didn’t do thorough testing of five-round groups but they never opened up very much at all, despite the slim sporter profile of the barrel, which tapers to 16mm. The magnum has a 62cm (24”) barrel so you get good efficiency.

The stock’s ergonomics help you shoot well with the BRX1, and its good trigger only adds to the effect. Let-off is quick and crisp, and if lock time is slower because of the hammer-fired design you wouldn’t know it. I had the trigger weight set on the lightest of three pre-set weights, at 1100g. Beretta claims a range of 950-1500g, but my rifle’s minimum of 1100g was close enough. In fact, it never varied more than 50g either way, and usually way less, and I rate it very highly.

To adjust the trigger, you have to drop it out, but even that’s easy. Remove the magazine and bolt; while holding down the safety lever in the trigger assembly, use a screwdriver or similar to lever up a small tab; then slide the assembly forward and out. Adjustment is achieved by moving a tab on the left side to one of the three positions.

At 3.3kg bare, and somewhere around 4.5kg when scoped and loaded, the Beretta is just a bit heavier than the average sporter, which is no burden for most hunters unless they’re climbing mountains. Mass is centred under the front end of a full magazine, providing very good balance, both when you’re shooting and when you’re carrying the rifle at the trial.

Bring together this steady handling, the fast straight-pull cycling, the beaut trigger and good ergonomics, and this is a very cooperative rifle. I haven’t mentioned another little bit of sensible design: the bolt handle is immediately above the trigger, requiring the absolute minimum of hand movement to switch between the two.

Even with the .300 Win Mag giving you a bigger jolt than most of the calibres the Beretta is chambered for, it’s easy to run through several accurate shots at targets that scatter after the first boom scares them. Alternatively, you can reset for a just-in-case followup shot to ensure that huge sambar stag is properly anchored or the scrub bull isn’t going to have a chance to turn and charge.

Beretta is expanding the many modular options for the BRX1. The Beretta Australia website doesn’t list them all, but your dealer will be able to sort it all out. There are 10-round magazines; stocks in all kinds of finishes as well as Grades 2 and 3 timber; long barrels, short barrels and varmint barrels; iron sights; and other stuff still in the pipeline including additional calibres.

This is the second time I’ve worked with a BRX1 and I’m equally enamoured with it. Apart from all the good things about its design and construction, there’s the fact that is costs way less than Blaser R8s and Merkel Helixes while providing the same precise accuracy. And it’s way more accurate than the current selection of button-release and pump-action rifles that can give it a run for its money on the Aussie market.

Have a close look at one yourself and I’m sure that if you think you’d like to take it home, you’ll be very glad when you do.