The Beretta A300 Ultima Patrol Review

The Beretta A300 Ultima Patrol. Let’s check it out. 

 

Beretta is known for its very unique designs, but also for the technology and the engineering that goes into their firearms.

You take the Beretta 92, I mean, it’s just a totally different gun from the rest of the handguns with the open slide design. And Beretta has been in business for close to 500 years and they have built a legendary reputation. The A300 Ultra has been out for a little while in the more clays version or hunting version.

This is the Patrol. It has a 19.1 inch barrel, holds seven plus one in the magazine tube, and there’s just a lot of cool features about this shotgun. Now, a lot of people that are really into tactical shotguns really love the 1301, but the price on it is pretty high.

They brought in the Patrol with a lot of the same functioning features, but yet for more of a reasonable price and yet you get that Beretta quality. And guys, having a shotgun for home defense, for a tactical use, even for competitive shooting, this makes an excellent option. Now, the Patrol model was introduced at SHOT Show 2023.

And so when Beretta got in touch with me, asked if I wanted to check it out, I was pretty excited and I really appreciate Beretta for sending the A3 Ultima Patrol for this review. Beretta is known for shotguns, really high quality firearms. And this is the A300 Ultima.

This is the Patrol model. They did introduce the original A300 Ultima a couple of years ago and it’s just a more of a field shotgun, longer barrel, made for clay, trap, hunting. And the Patrol is just a shortened down version, but there are a lot of cool features that they’ve integrated into this shotgun.

And one of the big ones is the kickoff recoil system. Now the original 1301 had the blink gas system and it’s a little more involved, but yet shooting this side by side with the 1301, you’re not going to be able to tell the difference. The first thing let’s do is go ahead and open it up and it’s empty.

And of course there’s no shells in the chamber. One of the things that you’re going to notice up front is they have trimmed out a lot of area right here to make this very easy to load, which is a big plus, especially competitive or tactical uses. You want to be able to reload this really quick.

And so all the buttons are actually enlarged to make it more user-friendly with the charging handle, with the dropping the bolt, larger button. And again, with the follower, it’s polished, really well done. And then it allows you to get those rounds in there.

And this holds seven rounds of two and three quarter inch shells. So you’re getting a lot of capacity. And this also takes up to three inch shells.

So you can go with two and three quarter. You’re going to get a little more round capacity going with the three inch shells. You have a little more ballistic capability.

Here we have our safety and it’s one of the cross bolt safeties. Of course, red means it’s ready to fire. We have ghost ring sights with an aperture, a Picatinny rail that’s already installed.

Here at the front, we have a fiber optic rod and it is protected. And one of the things I really like is this barrel clamp. It has QD ports on either side.

They also have M-Lok rail sections here at three o’clock, six o’clock and nine o’clock. And you can attach a Pic rail and a light on here. And honestly, guys, this just comes right out of the box, just ready.

The tube comes all the way to the end of the barrel. And of course it needs to be because of the seven round capacity. The texturing on the forend, very aggressive.

They’ve also trimmed it down to make it really thin. And so it’s very ergonomic. It allows you to get your hand.

It gives you more control over the shotgun and it gives you a very firm grip. Great for push pull. Here, the pistol grip comes down to an angle.

Again, that really aggressive texturing. And then we have a comb here. We have a rubber butt pad, and that’s part of the kickoff system.

With the larger shotguns or the more field shotguns, it has more of a recoil pad and that allows for a lot more just cushion. But here, this is actually made with a fairly short length of pull to allow you to put this right up onto your shoulder as a vest or just to bring it in close. And if you want to extend that length of pull, there are two additional options with mounting screws.

But the length of pull is 13 inches. It is short. And so these spacers really come in handy if you need to extend it.

There’s also a hook and loop patch you could put right here on the side of the receiver. And you can attach side saddles to be able to load extra rounds. And it has an adhesive back and it actually has cutouts for your different pins.

It fits very nicely onto the side of the receiver. It has a 19.1 inch steel barrel and it uses the mobile choke tubes. This is actually made for steel shot and it reduces deformation and enhances shot pattern.

And it also comes with a wrench and extra tubes are available. There are markings on the tube itself. This has four slots, which makes it an improved cylinder.

Now the receiver comes in this gray finish, but they also have a tiger stripe and FDE and they have a marine finish, which is more of a nickel type finish. Here you have the Loretta logo, A300 Ultima, 12 gauge, and these are made in the USA. We have a trigger guard with ample room for gloved hands, really be able to get quick onto that trigger.

I’m going to show you the operation of loading the firearm and we’re using some dummy rounds just to demonstrate. Just hit this button right here and that brings it into the lock position. This makes the release button for your bolt to pop up.

And of course you can see that it’s enlarged. It has serrations on the top. We’re going to bring back our bolt and it stays in the lock position.

Then you drop in your round and then we hit this button and it drops it into the chamber. Next, we’re going to take our dummy round. We’re just going to go ahead and place in one round.

And so now we’re going to fire the shotgun and then we’re going to eject. Now sometimes the round will kind of bunch up, but it won’t when you’re shooting. Just like that.

But this will throw the shell out and we had no malfunctions at the range. And then it brings the other round up and ready to go. And so it loads automatically.

And then it’ll continue to do that all through the cycle. You guys, if you have a shotgun, it’s always good to have some dummy rounds to be able to test and dry fire. I got these off of eBay.

These were Bees dry fire snap caps. Now the A300 Ultima has the kickoff recoiling system. We’re going to break this down.

I’m going to show you that recoiling system and how it works. It is a self-cleaning cylinder. So when you’re using this, it will keep all the debris and everything.

It kicks it out of the way. And then down here, there is a piston that comes all the way down. That helps with the recoil through the buttstock.

Guys, one of the big things about this shotgun, it is lightweight, but it’s very balanced. And it just gives you those controls to be able to really activate this effectively. It’s one of the things about having a shotgun, especially in a close quarter type situation, home defense, or again, police units going in, this allows them to have a viable option that’s lightweight.

And yet with the kickoff recoil system, it has low recoil. And so that’s a big plus for a shotgun because when you get those high velocity buckshot different type rounds in this, you know, it does have a kick to it. But with the kickoff system, it really mitigates a lot of the recoil.

Weight on the A300 Ultima Patrol, six pounds, 8.12 ounces. Guys, we’re gonna test the trigger action. A little bit of take up, and man, it is a crisp break really fast.

That was so quick, we’re gonna have to do that again. A little bit of take up, and then a nice crisp break. And trigger pull weight with our Lyman trigger gauge from Brownells, three pounds, 10.9 ounces.

Three pounds, 14.2 ounces. We really appreciate Fiocchi for sponsoring the ammo, and we’re using a number of different type shotgun shells, some high velocity, some target loads, some buckshot. We’re just gonna try some stuff out.

And this thing loads so smooth. Also, it holds seven rounds, which is really nice. Guys, the A300 Patrol, first thing about it is it’s just fairly lightweight.

I mean, it’s got a good balance to it. The handguard and the pistol grip, very aggressive texturing. It allows you to really grab hold of it.

You know, it’s just the controls are large, so they’re easy to get to. And I love this cutout down here where you’re loading in your shells. Makes it so much faster to be able to load it.

And then of course, if you want to put on a red dot, but honestly, these ghost ring sights or the aperture sights, man, they show up in that front fiber optic. I mean, it’s great. Now we can throw a sling on here, put lights on it.

I mean, there’s so many things you can do with this. It’s gonna add some weight to it, but I love how handy and light it is. Also, I love that it has that seven round capacity in the tube and then one of the chamber.

I mean, it gives you eight rounds with a lightweight option. We were shooting some pretty heavy loads right then, and you know, it has a little bit of kick to it, but man, it just fits just right. I love the pistol grip, how it kind of comes down.

It just locks in your hand. So you have that push-pull. So I can pull in, push out, be able to fire it, and then I can I mean, this is a really sweet option.

Okay, we have three rounds we’re going to shoot at five yards, have a target load, have a high velocity load, and then we have double buckshot. We’re just going to see how it reacts to the target at five yards. This is at five yards.

You know, you have your wadding, but right here was that first shot. You know, it’s kind of like in about eight inch group, even the high velocity loads, pretty eight inch group kind of segment. I mean, there wasn’t really a lot of difference between these two.

Here with the buckshot, again, stringing out to about eight inches. So we’re looking at about eight inches at five yards. All right, we decided to move back 15 yards just to see how it goes.

Again, we have target loads, high velocity loads, and then buckshot. All right, huge deviation. The target loads were up here at the top, but it’s really spread out.

And then, of course, spread out here with the high velocity loads. It’s funny, the buckshot really didn’t change a lot as far as, in fact, it was actually a little tighter. I think the other was about eight.

This is about six inch total. Here you can see more concentrated here, just really spreads out. So the farther out you get with shotguns, the more spread you’re going to get.

With buckshot, you’re going to retain that tighter group at a little bit greater distance, but in the long run, it’s going to spread out. Okay, we’re going to disassemble the A300 Patrol. First thing we do is make sure the gun’s unloaded and it’s empty.

Now, the first thing we need to take off is the sling mount, and it has Allen head screws here and then on the other side. We’re going to pull that off. Here at the magazine tube, we’re going to go ahead and just turn this and take it off.

Next, just go ahead and pull off your hand guard. Now we’re going to pull the bolt back just a little bit, and we’re going to allow for the barrel and the entire assembly to come loose. And here is our spacer that goes in between, and here is our kickback recoil system, and this is a self-cleaning system.

The only thing you need to clean is to pull out the cap. You can clean this, but otherwise this really cleans itself. When reinserting it, depress on the o-ring seal that’s on the outside, and then pop it back into place, and you’re good to go.

Now we want to take and pull out our charging handle, and just with some force, just pull it right out, just like that, and then pull your bolt and your operating rod right out. Now the bolt actually fits into a slot right here, the operating rod, so when you put that back, you’re going to want to pay attention to that, but we’ll look at it again. Also, you have this rod that comes down, and this activates the kickout system.

Here, the bolt just comes apart for cleaning, and again, you have your rod. The hammer actually rides in between these rails. And guys, that’s all you need to do for regular maintenance.

We’re also going to take off the trigger housing. I just want to show you the trigger group. Plus, it’ll make it a lot easier when you’re reassembling.

Right here above your trigger guard is a pin, and that’s all you need to do to remove your trigger housing. Then just pull the pin right out. Now when it comes to the trigger housing, we’re going to lift down, and then we’re just going to pull out.

You’ll notice this little post that fits in the back of the receiver. You’ll notice right here is your kickout piston, and this part of your bolt fits down in there. One of the things about not pulling out your trigger housing is that it’s difficult to get in the right spot.

So I just find it so easy, and it’s easy to take the trigger group off. Now for reassembly, we’re going to reinsert our bolt into the carrier. Then we’re going to bring our operating rod.

So it’s going to go right in here, and it rests in between those two grooves. Next, we’re going to take our bolt carrier group, and we’re going to slide it in right over the tube. You want to hold on to that rod right here, because you want to make sure that goes in correctly.

Now when putting in your bolt, again, you’re going to want to make sure that this rod fits right in that cavity. And really, I set this up vertically when I do this, and it allows for it to seat better. But this just makes it a lot easier to remove that trigger group, because you can see what you’re doing.

From here, we’re just going to go ahead and insert and push back on our bolt. Take the bolt and retract it all the way to the rear. Put back in your charging handle.

We’re going to go ahead and put on our spacer for our receiver. Then we’ll bring our barrel over the magazine tube. Beretta states that you may need to adjust the spacer to be able to get the barrel to go into place.

Then we’ll pull back on the bolt just a little bit to allow the barrel to go into place, just like that. Again, sometimes this will bind a little bit. Just move it up and shift it until there’s no friction.

Take your hand guard, go ahead and put it over the tube. Now you’re going to get a little bit of kickback right here because of this rod pushing on the kickback system. Once you get it locked into place, go ahead and add on your tube cap.

Now before we put on our sling mounts, we’re going to go ahead and return our trigger group. Now notice that our bar is in the right position, and it’s going to depress that rod into the stock. So you want to make sure that is really a key, and again, one of the reasons why we remove our trigger group.

You have a pin right here, and you just slip it in first. There’s a hole corresponding, and really this just sets right down into place. Then we’re going to return our pin.

Now we’re going to take our sling mounts, and we’re going to put it back on the end of the barrel. Just line it up, and then screw in your screw. You just want to get these good and snug onto the barrel.

We’re going to do a function test, bringing it back. It’s good to go. Hit the release button, and we’re back in business.

Guys, if you have any trouble, you can go to the Beretta website, and you can actually download the manual. There is not a manual included with the shotgun, because you can download it right to your computer. The MSRP on the A300 Ultima patrol shotgun is $1,099.

Typically, you’ll find this around the $900 range up to about $1,000. When you take the 1301, they restart out at $1,369 retail. So you’re getting a really good shotgun with a lot of the same features, but yet it’s more of a budget price.

For a Beretta shotgun, getting a Beretta shotgun under $1,000 is a great price. Guys, to be honest, it’s just a beautiful shotgun. So guys, if you’re looking for a top-tier defensive tactical type shotgun, you’re going to be hard-pressed to find a better gun than Beretta.

The 1301 is definitely a step above, and yet this shoots just as well as the 1301, plus it comes in at a much better price, and it has so many different features. I mean, to be honest, this is set up just the way I want it. Add a light, add a sling, optic, you’re good to go.

And we want to thank Beretta for sending the A300 Ultima patrol for this review. Be strong, be of good courage. God bless America and long live the republic.

-Don