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Beretta 686 Silver Pigeon

• easy
• Shop tier 2
• medium confidence
• Shotgun
• break action
• over under
• clays
• hunting
• choke tubes

field strip ~1 min · reassembly ~1 min · detail strip ~20 min

Specifications

Model-specific safety

• Two chambers. Open the action and check both, every time.
• Support the barrels when the action opens. Over-unders are muzzle-heavy and the barrels are the heaviest piece.
• Ejector models throw fired cases with force. Keep your face clear of the ejection path.
• The 680-series uses conical locking lugs and a low-profile action. It is a durable design, but a gun that begins to feel loose on closing needs attention rather than more shooting.

Under spring tension

• Hammer springs
• Ejector springs

Easily lost parts

Forend · Barrel selector components

Tools

No tools required for the field strip.

Shop difficulty

Shop tier 2 Tier 2 — moderate among shotguns, for the full job: strip to the parts that get coated and put it back together working. Boxlock over/under: field strip is trivial, but a bare-receiver coat means pulling the stock through the butt, the trigger plate with coil mainsprings on guides, hammers, sears, top lever and locking bolt, and dealing with sprung ejectors in the fore-end iron. Strong but conventional springs; no timing. Rated low confidence for lack of a sourced strip guide.

Parts: 96 numbered parts (Beretta's spare-parts list for the S686 Silver Pigeon / S687 Silver Pigeon II / Onyx family, as reproduced on berettaweb.com from the Beretta estore: 96 distinct exploded-view position keys (POS 002-1), from P. Beretta S686 Silver Pigeon, S687 Silver Pigeon II, Onyx - exploded view and spare parts list (Product code / Name / POS) — berettaweb.com (Ugo Muffolini; unofficial site reproducing Beretta estore part codes) berettaweb.com [3].

Bench time: about 60 min to strip, 90 min to rebuild (estimate). Estimated for a boxlock O/U: stock through-bolt, trigger plate with coil mainsprings, hammers and sears, top lever and locking bolt, fore-end iron ejector trips and barrel ejectors; rebuild longer for mainsprings and ejector timing check.

Small parts: 21 pins, 17 springs, 2 detents or plungers (counted by name in the same list, one per distinct POS: pins = POS 006, 016, 018, 021, 023, 027 hinge pin, 030, 032, 035, 039, 043, 044, 052, 063, 068, 071, 072, 082, 086, 091, 098 (040/041 firing pin)

What comes off for coating

• Barrels / fore-end: fore-end and iron (ejector trips, springs), barrels; ejectors and ejector springs, choke tubes
• Receiver: stock through-bolt and stock, trigger plate and trigger plate screws, hammers, mainsprings and guides, sears, top lever, spring and locking bolt, safety/selector and detent, cocking levers

Special tools

• Long stock-bolt socket — Through-bolt from the butt
• Barrel dowels and padded vise — Protecting barrels while working on ejectors
• Mainspring compressor or guides — Coil mainsprings

Known pain points

• Beretta tells owners not to repair or adjust the over/under themselves; any intervention must be done by the manufacturer or a qualified person. (both)
  Source: Over-and-Unders User Manual — Beretta USA / Fabbrica d'Armi Pietro Beretta S.p.A. dam.beretta.com [2] — “Any alteration or interven- tion necessary for the shotgun to func- tion must be carried out by the manu- facturer or by a qualified person.”

Fit or check on rebuild

• Ejector timing (both barrels) — Ejector trips must fire each ejector only for its fired barrel; a mis-set trip throws both or none.
• Lock-up and hinge lubrication — Beretta stresses the hinge area carries very high loads and must be oiled.
  Source: Over-and-Unders User Manual — Beretta USA / Fabbrica d'Armi Pietro Beretta S.p.A. dam.beretta.com [2] — “The hinge pin area is a very important”
• Function check: safety, trigger/sear release, disconnector and feeding with dummy rounds — Standard after any detail strip; a mis-assembled sear or disconnector can double or fail to fire.

This is Pew-Takedown's rating, not the manufacturer's. How tiers are rated. Forum reports are owners' experience, not specifications.

Procedures

Torque specifications

No sourced torque values from the manufacturer are recorded for this firearm. Where a fastener has a specified torque — action screws, scope bases, muzzle devices, barrel nuts — get it from the manufacturer or a gunsmith rather than estimating it.

What the manufacturer does say: The manufacturer's documents give no torque value. They say: "Manually tighten the choke tubes, clockwise, and tighten using the wrench supplied, until they have bottomed out in their housing inside the barrels (fig. 37)." (Over-and-Unders User Manual, PDF p. 26) "fit the new butt plate and tighten the two fastening screws." (Over-and-Unders User Manual, PDF p. 28)

Function check

• Verify both chambers are empty before each check.
• Close the action and confirm it locks shut.
• Engage the safety and press the trigger. The hammer must not fall.
• Disengage the safety and press the trigger. It should release.
• Operate the barrel selector and confirm the trigger fires the selected barrel first, then switches after the first release.
• Open the action and confirm the ejectors throw snap caps clear as expected.
• Confirm choke tubes are fully seated and tight.

Maintenance

Lubrication points

• Hinge trunnions and barrel recesses
• Conical locking lugs and their bites
• Cocking rods
• Forend latch
• Choke tube threads (choke grease)

Cleaning notes

Keep the hinge trunnions and locking lugs clean and lightly greased — that interface carries the firing stress and is what keeps the gun on face. Clean choke tube threads whenever the tubes come out; seized chokes are a common and expensive nuisance.

Suggested inspection interval: roughly every 5000 rounds. This is a general guideline, not a manufacturer specification.

Wear parts to inspect

Hinge trunnions · Locking lugs · Firing pins and springs · Ejector springs · Choke tubes and threads

Common issues

Also covers

The procedures above are reported to apply to: Beretta 686, 687, and 690 series · Most Beretta 680-series over-unders. Verify against the manual for your specific model.

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Sourcing