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Benelli brothers, owners of the Benelli motorcycle company, embarked on a new journey when they formed Benelli Armi S.p.A. company in 1967. The brothers were passionate hunters as well as fine engineers and with the help of Bruno Civolani, they developed an extraordinary hunting shotgun that used a simple inertia driven mechanism in place of a conventional gas-operated system. This mechanism turned out to be a revolutionary design, as it permitted the user to fire 5 rounds in less than a second, making it the fastest reloading action the world had ever seen. The company was acquired by the Beretta company in 1983. In 2002 they entered the rifle market which demanded the highest levels of mechanical precision and reliability. By the year 2007, 40 years after the company founding, they have already sold more than 2 million shotguns.
Benelli Raffaello was introduced in 1987. The name is derived from the famous painter Raphael from Urbino. Raffaello is like many of Benelli's designs, such as Nova and SuperNova, a popular choice for a hunting shotgun. Raffaello has a simple action with few components, sold with a wide range of barrels. The length of the shotgun barrel ranges from 47 to 71 cm (18.5 to 28 in).
Raffaello is based on the same principles as other Benelli semi-automatic shotguns, operating on the principle of inertial operation with a fixed barrel, utilizing the kinetic energy of the recoil. An adjustable trigger is added to this system, which allows the user to adjust the amount they need to pull the trigger to fire the Raffaello. This system requires no outlet for gas.
Figure 1: Source: https://www.armeriadomonaco.com/fucili-semiautomatici/1514-benelli-raffaello-50-cal12.html
Variants of Benelli Raffaello are:
Benelli Raffaello shotguns are chambered for 12, 20 and 28 gauge.
Raffaello doesn’t come with pre-drilled mounting holes on the receiver, instead, a gunsmith has to drill the holes onto the receiver to mount an optical device on these shotguns. The radius throughout the whole length of the mounting surface on the receiver is 18 mm. The most popular optical devices on these shotguns are red dot sights.
Figure 2: Source: https://www.armeria-sacchi.it/home/97-semiautomatico-benelli-raffaello-sl-cal12.html
We would recommend the users to first install Picatinny rail and then equip that rail with a mount of choice.
If you happen to own this or any other rifle, we would appreciate it if you could help us expand our database by sending us some photos of the rifle receiver (the bare mounting surface of the rifle without the mounts installed). For your help, our company offers a fair return in terms of practical rewards.
Please send us an email for more information. You can contact us here: [email protected]
