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Williams, a Staff Sergeant who once killed a man with his bare hands, is an Airborne Ranger that has spent five of the past seven years in Iraq or Afghanistan. His wife, Jennifer Williams, works at the post commissary and is planning to go back to school to be a radiation therapy tech “or something like that.”
According to reports, after taking his wife out to “a nice lunch to spend some time together before his next deployment,” the couple went to the mall to pick up a few things for the baby they recently learned was on the way.
Shortly after arrival, Mrs. Williams spotted a cute little black dress in a window storefront and tugged at her husband’s arm with a wide grin in an effort to pull him into the store. After hesitating, Williams relented and followed his wife inside, where he then passed the time on a little bench by reading the latest edition of Cosmopolitan and silently recounting the many horrors which he had personally lived through.
“Hey, babe? Can you go out there and get me this in a size three?,” Jenny Williams said as she tossed a dress over the dressing room door. “Hey?! You there? Jesus, Sammy. Go get me a size three already!” she added from within the dressing area with a stomped foot.
Williams, the top graduate of his class in Ranger school, dutifully stood up and meandered over to the dressing room. He took the discarded dress. Head down and lip out, he shuffled aimlessly throughout the store in search of a cute little striped number in a size three – all the while carrying his wife’s purse. Before reaching the dress rack, a dull thud could be heard as his testicles fell out of the purse he was carrying. With a defeated sigh, he leaned over, picked them up, blew off the dust, and stuffed them back into the handbag.
Williams confusedly stared at the dress rack for a long moment in an effort to avoid the judgmental eyes of the shop’s other patrons. Ultimately, he returned with a size five, knocked on the dressing room door, and placed the dress in the dainty hand which appeared.
After a moment of silence, a howl emanated from the dressing room occupied by Mrs. Williams. The door swung open, and the petite woman stomped over to her husband — a man who once dropped three Iraqi insurgents at approximately 1,100 yards — sat dumbly and stared at her.
“I asked you for a size three! You think I’m so fat I need a five?” she demanded with her hands on her hips. “Either you think I’m fat or you’re just stupid!” she added.
Silver Star recipient and “hardcore, airborne motherfucker,” Williams opened his mouth to say something, but only one sound emerged.
“Urmmmm,” he said.
This response infuriated Mrs. Williams. Her eyes went wide, and she threw the dress at the Ranger before screaming into his face.
“You aren’t even paying attention to me! This is supposed to be our special day! I’m not fat! You don’t know what I have to do all day, sitting at home cooking all the meals and taking care of our children. I swear, all you are good for is waking me up at three in the damn morning by screaming and hollering in your sleep! You’re useless.”
Mrs. Williams then stormed out of the dressing area, through the boutique, and into the mall. Williams sighed gently to himself and stared at the floor. After a moment, he pushed himself up, which was made difficult by the ragged shrapnel embedded in his right kneecap. He quickly jogged after his wife.
During a hushed conversation in the mall’s food court, Williams apologized to his wife as she ate a slice of pizza from a paper plate.
“This pizza is so disgusting,” complained his wife. Upon hearing this, Williams’ mind wandered to the time he had to eat his dead battle buddy after being stranded behind enemy lines in Kosovo back in ’99.
After their snack, Williams hugged his wife, promised to pay more attention to her, and the couple returned to the boutique where they purchased the size three.
We stepped inside Beretta’s living headquarters in Gardone Val Trompia to see 3,000 historic firearms, cutting-edge Industry 4.0 lines, and a subterranean range that dives two hundred meters into the mountain.
Table of contents
- Beretta’s Living History In Gardone Val Trompia
- A Museum That Rebuilds The Firearms Story
- Fine Guns Taken Seriously
- Military Cabinets And Modern Icons
- An Industrial Ecosystem With Range
- Competition Guns And The Olympic Legacy
- The Factory Floor Blends Old Skill With New Systems
- History Under The Mountain
- A Living Legacy With Family At The Helm
- Beretta Factory Tour Fast Facts
- Pros And Cons Of The Beretta Factory Experience
- Related Reads From GunsAmerica Digest
Beretta’s Living History In Gardone Val Trompia
By any reasonable metric, Fabbrica d’Armi Pietro Beretta occupies rare ground in the firearms world. Founded in 1526, Beretta is the oldest continuously operating gunmaker on earth, and after touring the company’s Italian headquarters and manufacturing facilities in Gardone Val Trompia, it is clear that history here is not something preserved behind glass alone. It is something still very much alive on the factory floor.
A Museum That Rebuilds The Firearms Story
The tour begins upstairs in Beretta’s private historical collection, a room housing roughly 3,000 pieces. This is not simply a gallery of old guns. Alongside complete commercial and military firearms are prototypes, experimental designs, and examples from other manufacturers. The goal is ambitious: to reconstruct the broader history of firearms development, not just Beretta’s.
The collection is carefully divided. One side focuses on sporting and hunting arms, the other on military and service weapons. Contents of the collection range from simple, utilitarian designs to some of the most ornate firearms ever produced. Early matchlock and flintlock examples showcase black powder ignition systems, while experimental multi-barrel guns and unconventional firing systems demonstrate the significant trial and error that went into early firearm development.
One recurring theme is Beretta’s reputation for barrel making. Historically, Beretta barrels, alongside Belgian examples, were considered among the safest and most reliable in Europe. The traditional Damascus spiral method, requiring only iron, wood, water, and an immense amount of skill, relied on twisting, hammering, and forge-welding layered steel into barrels strong enough to withstand early black powder pressures. Several examples of single, double, triple, and even four-barrelled firearms illustrate the experimentation that defined the era.
Fine Guns Taken Seriously
One cabinet stands apart, showcasing what Beretta refers to as “intensified arms,” high-end firearms that exist far beyond industrial or military production. A matched pair of 12-gauge shotguns gifted to Cavalier Ugo Gussalli Beretta on his seventieth birthday exemplifies this philosophy.
Both guns are stocked from the same walnut blank, engraved by a British artist, and inlaid with five different types of gold: white, yellow, blue, green, and brown. The engraving reflects the owner’s tastes: one receiver depicts the Beretta Gallery of New York and American waterfowl scenes, while the other features portraits of his favorite dogs and a personal likeness.
Containing these shotguns is an equally remarkable gun case, built from rosewood and walnut by a craftsman connected to the British royal family. It includes hidden drawers, integrated cleaning tools, and craftsmanship that rivals the firearms it was built to house.
Not every piece in the collection is practical. One exhibition gun, adorned with diamonds, was intended to showcase the skill of Beretta engravers and jewelers. It was fired briefly until diamonds began popping out of their mounts. The gun now remains purely an object of art, insured for roughly €270,000.
Military Cabinets And Modern Icons
The collection transitions naturally into military history. Mausers, Enfields, Mosin-Nagants, and some of the first fully automatic designs line the cabinets. Among them are pistols made for foreign dignitaries, including gold-plated examples destined for Middle Eastern royalty, later redesigned when it became clear that gold’s softness and heat conductivity compromised functionality.
One cabinet houses Lugers and their accessories, while others highlight Beretta pistols that many American shooters know well, including early predecessors to the Model 92 and M9 platforms. A particularly telling example comes from a Swedish shooting school, which returned a functional Beretta pistol after 500,000 rounds.
There are also cultural touchstones, film props, Olympic competition guns, and rare markings that trace Beretta’s evolving logos. The famous three-arrow emblem, still in use today, was adopted in the mid 20th century with the blessing of Italian poet and nationalist Gabriele D’Annunzio. The symbol, originally a naval motif, represents disabling a ship’s controls, breaching the hull, and ultimately sinking it, an image D’Annunzio felt fitting for a firearms manufacturer.
An Industrial Ecosystem With Range
Beretta’s history is not limited to firearms. Displays include motorcycles produced in the mid 20th century, small aircraft engines, experimental watercraft, and advertising artifacts spanning decades. These ventures underscore the company’s broader engineering curiosity and willingness to innovate outside its core business.
That same mindset defines modern Beretta Holding. Today, the company operates as an integrated ecosystem encompassing firearms, optics, ammunition, and accessories. Brands like Tikka, Sako, Steiner, Norma, RWS, and others allow Beretta to offer complete end-to-end solutions, particularly attractive for military and law enforcement contracts.
The scale of the Gardone facility reflects this. The interconnected campus spans over one million square feet, with machining, assembly, warehousing, and administrative spaces linked by tunnels, bridges, and corridors. Firearms move from one stage to the next without ever leaving company property.
Tucked away in one of these corridors was an early ’90s American car, a Chevy Beretta. While Beretta did not intentionally partner with Chevy, it worked out that way in the end. Apparently, GM had brought the Beretta to market without ever consulting with Beretta Italy, which owned the naming rights. After learning of the American automobile, the Beretta family reached out to General Motors, and a deal was made for the use of the name. This deal included the delivery of one Chevy Beretta to Gardone Val Trompia, Italy, and a $150,000 donation to cancer research.
Competition Guns And The Olympic Legacy
Beretta’s dominance in competitive shooting is impossible to ignore. A wall of medals traces Olympic success back decades. From platforms like the 680 and 682 to modern icons like the DT11, Beretta competition guns have accumulated more Olympic medals than any other brand.
The development process is deliberate. Features refined with elite athletes eventually filter down into production models. Balance systems, adjustable stocks, and recoil management technologies all evolve through this feedback loop before reaching civilian shooters.
The Factory Floor Blends Old Skill With New Systems
Inside the manufacturing buildings, the contrast between tradition and technology is striking. Beretta operates an Industry 4.0 environment, with predictive maintenance systems monitoring oil levels, machine wear, and production status in real time. Screens track performance continuously, allowing issues to be addressed before they disrupt production.
At the same time, many critical steps remain firmly human. Barrel production alone involves drilling, honing, polishing, brazing, and burnishing, much of it requiring trained eyes and hands. While machines can create straight barrels, aligning and brazing over and under sets still depends on skilled workers visually checking alignment.
Beretta treats environmental and worker safety with equal seriousness. Air quality sensors monitor chromium levels, on-site medical staff conduct regular health checks, and Beretta proactively reports issues to local authorities. It is a level of self-regulation that reflects both modern standards and long-term investment in the surrounding community.
One of the most surprising features of the production floor had nothing to do with manufacturing. It was actually the sheer number of trees and plants within the facility. The idea is that if the factory is healthy for a tree, the factory is healthy for an employee.
History Under The Mountain
Perhaps the most striking moment of the tour comes as we near the mountainside. During World War II, Beretta moved key machinery into tunnels carved directly into the rock to protect operations from bombing. Workers continued production underground while the valley above was under attack.
Those tunnels still exist today, repurposed for ammunition storage and ballistic testing. The range we used plunged two hundred meters straight into the mountain. There, we fired a variety of Beretta’s new production hunting rifles and competition pistols, as well as a full-auto Beretta PMX, which recently won a contract with the Italian Military.
A Living Legacy With Family At The Helm
Today, Beretta remains a family-led company, with multiple generations actively involved in leadership and operations. The continuity is not symbolic; it is structural. Decisions made centuries ago about craftsmanship, self-sufficiency, and long-term thinking still shape how the company operates.
Walking through Beretta’s Italian headquarters is not just a factory tour. It is a reminder that while materials, machines, and markets change, the core principles behind a well-made firearm, precision, durability, and respect for the craft, remain timeless.
For shooters accustomed to seeing the Beretta logo on a slide or receiver, this visit puts everything into context. The guns we handle today are not isolated products. They are the latest chapter in a story still being written, one forged, quite literally, over five centuries.
Be sure to check out Beretta’s Website for more information on the company’s history or to browse their extensive catalog of firearms.
Beretta Factory Tour Fast Facts
| Founded | 1526 |
|---|---|
| Museum Collection | About 3000 pieces |
| Factory Size | Over one million square feet |
| Diamond Exhibition Gun | 1193 diamonds, 90 carats, insured at €270,000 |
| Swedish School Test | Beretta pistol returned functional after 500,000 rounds |
| Tunnel Range | Two hundred meters into the mountain |
| Chevy Beretta Deal | $150,000 donation to cancer research and one car delivered |
Pros And Cons Of The Beretta Factory Experience
- Pros: Deep, hands-on look at 500 years of craft; rare access to competition and military icons; Industry 4.0 insights; unforgettable tunnel range.
- Cons: Overwhelming volume of artifacts in one visit; some exhibition pieces are art only; access is limited and scheduled.
Your question is extremely complex with many variables. As an example, an M1 Garand requires midrange powered ammo with medium burning rifle power (like H-4895) to have enough gas port pressure to run the gas system to actuate the operating rod and bolt. Slow burning powder with a heavy bullet (like a 200 grain bullet will ruin the operating system. A light bullet might also cause damage to the operating system because it may send too much pressure to the gas port. That is just one rifle.
Wear and tear on a rifle is caused frequently by a cartridge case/chambering that is, “over bore.” Example of over bore cartridges include the 220 Swift, 7mm STW and most Weatherby cartridges. They wear out the leade/throat of the rifle and velocity and accuracy is lost by the leade being eroded by hot gas. Many of these weapons have a barrel life of less than 1,000 shots.
A bolt action rifle chambered in 300 Winchester can shoot bullets from 100 grains to 220 grains. Full power 100 grain bullets would have problems with throat erosion due to a large amount of hot gasses hitting the chamber throat. Heavy bullets like 220 grain would have a long pressure curve which would also cause throat erosion because of the longer period of time the throat is exposed to the hot powder gasses.
Actually a book could be written on this subject and some might disagree with what I have written but it is a small amount of general information.
