Duga,

I'd be glad to fill you in. My opinion, and this was confirmed by JJ Perdou at Champlin, when he repaired it, was that it was caused by a contaminated/poorly done solder joint. I perform quite a bit of silver soldering in my work, while building waveguide for microwave transmission lines. I know a good solder joint from a bad one, and it was definitely bad. JJ supected that the "repair" consisted of simply reheating the old/bad joint. When he did the repair, he removed the entire rib, cleaned it down to bare metal, and started from scratch. His work was first rate.

As for the loads shot. I first fired Norma 286gr factory ammo( which, I was told by Beretta, was what this rifle was regulated with.), and reloads with 286gr Norma Oryx, and Nosler Partition bullets, RL-15 powder, Fed 210 primers, and Norma cases. At no time did the load workup exceed the velocity of the factory ammo.

Hope this info, is of some help.

Regards,

Jeff