I really want to get myself a Beretta 1301 semi auto shotgun but when handling a friends 1301 and field stripping it I realized the magazine tube is made of surprisingly thin-walled aluminum and it felt very fragile and cheap. Kind of puzzling with a shotgun this expensive and I question it's significance in saving manufacturing costs.

Has anyone ever heard or read about longevity issues with this tube? I mean it acts as a sleeve for the piston so I bet gas erosion would be an issue over time. Has anyone here who owns a 1301 with a high round count checked the tube for erosion or damage?

I know you can get a replacement tube for 90 bucks or so but I bet that's a hassle to install since I am 100% sure they glued that thing in place with some evil stuff. Could not find any aftermarket steel tubes.

Probably more for weight than cost saving. No idea about durability - I’m a VersaMax Man.

Benelli m2 master race FTW.

I have a 1301,  but probably less than 1k rounds on it.  My brother in law has been using a 1301 in 3 gun for the past decade.  He likely has 8k or more on it.  No issues.  The 1301 is a great gun.

Nonissue to me.  Never heard of an issue with any of them.

JMHO
Doc

Plenty of guys on the gun boards reporting +10k on their guns, issue free.

Hard coat anodizing is amazing stuff...

Who's gonna be the one to break the news to the OP what the receiver on the 1301 is made out of?

Complete non issue

Or the AR15's. I have no problem with non-pressure bearing parts made from aluminum on firearms, the 1301 has a beefy receiver that only takes the recoil force and that abutment has a lot of surface area which is perfectly fine to me. But the paper thin tube of aluminum being directly blasted with hot (relatively) high pressure gas makes me iffy, I would expect pitting/fire cracking and erosion to happen fairly quickly, followed by gas leakage and then reliability issues with low powered ammo. But I guess I'm wrong, looking at the comments from people with 1301's with high round counts

The only issue I've read about with mag tubes is in tightening a barrel/mag tube clamp too tightly.  Since the barrel is steel and most tubes are Al, you can squeeze the tube, so I've read, to the point that shells won't reliably feed.

I've always been of two minds about clamps.  The sound like a good idea, to lock the tube in place, as I could possibly see how if you really bang the tube against somthing, it could get damaged, while if it's on a clamp, it's much more anchored.

The practice of using them though is either they're so tight that they could cause feeding issues, and certainly mar your barrel and tube.  Or that they come loose during a range trip, and Lock Tite and such doesn't seem to help.