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I have a question. Obviously if it is used properly, both can be very reliable, but what if you do something like use a light load and shoot with one hand from the hip or something stupid like that where then gun is going to use a lot of the recoil driving your hand back. Would an inertia operated gun still cycle properly?
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I have a Benelli M2 Tactical. I've found that with anything other than really soft, "reduced-recoil" and "Lite" loadings, the gun will function when fired from any position... off the hip, and even one or weak-handed.
I purposely tested this aspect to confirm that I can operate the gun in any state of conscious physical condition.
I'm no expert, but it seems to be more an issue of a minimum energy requirement than of a braced or unbraced shooting position.
With Lite loadings, my gun in particular (but not all M2s I'd imagine) will fail to eject fully... which means that after the rotating bolt head unlocks, the bolt carrier
almost but not quite made it fully to the rear to effect the eject function.
I've only tried Lite loadings when I was still breaking in the gun... so it's possible that after several thousands of shots, it may function successfully with many of them now.
The advantages to an inertia gun are they are typically lighter in weight than an equivalent gas gun, and that they shoot very clean and can't "gum up" like a gas gun can... a perfect all-day, every-day field or patrol gun.
The downside to inertia operation is ammo limitations and typically, greater felt recoil.
I'm not particularly recoil sensitive, so I went with the M2. If I was recoil sensitive or had a desire to shoot Lite loadings, I would have bought a heavier and gas-operated gun like the M4.
As a point of reference, my typical practice loading is B&P "
Baby Magnum" which is 1.5 oz of 0.0 shot (an Italian shot equvalent to about a "1.5" bird shot) @ 1280 fps.
This is a fairly "soft shooting" ammo, all things considered, as B&P incorporates the "
Gordon System" into many of their shells.
C