Benelli Advanced Impact Barrel, Tested and Reviewed

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As a diehard duck hunter, any opportunity to improve downrange lethality is all but irresistible. After all, ducks can be tough, and premium pellet materials like tungsten and bismuth are only getting scarcer and pricier. So I was excited, if not a bit skeptical, as I watched Benelli roll out its Advanced Impact barrel technology over the last couple years.

Benelli’s AI barrel is “designed to generate up to 50 percent more penetration.” That’s an intriguing and bold claim. So this summer and early fall I set out to test it. 

I bought a Super Black Eagle 3 with an Advanced Impact barrel. I then took that gun and a standard SBE 3 to a third party ballistics expert to evaluate downrange pellet velocity. I also shot both barrels into ballistic gel at 40 yards to measure penetration. Then I patterned both barrels at 40 yards, with three different loads. Lastly, I hunted with the gun during the first half of my duck season. Here’s what I found.

Defining the Advanced Impact Barrel

Before we get into how the AI Barrel did, let me try to explain what it is. Benelli has designed a unique, patented internal barrel contour that works in conjunction with a special choke system. More specifically, the barrel has an extra-long forcing cone, a larger-than-standard bore diameter, and a unique section where the barrel widens dramatically before meeting the very long, extended choke tube. I measured the barrel with a bore gauge and found the following:

• The AI modified choke diameter was .765 inches
• Standard 12-gauge modified choke diameter is .710 inches
• The AI barrel diameter was approximately .775 inches
• That’s similar to a 10-gauge barrel diameter

The design is meant to allow shot pellets to pass through the barrel more easily, which in theory will shorten the shot string of their pattern downrange. With a short, compact shot column pellets would be able to draft off each other and retain more velocity. And that’s where the improved penetration would come from — again, in theory.   

Benelli is not claiming significant improvements on muzzle velocity with this barrel. Their promise is all about increased velocity and penetration at distance. 

Velocity Testing

All things being equal (meaning pellet size, density, and shape) the only way to increase penetration is to increase velocity. So after shooting the AI gun a bit on the clays course I brought it to a third-party ballistics expert to evaluate downrange velocity — they wished to remain anonymous for this article and video. 

They measured velocity at 40 yards using a high-speed Phantom camera. In this test we used two different loads and shot 10 patterns per load, per barrel. 

They used ballistics software to measure velocity of individual pellets at this distance. They then averaged the different pellet velocities for each load and barrel combination. They also measured the shot strings of each pattern and averaged those for each load/barrel combination. They measured the velocity of a total of 221 different pellets all at 40 yards to build this data set. 

The ballistics expert found that there was essentially no difference in 40-yard velocity or shot string length between the AI Barrel and Standard barrel. A few feet-per-second difference in average pellet velocities is insubstantial.

Ballistic Gel Testing

Based on the velocity data, it makes sense that I didn’t see much of an advantage with the AI barrel when shooting ballistic gel blocks. I used the same two loads as I did for the velocity testing, plus Kent Fasteel and Fiocchi Golden Waterfowl. I shot three patterns per load, per barrel into a gel block. Then I measured the average penetration depth. As you can see in the video above, there’s very little difference in penetration from barrel to barrel so I simply eyeballed the average of each pattern. After all, a 50 percent increase on 3 inches of penetration would be 1.5 inches (that would be very substantial). Even a 25 percent increase on 3 inches of penetration would be .75 inches. 

As you can see in the data below, I was splitting hairs to find a tenth of an inch of variation between the barrels. 

Patterning Performance

Just like with all shotguns I review, I did a standard 40-yard patterning test. I shot three different loads from both barrels, and recorded four shots per load. I counted the number of pellet strikes within a 30-inch circle drawn around the core of the pattern and then averaged them for each load/barrel combination. Both barrels shot dense, even patterns. And both shot a bit high, which is common for me, when shooting from a bench with SBE shotguns. 

It’s notable that the guns were close with the steel loads but the standard barrel did much better with the smaller Hevi XII pellets. My assumption is that the tighter choke of the standard barrel (approximately .710 inches) was optimal for these No. 6 pellets vs the wider choke on the AI barrel (.765 inches). 

Final Thoughts

I really love duck hunting with my SBE 3 AI. I shot the gun well, it functioned flawlessly, and it has killed a whole pile of ducks for me this season. While shooting patterns, I did notice that there is less recoil with the AI barrel compared to the standard barrel. 

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But unfortunately, that was the only substantial performance benefit I was able to find with the AI barrel. The SBE 3 Advanced Impact costs about $2,500 right now. You can find standard SBE 3s for about $700 less. Based on the testing I’ve done, I’d say that for most duck hunters, who are not going to do extensive patterning to find that magic load pairing for an AI barrel, I think sticking with the tried and true standard SBE 3 is the way to go.