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.
When SCCY Firearms introduced their inexpensive striker-fired handgun, they called it the DVG-1. What not just everybody knew was that DVG stood for “Davis Versus Goliath.” Israel’s King David was one of the most compelling figures in human history.
Most folks know at least the rudiments of the story. David was just a kid, likely barely even a teenager, when he faced down the nine-foot Philistine giant Goliath. Per the Biblical narrative, David used his shepherd’s sling to brain the guy in the forehead with a rock before decapitating him with his own sword.
When David was preparing for this epic battle, he selected five smooth stones from a modest creek near the Valley of Elah, some 15 miles west of Bethlehem. I’ve actually picked up a few similar rocks in that very spot myself. The joke at the time was that the Israeli government likely came out every couple of weeks with a front loader full of gravel just to keep the place stocked up for visitors. Tradition holds that David picked five stones because Goliath had four brothers.
David’s life is a powerful example of redemption. David was a rock star. However, he had an affair with a married woman named Bathsheba, murdered her husband, and subsequently got caught. Their first son perished as a result.
David subsequently repented before the Lord and was forgiven. Despite the grievous nature of his sin, he was nonetheless still described as a man after God’s own heart. I take encouragement from that myself. The David and Bathsheba’s second son was named Solomon. Scripture claims Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived.
Rulers came from all over the world to sit before Solomon and bask in his knowledge. One of those leaders was the Queen of Sheba. The Land of Sheba included modern-day Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Yemen.
One of countless unsubstantiated legends to have spawned from the Biblical narrative holds that Solomon and this visiting queen exchanged more than just pleasantries. The book of I Kings reports that Solomon already had 700 wives and 300 concubines. I simply cannot imagine. Keeping just my one wife happy seems like a full-time job to me. Regardless, this extra-Biblical tale proposes that the queen became pregnant by Solomon and eventually gave birth to a son known as Menelik I. The queen then supposedly raised the boy back home as a pious Jew. Now, hold that thought….
The Man
In the mid-1930s, fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini harbored aspirations to resurrect the greatness of Imperial Rome. Mussolini subsequently had designs on most of the Mediterranean Sea. In 1935, his first major conquest was Ethiopia. Ethiopia was led at the time by Emperor Haile Selassie.
Born in 1892, Selassie reigned over Ethiopia from 1930 through 1974. History recognizes Selassie as an enlightened reformer. Like all public figures, however, his actual legacy was mixed. While lauded for such stuff as a new freedom-centric Constitution in 1931 and the abolition of slavery eleven years later, he was nonetheless still criticized for the repression of human rights among certain ethnic groups and a failure to modernize quickly enough. Nobody’s perfect, but he was Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1935.
Desperation Nation
Ethiopia had beaten Italy during the First Italo-Abyssinian War, which ran from 1895 through 1896. By the mid-1930s, Mussolini remained quite butthurt over that. In October of 1935, the fascist dictator set out to make things right.
At the time, Italy was a world-class military power, while Ethiopia remained fairly primitive. Overall troop strength was about the same, but the Italians had the Ethiopians lyrically outmatched in combat power. Ethiopia fielded four tanks and seven armored cars against some 700 modern Italian armored vehicles. Italy outnumbered Ethiopia ten-to-one in artillery. Ethiopia possessed thirteen military aircraft against 595 Italian combat planes. This was shaping up to be a proper bloodbath.
The Emperor Responds
It is in moments of desperation that the true measure of a man’s character is exposed. When things looked darkest for Volodymyr Zelensky and the Russians were pouring across his national borders, President Biden offered him the use of an American helicopter to whisk him and his family to safety. Zelensky famously responded with, “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
As the Italians mobilized to seize his nation, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie had a similar defining moment. With his military teetering and the option of capitulation on the table, Selassie issued the following proclamation:
“Everyone will now be mobilized…All men and boys able to carry a spear will be sent to Addis Ababa. Married men will take their wives to carry food and cook. Those without wives will take any woman without a husband. Women with small babies need not go. Those blind, those who cannot walk or for any other reason cannot carry a spear are exempted. Anyone found at home after receipt of this order will be hanged.”
That sums things up nicely.
How Goes the War?
The Ethiopians never really had a chance. They nonetheless still fought like lions in the face of crushing opposition. There had been an arms embargo enacted by the major powers, including France and the UK. This disproportionately affected the Ethiopians, given their lack of indigenous manufacturing capability. Despite the relative parity in raw troop numbers, only about one in four Ethiopians had any formal military training. Many were armed with nothing more than a spear or bow. What rifles they did have were often antiquated, as were their few artillery pieces.
Selassie’s forces fielded some 1,150 machine guns of various sorts. Curiously, in an effort to influence Anglo-Italian relations and cause a rift between the UK and France, the Germans sent the Ethiopians three combat planes, 10,000 Mauser rifles, and 10 million rounds of ammunition. It was only later that Mussolini and Hitler became BFFs. It was obviously a complicated time.
As is so often the case, a well-funded but overmatched power leaned on mercenaries to flesh out its military machine. The Ethiopian Air Force was commanded by a Frenchman. Professional soldiers from the US, Nazi Germany, Sweden, Russia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Trinidad all came together to advise and command Ethiopian troops. Italian commanders later attributed Ethiopia’s battlefield successes to the influence of these soldiers for hire.
The Conflict Matures
The Italians attacked along several axes and made some modest early gains. Two weeks into the campaign, Italian troops seized Aksum and stole its historical obelisk. This they sent to Rome for display in front of the Ministry for Colonies.
Frustrated by his troops’ slow progress, Mussolini sacked his commander, Marshal Emilio De Bono, and replaced him with General Pietro Badoglio. Badoglio later became Prime Minister of Italy after the fall of the fascists in 1943.
Despite the enthusiasm of the Ethiopian forces, the technological superiority of the Italian Army gradually prevailed. In the absence of radios, the Ethiopians relied upon foot messengers for communication. In the face of a modern army, such stuff as this sealed their fate.
The Italians were absolutely barbarous in their prosecution of this war, something that served as a preview for what was to come in World War 2. In response to an assassination attempt against General Rodolfo Graziani, Italian forces massacred as many as 30,000 Ethiopian civilians. The primitive nature of the battlefield made verification of numbers unreliable. The Italians also deployed mustard gas against both military and civilian targets. Hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian civilians perished.
The Christmas Offensive
Around Christmas of 1935, Haile Selassie took personal command of his troops and launched an aggressive counteroffensive against Italian forces ground down by two months of heavy fighting. His objective was to split the Italian army, isolate their Corps commands, and lay a foundation for a follow-on operation to crush the invaders.
It was a solid plan deftly executed. However, ground troops simply cannot maneuver in the face of enemy air superiority. Despite the overwhelming technological disparities, the Ethiopians nonetheless still gave a good accounting of themselves.
At one point, an Italian Major named Criniti commanded a squadron of light tanks tasked to block the Ethiopian advance. One valiant Ethiopian soldier charged through withering machinegun fire to mount one of the compact Italian armored vehicles. He then banged on the turret to get the crew’s attention. The two gunners popped their hatches to deal with this unexpected threat. In response, the Ethiopian soldier decapitated them both with his sword.
Emperor Selassie Runs Out of Options
Despite the success of the Christmas Offensive, the Italians’ use of poison gas, to include both mustard and phosgene, ultimately turned the tide of the conflict. Emperor Selassie left Ethiopia to make an impassioned speech for support before the League of Nations in Geneva. World opinion was solidly against the Italians, but the League of Nations had no substantive power. Ethiopia fell, and the emperor spent the rest of the war in exile with his family in the UK.
You recall we began this discussion with King Solomon. Haile Selassie claimed to be the direct descendant of the Solomonic Dynasty. He posited that Menelik I, the purported son of the Queen of Sheba and Solomon, had sired a line of kings that led unbroken right up to his person in the 20th century. Considering this dynasty really gained a foothold in 1270 AD, that’s most likely not true. However, it is thought-provoking to ponder.
A group of Russian-backed Marxists called the Derg eventually removed Haile Selassie in a coup in 1975. Soon afterwards, Derg operatives strangled the deposed emperor to death in his bed. He was 83 years old. The sordid details were not uncovered for another two decades.
There is much more to this story than we have space to explore. Many followers of the Rastafari movement venerated Haile Selassie as a god. That’s itself a most fascinating tale.
Time Magazine rated Selassie as being among the “Top 25 Political Icons of All Time.” His legacy remains influential in the region to this day. It was a curious end to the line of wise men that just might have descended all the way from the Israelite King Solomon.
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INTERARMS Mark X .243
