I handled one of these the other day (20" bbl) and while I'm not usually drawn to semi-auto rifles I must admit this one "felt" very nice.

Anyone shooting one of these --- I'd like to hear your experiences and any comments with respect to functioning, accuracy and recoil --especially with the Comfort-Tech stock.

Last! The largest caliber offered here in the USA is the .300 Win Mag but I've heard there are others available in Europe -- specifically the 9.3x62mm. Is this the case?

There is little info on the R-1 here unfortunately.In Europe it is available ,as is the Browning auto, in 9.3x62.It's nice for driven boar ! IIRC one of the European forum members posted a comment about it not too long ago.If they are like the shotguns they should be pretty good.

A friend of mine has one in cal. 30-06. He is quite pleased, but he didn't shoot much with it; he says that it's accurate, handy and works flawlessly.

When the Argo came out, in 2003, I was asked to test and write up for a hunting magazine the 1st imported rifle, chambered in .300 Win. Self-loading rifles not being my cup of tea, I confess that I approached the newcomer with some preconceived ideas. I soon started to cast another look as here was a semi-auto very well built, whose barrel/caliber could be interchanged and that could be cleaned from the chamber end. There being no scope on the test-rifle, I took fast offhand at 50 m to duplicate shooting in drive hunting. Recoil was straight in line and repeating shots stayed in a 10x10 cm (4"x4") square. Having been instructed not to baby the Argo, I shot as fast as I could aim, the result being that I had to stop when the wooden forend started smoking and mirage made sighting impossible.

While self-loaders are still not my cup of tea, I'll admit that if I had to buy one, I'd choose the Argo, no doubt. The major fly in the ointment has nothing to do with the rifle itself but is the fault of the Benelli Cy. itself. From the start, i.e. 6 years ago, they announced an Euro-package containing 1 Argo rifle + barrels in 7x64 and 9,3x62 (this would indeed allow stalking and drive hunting with the same rifle). Eventually, the 9,3 chambering was released in 2008, 5 years later !
Enough said…