Fit For a Pharaoh
The Beretta SL3 Tutankhamon Shotgun Is A True Treasure
By John Geiger
Now here’s an amazing find. On Feb. 22, at the Safari Club International Convention in Nashville, Beretta unveiled an amazing 1-of-1 firearm. The richly engraved Beretta SL3 — called the SL3 Tutankhamon — is covered in depictions of Egyptian history, symbols of the Egyptian civilization and hieroglyphs found in Tutankhamon’s tomb. The one-of-a-kind functional work commemorates the 100th anniversary of Howard Carter’s and Lord Carnarvon’s 1922 discovery of the famous pharaoh’s tomb.
Master Engraver Luca Casari spent many days at the actual Valley of the Kings site in Egypt to absorb the significance and beauty of the scene. Casari put in more than 1,000 hours of engraving to bring the surfaces to work-of-art caliber. Travis Haglin and Carlo Gussalli Beretta presented the Tutankhamon SL3 to buyer Alex Roy at the convention.
“I am so glad to be able to support Beretta and this amazing art,” said Roy of Pennsylvania, who is the owner of EuroOptic, during the presentation. “I do not have a long-term plan for it, but I will put it on display at our company headquarter so I can share the beauty with others and they can see this work of art.”
The engraving has been done in the Bulino style with a gold, green gold, silver and copper hand inlay. It features a hammer-and-chisel technique for the background beating.
The 1-of-1 shotgun is an SL3 EELL 12-gauge with a classic field configuration and Beretta proprietary steelium hyper-polished 30-inch Optimabore-HP barrels. It is made with exhibition-grade 5 European walnut wood and hand checkered with a Tru-Oil finish.
The shotgun is presented in a bespoke gun case notably designed and handcrafted by Pietro Beretta’s Custom Atelier featuring handmade wood construction and finished with fine Italian leather, pyrographed, and painted to recreate Tutankhamen’s sarcophagus.
Carlo Gussalli Beretta, who represents the 16th generation of the gun-making family, was on hand for the presentation. He said the company will be revealing several other unique guns in the future.
Beretta was established in 1526 and is the longest-standing industrial dynasty in the world. Firearms bearing the Beretta name have been sold for almost 500 years.
