[Min]

Does anyone know about whether the gun will withstand +P AND +P+ ammo?

I know my HK USP 9mm can, without a doubt.

I did a search on BerettaForum already and there was one thread about it. The consensus was the manual did not recommend +P+ ammo, but that +P was okay.

My question is, +P is okay for HOW MANY ROUNDS?


Thanks.

[Lone_Gunman]

If you can afford to buy enough ammo to wear it out, you can afford to buy a new gun when you do.

[10-Ring]

You may also wanna invest in a heavier recoil spring to help on the wear & tear ;)

[bountyhunter]

The standard 92FS is designed to operate with the NATO 124-gr 9mm ammo which is slightly hotter than +p loading in velocity. During the Army's original qualification testing, the M9's averaged over 30,000 rounds before significant failure.

[WonderNine]

Most of the stuff I fire through Berettas is NATO or +P+ and I've never had a problem. I don't recommend the heavier recoil spring IME especially on a carry or defense gun. It screws up the timing of guns (narrows their margin of error) and also makes it just a little less likely to lock back the slide on the last shot. I'd stick with the factory strength when you replace your recoil spring.

[Drifting Fate]

I have to agree with keeping in the stock parts. The only Beretta I have seen fail to feed was one were the guy had felt compelled to change out the recoil spring and guide rod for some buffer-type unit. Put the stock pieces in, and it functioned flawlessly.

The 92FS is my dirty little secret, I shouldn't like them so much, but I do.

[WonderNine]

I tried one of those buffertech's or whatever they're called on a Hi-Power and Beretta 92. What a JOKE! Never again!

[Kor]

...published in Krause Publications' Handguns 2001(13th Edition), states the following information:

"With the gun's major criticisms in mind, I wanted to see how the M9/92FS would stand up to a 20,500 round torture test using mostly +P and +P+ ammunition. I purchased a stock 92FS from a local gun distributor and made some calls for some high-power ammunition. The ammunition used in this test is as follows: 9X19mm (NATO, Parabellum/Luger) manufactured by Winchester/Olin Corporation.

Beretta U.S.A. claims their pistol is serviceable to 35,000 rounds and that it will function under the most adverse conditions. Beretta U.S.A. claims 'the average reliability of all M9s tested at Beretta U.S.A. is 17,500 rounds without stoppage.' The ammunition I chose was the hottest ammunition available and I would not recommend anyone put high round counts of +P+ ammunition through any alloy-frame pistol regardless of manufacturer.

The first thing I did was fire for out-of-the-box accuracy, I used the 115-grain +P+ ammunition and at 15 yards the 15-shot group measured 1.5 inches. I had nine magazines loaded up and someone loading magazines as I emptied them and, within 20 minutes, I fired 500 rounds with no malfunctions of any type...

The next day I began firing 2,000 rounds of the 127-grain +P+SXT, by far the hottest 9mm ammunition I have ever fired. There were no malfunctions of any type using this ammunition. Over the next 3 days I fired 8,000 rounds of 9mm NATO, the standard M882 Ball ammunition issued to U.S. military personnel. The M882 ball cartridge is rated as a +P cartridge by SAAMI specifications.

The barrel was cleaned every 2,000 to 3,000 rounds. It would take us 45 to 50 minutes to fire 1,000 rounds and, at times, the pistol would become too hot to handle. I fired 1,000 rounds of Winchester USA 115-grain 9mm ball with no problems and the pistol, after 11,500 rounds, was still delivering groups in the 1.5-inch range.

At this point, the pistol was totally disassembled and cleaned. Then I fired an additional 6,000 rounds of the 115-grain FMJ with only one malfunction. There was one failure to extract due to an under-powered cartridge, not the pistol.

After about 15,000 rounds I began to notice some pitting on the right wing of the locking block. I recommend changing this part when pitting is noted, but this was a torture test and we wanted to see how long the gun will last.

As of now 17,500 rounds have been fired and I headed back to the range to fire the remaining 3,000 rounds. Finally at round count 19,498, I had a locking block failure. The left wing of the locking block broke and the pistol's slide locked up. By pushing down on the broken wing with a drift punch, the action was freed and the pistol subsequently disassembled, revealing some minimal frame damage - but nothing that would affect the operation of the pistol. I changed the locking block and within 10 minutes I was back in action and concluded the test with no other malfunctions. The last 15 rounds were fired for accuracy; the group measured about 1.75 inches at 15 yards. The accuracy had hardly changed at all.

The locking block survived 19,948 rounds, which included 2,500 rounds of +P+, 8,000 rounds of +P and 10,000 rounds of standard 9mm ball. One friend of mine put it best: 'You fired $4,000 worth of ammunition out of a $450 handgun and broke a $60 part after 19,498 rounds were fired, what more could you ask?'

I feel very few pistols will ever see this round count - except for a military pistol. For many years I have heard people claim the Beretta M9/92FS was a fragile gun because of those early, isolated incidents. Following this torture test, I know this gun is far from fragile! There is no question in my mind the pistol is serviceable to 35,000 rounds; I would not be surprised to see it last 50,000 rounds. The Beretta M9/92FS is, in my opinion, one of the most reliable firearms ever produced - and this test proved it."

Well, :rolleyes: - does THAT answer your question? :evil:

Anybody who wants to, go ahead and link/cut & paste this over to Berettaforums - I'm packing it in after all that typing...:neener:

[WonderNine]

Replace parts as necessary and I don't see why they wouldn't keep going long after 50K.

[Glockster35]

Yes and No!

I ran a military firing range where we were testing out a new +P 9mm round for use. It was a Winchester Ranger Prototype. Available for Military and Law Enforcement use only.

We fired nothing but this round for 3 years, and eventually adopted it's use exclusively on our range (now many others in the Air Force adopted it's use). We did have problems with accuracy at one point, function at another and did have several guns go down (frame failures), but this was after three years and many thousands of rounds.

IMHO it wasn't the rounds that caused the problems, it was more likely the weapon, or should I say the lack of a better recoils spring. We weren't allowed to upgrade the weapons at all, but I knew we needed to at least put a stronger recoil spriong in it.

I would say that as long as you don't fire these rounds exclusively, you should be OK.

[Island Beretta]

You can fire +P all night, day, week long through the Beretta. It is not a problem!! The issue with the +P+ is that the pressure to which they are loaded is not standardised so to err on the side of caution use with care..in any gun!!

The Beretta locking block is designed to take the bulk of the recoil forces and so will fail, eventually. Nevertheless they have been strengthened to improve their service life by rounding the wings. As the article quoted previously said this is a cheap part to replace and protects your frame and slide, much more expensive items.

One of the big pluses about the Beretta is that it is debugged and you pretty much know the potential problem areas..so stock up on the replacement parts.:cool:

[Big Mike]

Yes.