Beretta 92 fs help

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LUCKYDAWG13

LUCKYDAWG13

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I have a 92fs that just doesn't shoot well at best a 4 " Group at 7 yards is there any upgrades worth while it's bone stock i bought it new back in 93 and just never shot it well
All suggestions welcome
Thanks
 
Am assuming these are off-hand groups?

Have you shot this pistol from a rest?

I have a difficult time believe that a Beretta would be shooting shotgun patterns at only 7 yards. The 92 series are typically one of the more accurate modern pistols out of the box. At 7 yards you should be shooting cloverleaf groups.
 
For the gun to be shooting 4" groups at 21 feet, either the bore is very bad/smooth/badly leaded, the crown is badly damaged, or something having to do with the point of impact is shifting in the gun by about 2mm between shots.

With a dummy round chambered, try wiggling the barrel back and forth or up and down. Don't apply enough force to take the gun out of battery by pulling/pushing the slide backwards. What you're looking for is side-to-side or up-and-down play in the barrel with the gun in battery and a round chambered. You can also check to see if the rear sight is loose at this point.

2mm is a lot of play, you should be able to detect it very easily if anything is loose. Remember that the slide needs to be fully forward with a round chambered for the barrel play test. Checking for barrel play with the slide locked back is pointless.

If you can't detect any play, examine the crown for nicks and burrs or other damage.

If there's no crown damage or barrel play, the next step is to check the bore. I've seen a 92FS bore lead so badly that it became very inaccurate. The shooter was using lead bullet ammo with bullets that were very thinly plated with copper, giving the appearance of jacketed rounds. When you check the bore, you want to see a nice clean rifling with no damage. It's also worth checking the bore diameter by turning a 9mm cartridge around to see if it will drop into the muzzle. It should not go in very far at all. If the bore doesn't show any significant leading and doesn't look damaged, and if a 9mm bullet won't fit down the muzzle, then you've pretty much eliminated the bore as being the cause.
 
Old Dog said:
Am assuming these are off-hand groups?

Have you shot this pistol from a rest?

I have a difficult time believe that a Beretta would be shooting shotgun patterns at only 7 yards. The 92 series are typically one of the more accurate modern pistols out of the box. At 7 yards you should be shooting cloverleaf groups.
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Yes i agree and yes off hand I have let others shoot it as well with the same results I ordered a new spring set I'm going to take it too the range on Tuesday before i put the new springs in and go back after I put the new springs in if that doesn't work i may have to start looking for a new barrel
 
I will do the test on Monday when I get home from work with clean the barrel extra good I'm sure that it is but I will dubbel check it But if there is play in the barrel what is the fix
 
If there's 2mm of play in the barrel at the muzzle, something's wrong in the gun. It could be something wrong with the barrel or something wrong with the slide.

In my two 92 pistols, one has about a fifth of a millimeter of play in the barrel side-to-side with a dummy round fully chambered and the hammer back. There's about half that much up-and-down play. In the other, it requires so much force to get any play at all to show that I can't hold the gun still to get a decent measurement; but I would guess it's about the same.

Keep in mind that you're measuring play BETWEEN the barrel and slide, not just how much you can get the barrel and slide together to wiggle. So you need to hold the slide firmly with one hand and try to wiggle the barrel. If you hold the frame and wiggle the barrel, you'll also be seeing play between the slide and frame which is unlikely to have much effect on accuracy.
 
There will be a little barrel play in the Beretta 92FS even with the slide in battery. It won't be anywhere close to 2 mm and should be less than 1 mm, but the 92Fs does not have a barrel bushing and the opening for the barrel at the front end of the slide is significantly bigger than the diameter of the barrel. My Beretta 92 FS is reasonably accurate, but it certainly has more than .20 mm of play between the barrel and the top strap of the slide even with a dummy round chambered and the slide in battery. If you find this to be the case, it is probably not the answer to your problem.

In addition to cleaning the barrel and chamber, and closely inspecting both afterwards, give your locking block a close inspection. Look for any deformation or cracks in the two "ears" of the block. Also examine the recesses in the in the slide that the ears of the block fit into. The locking block is a weak point in the design of the Beretta 92 series and is known to be a point of failure. The locking block does quite a bit to lock the barrel in the correct position in the slide.

The alloy frames of the Beretta 92 have been known to crack, so give yours a close inspection as well.
 
There will be a little barrel play in the Beretta 92FS even with the slide in battery. It won't be anywhere close to 2 mm and should be less than 1 mm, but the 92Fs does not have a barrel bushing and the opening for the barrel at the front end of the slide is significantly bigger than the diameter of the barrel. My Beretta 92 FS is reasonably accurate, but it certainly has more than .20 mm of play between the barrel and the top strap of the slide even with a dummy round chambered and the slide in battery. If you find this to be the case, it is probably not the answer to your problem.
Click to expand...
There is certainly more than 0.2mm of space between the barrel and the slide, but, as you say, there should not be much play at all--there may be room around the barrel, but in practice when the end of the barrel is wiggled, it should actually move very little. The examples I gave were just what I observed on my pistols. I'm not claiming that's the spec, but it shouldn't be a lot more than that or good accuracy would be impossible. For example, 0.5mm of actual barrel play would amount to groups in the neighborhood of 3.6" at 25 yards and the 92 pistols I've shot are certainly capable of that or better if they're in good condition and using ammo they like.
The locking block does quite a bit to lock the barrel in the correct position in the slide.
Click to expand...
It definitely does. The barrel play test should also show up any locking block issues for that reason.
 
In the case of my Beretta 92 FS there is a gap of about 1.4 mm between the top of the barrel and the top strap of the slide. There is a lessor amount of clearance between the sides of the barrel and the slide. The amount of play with the slide in battery is no different whether I have a dummy round (fired 9 mm case or Tipton 9 mm snap cap) in the breech or not. With the slide in battery, the barrel can be moved upward half of the gap between the barrel and the slide - .6-.7mm.

If you search forums and google, you can find literally hundreds of comments from Beretta 92 FS owners who have noticed this "barrel wiggle". Here is a short video from one such owner. He demonstrates the degree of barrel wiggle with the slide in battery but an empty chamber. But once again, in the case of my pistol, the play in the barrel is unaffected by the presence of a cartridge case or round in the chamber. I regard the amount of barrel play demonstrated in this video to be completely normal. If that is what the OP is experiencing, my advice is not to worry about it:

http
 
Thank you all for your help suggestions and links if it is the barrel lock not too costly to fix
It will be a few days before i can get back to my range and the new springs arrive to report back
 
Bought my 92 FS back in '94 or '95 and never noticed barrel movement. Just checked and it does wiggle just a bit but I'm not worried because, even after untold thousands of rounds, it is ridiculously accurate!

Good luck to OP and hope you find the issue... and that the fix is easy for ya!

Also, that D-spring change out is a nice easy mod well worth the $.
 
I recall a thread years ago over at the berettaforum dot net that addressed the question of why the play in the barrel of the 92 series does not seem to have as adverse affect on accuracy as one might expect. I remember a number of theories were advanced but can't recall the consensus, if there was one.

If you look at the wear on the breech face of your slide after you have shot a couple of thousand rounds through your Beretta 92, you will see that the barrel contacts the slide at the raised area around the top and sides of the recess in the breech that accommodates the case head. The recoil spring exerts pressure at a location well below these contact points and that tends to hold the barrel at the lower end of the travel allowed by the muzzle end of the slide. So even though you can push the muzzle of the barrel up does not necessarily mean that it will go up during live fire. It may also be that pressure of the expanding gases during ignition back against the breech face and expansion of the case in the chamber serves to stabilize the alignment of the barrel and breech.
 
The amount of play with the slide in battery is no different whether I have a dummy round (fired 9 mm case or Tipton 9 mm snap cap) in the breech or not. With the slide in battery, the barrel can be moved upward half of the gap between the barrel and the slide - .6-.7mm.
Click to expand...
I didn't try without a dummy, but theoretically there can be a slight difference in play and since one doesn't fire guns without a round chambered, it makes sense to me to test it the way it will be fired.

I can't get anywhere near that much play in the barrel of my two 92 pistols. Maybe if I applied a lot of force I could get them to move that much, but just testing for play at the muzzle gives numbers much smaller than that. I would expect the play to increase somewhat with a lot of shooting, so maybe that's why you're seeing about 3x as much play as is present in my two pistols.

Anyway, I think we both agree that if there's enough play to cause 4" groups at 7 yards (about 2mm at the muzzle) that's evidence of some kind of a problem.

Just to be clear, I want to repeat that the examples I gave were just what I observed on my pistols. I'm not claiming that's the spec. I am saying that too much play (enough to cause 4" groups at 7 yards) is not normal, and, as you say, even 1mm of play seems excessive.
So even though you can push the muzzle of the barrel up does not necessarily mean that it will go up during live fire.
Click to expand...
That is also true, however at some point if the barrel can wiggle around too much freely it will affect accuracy. I'm not going to try to quote an exact threshold for that number but I agree that it should probably be less than 1mm and further I agree that a small amount of play is normal and there probably isn't a direct mathematical relationship to the group sizes on target.
 
LUCKYDAWG13 said:
Thank you all for your help suggestions and links if it is the barrel lock not too costly to fix
It will be a few days before i can get back to my range and the new springs arrive to report back
Click to expand...
Its a good idea to upgrade to a new locking block anyway, current production blocks have a radius cut at the leading edge of the lugs which helps prevent stress cracking-
5336387701_624e9f5f90_z.jpg
 
Jeb Stuart said:
FYI I do not own one, but saw this new help series on another forum.

Click to expand...


Now that is SWEET ! I like that low profile a bunch ! I installed a Beretta decock onl
Jeb Stuart said:
FYI I do not own one, but saw this new help series on another forum.

Click to expand...


Now that is awesome !!! I installed a Beretta Decock-only lever and like it , but this low profile kits is awesome !!! Thanks for posting it.
 
I installed the Wilson Combat Lo-pro safety/decocker lever on my Beretta 92FS years ago. The installation video was quite well done.

The WC lo-pro lever does make sling-shotting the slide easier without tearing up your hands on the bat wings of the standard lever, and makes it virtually impossible to accidentally engage the safety when doing so. It is non-ambidextrous obviously, so it might not appeal to some left-handed shooters. If you intend to use your Beretta 92FS for self defense, I would use the lo-pro lever primarily as a decocker only. The lever profile does make it harder to disengage the safety than with the standard lever. I like preserving the safety function when I am shooting my Beretta at the range, however.
 
Well i may have found what my problem is my locking lug will just slide out i don't think it's supposed to and yes the roll pin is in
 
Well i may have found what my problem is my locking lug will just slide out i don't think it's supposed to...
Click to expand...
In some guns the locking blocks will come out without removing the roll pin, in others they won't. I don't believe it makes any difference in accuracy one way or the other. When the gun is in battery, the locking block is engaged with the slide and can't come out--how it behaves when the barrel is out of the gun isn't important.
 
NIGHTLORD40K said:
I had one crack at the barrel lug, locking up the pistol because the guide races were no longer true. Had to beat it off with a rubber mallet and replace the barrel and block.:(
View attachment 870802
Click to expand...
That’s a new one for me. I have seen a lot of locking block failures, but that’s a first barrel failure of that nature. Very interesting.
 
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