Beretta 92FS: 30,000 Round Pistol?

[GunAdmirer]

An employee of a well-known semi local indoor range told me that they never clean a gun unless it begins to malfunction or they have absolutely nothing else to do. Because rental guns are often poorly maintained they are not always a good indicator of the performance of a given pistol.

 

[jc2]

Actually, it's very a good indicator. I like the idea of weapon that can "take a likkin' and keep on tickin'." If a weapon can take abuse and still remain functional, chances are if it's given good care, it will outlast and outperform a weapon that cannot take abuse that is given good care. I consider rental range conditions (tough conditions) a very good indicator of the strength, durability and reliability of a weapon.

 

[Darkside852003]

Beretta 92FS: 30,000 Round Pistol?

I'll let you know after another 27,000 rounds.
Anyone want to pitch in for ammo?

 

[Owen]

From experience, I would say that 30k rounds is a pretty good indicator of the service life of ANY pistol. A gun that goes 30k with no part replacement is pretty much a miracle. I have run tests up to 40k rounds on several pistols, and can tell you the rifling is pretty much gone, and the extractor has been replaced at least once, every time.

 

[1911 guy]

M9 and Mil ammo

The M9 was not designed to use Nato ammo. That's why there are stories, true ones (I can tell you two), of failure. Sure, every weapon needs some maintenance and care, but when a handgun comes right out of the armory the slide isn't supposed to fly off the weapon and whack said operator in the face. Of is it and I just missed the fine print?
Stick with SAAMI loads and you should be fine.

 

[jc2]

You really can't blame design for that--THAT was a manufacturing defect.

 

[GunAdmirer]

The manual I received from Beretta yesterday said the 92FS was chambered for 9mm Luger, Parabellum, NATO and 9X19 ammo.

It was designed for NATO rounds. It just had a design flaw and/or metallurgy problems.

 

[1911 guy]

Design and metalurgy

A design flaw means that it, in fact, was NOT designed to fire NATO ammunition. Maybe that was the intent, but due to said flaw, was not actually capable of it.
This metalurgy thing that keeps being mentioned. So Beretta has such loose quality control standards that upwards of tens of thousands of handguns were shipped to the U.S. government over the course of several years and they never caught the sub-standard metal?
Neither is true. I don't have all kinds of facts and figures and I got out of the service almost ten years ago, so the Beretta doesn't really make an impact on me. The truth is that the 92 is in general a very good handgun, and has only recently been redesigned to handle the NATO ammo.

 

[bountyhunter]

The M9 was not designed to use Nato ammo. That's why there are stories, true ones (I can tell you two), of failure.

You really can't blame design for that--THAT was a manufacturing defect.

Yes, it was. The slide fracture was due to brittle steel because the US foundry did not use the same material as the Italian's did. However, Beretta modified the slide desighn to prevent it from coming apart and flying off.

The manual I received from Beretta yesterday said the 92FS was chambered for 9mm Luger, Parabellum, NATO and 9X19 ammo.

It was designed for NATO rounds.

Correct.

A design flaw means that it, in fact, was NOT designed to fire NATO ammunition. Maybe that was the intent, but due to said flaw, was not actually capable of it.

"design flaw" is an incorrect statement. It was a deviation from intended manufacturing method. The design was modified to prevent catastrophic slide failure if the slides were poorly made.

This metalurgy thing that keeps being mentioned. So Beretta has such loose quality control standards that upwards of tens of thousands of handguns were shipped to the U.S. government over the course of several years and they never caught the sub-standard metal?

You don't "catch" substandard metal, it reveals itself when if fails.... ever hear of MIM parts?

The initial test the Army ran showed the M9 had an average life to failure of over 30,000 rounds. If there was an inherent defect in the design, that would have been impossible.

Neither is true. I don't have all kinds of facts and figures and I got out of the service almost ten years ago, so the Beretta doesn't really make an impact on me. The truth is that the 92 is in general a very good handgun, and has only recently been redesigned to handle the NATO ammo.

NO, the slide was modified so that if it did crack, it would not come apart and have a piece come back and hit the shooter. That did happen, although it was extraordinarily rare. In fact, I have yet to find a documented case of it, but I am told it happened one or two times so Beretta made a mod to cover it. That is the large head of the hammer pin which seats into a groove in the slide.

The locking blocks were beefed up just because they had a stress point where they cracked, although they had a very long average service life. They improved it to make them better.

The gun was never redesigned for +p ammo, it has been shooting it since the first Army tests.

 

[GunAdmirer]

+1. Thanks bountyhunter.

I fear that too much of the Beretta 92's early manufacturing and performance problems are urban legend. Is there any official documentation anywhere that clan clear up the real issues? I've been reading the same stories and arguments for over 10 years now.

 

[bountyhunter]

I fear that too much of the Beretta 92's early manufacturing and performance problems are urban legend. Is there any official documentation anywhere that clan clear up the real issues? I've been reading the same stories and arguments for over 10 years now.

The best place to get solid info might be the beretta forum.

http://www.berettaforum.net/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi


There has been so much BS shoveled it's hard to get to the bottom. I know that at one point some Navy seals claimed they had an M9 fail and injure somebody.... and Beretta claimed they were shooting 9mm machine gun ammo through it (WAYYYY hotter than NATO ammo). I believe the ammo is referred to as "Hirtenberger" ammo and sometimes it shows up at gun shows.... if fits into a 9mm handgu and basically destroys it. Seals denied it, so denials and accusations flew from both directions.

As for the legends of slides flying off the M9's and killing soldiers.... there has never been a single verification of a death, but slide fractures did occur. As far as I know, nobody was ever killed but at least one incident occurred where somebody was injured by a slide breaking in half and the back part continuing rearward. That is the modification that took the 92F to the 92FS. The "S" means the slide was modified.

Most of the "amplification" surrounding the M9 failures is done by 1911 lovers who hate the M9 and see it as a betrayal where we caved into NATO's request we standardize to their ammo.

Found this on a search:

http://www.thegunzone.com/m9-a.html

The most recent documented field injury, necessitating 28 facial stitches and repair of a broken tooth, occurred in January 1989 to a U.S. Marine training with the U.S. Air Force Military Police at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. Despite rumors on the gun shop grapevine, there have been no confirmed fatalities as a result of the Beretta's slide failures.

This place has a write up pretty heavily biased against the M9 (look at the pistol in the URL)

www.sightm1911.com/lib/history/true_story_m9.htm

From the Beretta Forum:

Reports of Slide Failure: Cause -- Poor metallurgy (Tellurium in the manufacturing process) in early (92F & M9) slides, and magnitude of this has been blown completely out of proportion… Reports and testimony from GAO staff before Congressional subcommittees report the total number of slide failures at 14. Three occurred in the field with the NSWG and the other 11 occurred in the test lab. Solution: Beretta changed the design so that even if a slide fractured, the broken half could not come back and hit the shooter causing injury. And after April 1988, all slides for the M9 pistols were produced in the US. (Result: 92FS -- M9 pistols in service were upgraded to the new slide as well.) No further slide fractures have been reported after the change to the U.S. manufactured slides. (No Tellurium & much better steel.)