Beretta - Pulling the slide off

[Erik Jensen]

at least with my Beretta 92F, I can take the slide off with a loaded mag. maybe it's different with a 92FS, but I don't think so. regardless, it's a moot point. as has been said, if someone's close enough to me when I have my gun out to reach it, they'll have 16 cor-bons in them before they can get a hand around my slide.

 

[George Hill]

If they can take 16 Cor Bon hits and still get your gun... then you got more problems than a gun in 2 parts.

You need like Garlic and a Cross... a wooden stake might help too.

 

[Shake]

1. Can it happen?

Answer: Maybe. If the stars are the proper alignment and depending on the phase of the moon. The person who did this would have to be extremely quick, have hours and hours of live training (by live I mean with someone else holding the gun, reacting as a "normal" person would react in that circumstance), and have some luck. I don't believe any prison inmate would be able to duplicate the shape and location of controls of a Beretta accurately enough for the training to pay off.

I was in a gun shop once looking at an Elite II when a know-it-all explained to me that I was looking at the wrong firearm and that someone could remove the slide and leave me in a compromised situation. I asked the guy behind the counter if he cared if the guy showed me how it was done. He smiled, made sure the gun was clear, then said go ahead. I held the gun and the guy proceeded to "disarm" me by removing the slide. The only problem was it took about 30-40 seconds of fumbling and both hands before he was able to do it. Of course I waited patiently for him to finish (I honestly tried not to laugh). Long story short, this isn't an easy thing to do.

2. WOULD anyone do this in the real world?

Answer: Not unless they were VERY VERY stupid. Others have mentioned that to allow anyone to get close enough to do this indicates you are in serious trouble as it is, regardless of the type of firearm you have.

Think about the mechanics involved in this.

1. The BG has to recognize the fact that you have a weapon.

2. He has to determine if it is a Beretta 92/96 series.

3. He'd better make sure it isn't an Elite II or other "heavy"-slided version, as the take-down lever is harder to get to under the heavy slide.

4. Once he recognizes the pistol as a Beretta 92/96 without a heavy slide he has to get close enough to the weilder to perform his slide-removal stunt (hopefully the person with the gun will cooperate and not move around a lot as people are known to do in encounters of these types).

5. Pray that the guy with the gun doesn't know that if a bad guy is coming at you with the intent of doing serious bodily harm the correct response is to tell him to stop, then pull the trigger if he doesn't.

The long and short of this is that I'll pretty much stake my life on the bet that this WILL NOT happen. Honestly if someone gets this close to you, you are in trouble regardless of your weapon brand if you carry an auto. Autos will not/shouldn't fire out of battery and simply pressing the slide rearward on most will render them unable to fire.

Shake

 

[seeker_two]

I was in a gun shop this afternoon and the topic of the beretta slide being easily taken of by an attacker.

a police officer pointed that out to me once. I put my pistol down, leaned over and hit his cylinder release on his Smith 67 and dumped all his rounds out on the table. He was annoyed with me for a while.

Guess single-action revolvers have a useful place after all...

 

[Tamara]

a police officer pointed that out to me once. I put my pistol down, leaned over and hit his cylinder release on his Smith 67 and dumped all his rounds out on the table. He was annoyed with me for a while.

Good of him to stand there with the barrel obligingly pointing at the ceiling for you.

 

[ktd]

if I remember, his rounds were unfired, making it relatively easy for them to slide out without tipping the gun much. Anyway, the point of it is that if you think about it, it would be much easier and quicker to disable a revolver as I mentioned than your typical autoloading pistol as discussed. At any rate, you could also just hold the cylinder and prevent the revolver from firing as well, a much easier task than pushing the slide out of battery or disassembling it.


Specifically, as I recall I reached over with my left hand, thumbed the latch forward, and pushed the cylinder out with the tips of my fingers, wrapping my them around the topstrap. Then pushing back a bit tilted the gun enough for the rounds to fall out.

As far as him obliging me, neither of us were fighting over the revolver, I told him to let me show him something, so he was obliging me but I did it quick enough that there was not much he could do about it, which comes back to do not let people get too close.

btw it was also an outdoor range without a ceiling .

 

[Mike Irwin]

"place hand ontop of gun. use thumb to press the release lock button (dont know the appropriate name). use index finger to press magazine release, while simultaniously rotating the slide release lever (not the proper name either). then pull the slide assembly foreward off the frame."


HA HA!

You're screwed!

My Beretta 92 has the butt-mounted magazine release!

While you're fumbling around trying to find a mag. release that isn't there, I'm going to be filling you full of lead!

 

[Serpico]

Well, I guess it was enough of a concern for the LASD to retrofit all their Berettas with a flatter takedown button.....I'm still waiting to have mine done....but I ain't too concerned about it....it's a county weapon and they would have to give me a new slide once I fill out the embarrassing paper work...

 

[chevrofreak]

Mike Irwin, is yours some sort of euro model? I saw one like that a few months ago, and it even had a strange taper on the slide.

 

[Shawn Dodson]

The stunt was demonstrated at the 1994 Street Survival Seminar.

The slide can be removed from my 96FS with a loaded magazine.

I installed the modified slide release lever on my 96FS shortly after I got it. My concern, as a police officer, was dealing with crowds of unfriendly people in small rooms, as often happens when breaking up loud parties or entering gang member residences while investigating a disturbance. Automatically pressing the trigger at the person I had at gunpoint, with my gun in a retention position, was not an option, in my opinion, because the person at the end of my muzzle might not be the drunken nitwit who's thinks he's Jackie Chan.

 

[Mike Irwin]

Chevro,

Mine is a mid 1970s vintage Italian 92. It was part of a contract that apparently went to South Africa for their police in the 1970s, then came to the United States in rough external, fantastic internal, condition.

Slide taper on mine looks pretty much like current 92s do.

I got the gun and 5 15-round magazines for something around $250 from the owner of the gunshop where I worked.

 

[Mike Irwin]

OK, folks, we've had our illusions of meeting Bruce Jet Segal Claud Lee Van Dam in a rumble royal in which the Gerbil Master's prowess with the ancient art of Who Flung Pooy Dung allows him to get close enough to pull the slide off of our Beretta.

Reality check, folks.

If this does happen, if you're dumb enough to allow a potential agressor to come that close to you when you've already got your gun out, chances are he's not going to be a Gerbil Master, or a Reptillian Alien.

He's going to be one LUCKY SOB who manages to grab your gun in such a way that it just happens to trigger the series of events necessary to release the slide lock.

As we've also seen, it's possible to disable many other firearms, even revolvers, with a few well-placed finger strokes or a good, solid, hold.

Smith & Wesson even brought out a break-top revolver specifically for police officers to counter the possibility of a bad guy pulling the latch on top of the gun and popping the rounds out -- the .38 Double Action Perfected Model -- which had a Hand Ejector type cylinder release that had to be pushed to get the top latch to open.

All of this repeatedly begs the question...

What are you doing while this person closes with you and starts grabbing at your gun? Just standing there waiting to get your *** kicked?

Or are you taking defensive measures?

Even after the person has his hands on your gun, are you continuing to fight?

Every "action movie" I've seen where this has happened has the person standing stock still, looking like a huge lump, while the hero/villian waltzes up, gracefully, I might add, disables the gun, and then proceeds to kick the crap out of the person holding the frame and magazine.

As Shawn notes, I can see this as being of MUCH greater concern to the police officer who may routinely grapple with a bad guy as part of his official duties.

But if you're going to stand there like a big old sack of stupid and let a potential hostile get that close to you, especially if you have your gun out already, you got bigger problems that a gun's probably not going to resolve.

 

[Boats]

Were it not so tacky and legally problematic, I'd offer one way first class airfare and one night's accommodations to anyone who wants to fly out to Oregon and demonstrate this illustrious Beretta tactical takedown on a live gun.

This is, after all, a jurisdiction where assisted suicide is legal and one would have to be terminally stupid to come here to take the offer.