LawScholar: "...and if people didn't exhaustively quote the locking-block breakage issues inherent to like...a dozen M9s in the early nineties,..."
Sorry. Locking blocks have been breaking (in significant numbers) on Beretta M9s since I fired JSSAP test weapons back in 1983. They continue to break with monotonous regularity to this very day under high round count military use. Perhaps you meant slide separations?
I don't have to quote locking block issues. I've lived them (as have most folks in my units). Usually an
average of ~ 18% of issued weapons suffering a locking block failure annually. Not internet rumor. Not imaginary stories. Just very real pieces of broken metal that we can touch. Common knowledge across most Army Special Forces battalions. And one of the primary reasons why so many of us carry Glocks or 1911s downrange.
When the M9 was adopted, the Army wanted a weapon which would somewhat exceed a 5000 round minimum service life. Not an unreasonable criteria when you consider that, at the time those requirements were put to paper, the average issued pistol was expected to fire only about 200 rounds per year. That figure was based upon then-existing STRAC training ammunition allocation tables.
After adding significant pistol live fire to re-vamped CQB training, we routinely exceeded that planned service life expenditure in less than a year. They began to fail with higher round counts...and continue to do so.
The 450,000
new M9s were purchased by DoD because that buy was the cheapest solution to a bigger problem.
That problem is: The original fielding of a half million or so M9s are reaching the end of their useful life due to wear and tear. The aluminum frames have not held up and many of those weapons are now beyond economical repair...after only 15-25 years in service (depending upon original year of issue).
It's not really the Beretta's fault, as the military got exactly what they asked for in the original specifications. The problem is that the pistol we bought is not the pistol we later needed. Tactics and doctrine evolve. Sometimes hardware is unable to keep up.
My unit was one of the last in the US Army to be issued M9s (around 1994). None of those weapons (issued in '94) remain in our arms rooms, having all been replaced several times over after they wore out under heavy use.
A new sidearm for the entire force is cost prohibitive in this time of soon-to-be shrinking defense budgets. We'll get another 20 years or so out of the new batch of M9s.
Although the Glock is a superb weapon (I own/have owned several), those that advocate general issue of such a foolproof weapon to several hundred thousand pistol neophytes are dreadfully misguided. They have simply not considered how many ingenious fools we issue weapons to. Issue the entire force Glocks and we would see an epidemic of NDs...which would then necessitate mandatory unloaded carry ...negating
the primary advantage for using Glocks in the first place (instant Point & Press simplicity).
Glocks, like 1911s, require a bit higher standard of training & safety awareness. Sadly, that required level of enhanced training (and secure holsters to match) ain't in any foreseeable budgets for the entire US military.
Unfortunately, the M9 will Soldier on for the next generation. So it goes.
YMMV.
