U.S. News Blurb Re: Beretta 9mm in Iraq

[Higgins]

Saw this in the latest U.S. News & World Report:

"The first "lessons learned" reports are coming in from Iraq, and it seems that most troops thought the tools of war worked extremely well . . . . But there was a long list of complaints the Pentagon has to deal with. Take the 9-mm gun. Soldiers said it lacked "stopping power" and had to be rigged to feed bullets into the chamber."



Knowing the love/hate different people have about the Beretta and the 9mm as the U.S. sidearm/cartridge, I thought some of you might find this latest "real war" input on the Beretta to be interesting - or at least good for some comments.

I wonder how it had to "be rigged to feed bullets?"

 

[Navy joe]

9mm: There was general dissatisfaction with this weapon. First and
foremost, soldiers do not feel it possesses sufficient stopping power. They
desire a modification to allow for more accurate firing during limited
visibility - tritium on the sight posts was a specific recommendation. The
9mm magazine performed very poorly. Soldiers were stretching the spring in
order to provide sufficient force to feed rounds into the chamber. Soldiers
were not satisfied with the guidance from higher to not stretch the spring
and only load 10 rounds in the 15 round magazine.

Source: Small Arms and Individual Equipment Lessons from Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Source is USAJFKSWCS, Army Special Operations Battle Lab.

I posted the whole rather lengthy spiel in GD a while back. I get the feel that the majority of the stopping power complaints came from soldier's versions of gun shoppe tales in that sidearms were not likely used in many encounters. Those that would have used pistols have access to MK23 and MEUSOC 1911s I'm sure. That said, anecdotal or not it is no stretch to realize that 9mm ball is not a great stopper.

 

[cool45auto]

had to be rigged to feed bullets into the chamber."

Huh? I'd like to read a little more about that myself.

 

[George Hill]

The problem is that the Army's M9's are getting old. They need new springs... and being Military they can't just call up Wolff and have new ones sent right over.

I think everyone here agrees that 9MM FMJ is not that impressive of a fight stopper.

Adding 1+1 in this case is going to come out to a lot of complaints. Being Iraq, you have a lot of sand and gritty dust in everything. I don't know of another 9MM that would do better in those conditions.

 

[Ian11]

I think its referring to our troops stretching the mag springs so it has sufficient force for the slide to catch the next round.

As far as 9mm ball not having enough stopping power. I doubt .45 ACP ball would have performed THAT much better. Most studies and statistics seem to prove ball ammo in most defense handgun calibers are poor stoppers. Whatever the results we tend to underestimate the 9mm and overestimate the .45 when in fact they are so very close. We see what we want to see when in fact all handguns are poor stoppers. If they were armed with .45 handguns and had similar results they would have blamed it on other factors. Again, we see what we want to see.

If only it would stop all the complaints about the 9mm maybe it'd be worth switching back to the .45


Just an opinion nothing more.

 

[goon]

Parts wear out on guns.
The Berettas need new springs.
It happens.
As for the 9mm's lack of stopping power, I think I have the solution.
Use a different twist of rifling that just barely stabilizes the bullet. Upon impact, you get tumbling. Yes, this may impair accuracy, but a pistol is a close range weapon anyway. By doing this you could still keep existing weapons and ammo, and still stay legal.

 

[10-Ring]

You ask that large a group a question & you'll have just as many answers!

 

[Minute_Of_Torso]

I can't speak for the way the Army maintains their M9's but I work with the Navy every day and I can say that their (Navy) M9's look like they're alternately used as a hammer, paint stirrer, paint scraper, and any other use which would explain the generally poor condition of their pistols. This isn't limited to their M9's either, their shotguns and M14s are generally terrible, too.

The point being . . . if you don't maintain your equipment in good condition it will eventually fail you when you need it. I can't say that this is the problem from the post above but it seems to be a general problem with military equipment (and before I get flamed by the lifers, yes, I've been there - done that - and have the discharge paperwork).

What would concern me the most is what in the Navy is referred to as a "sailor alt". Someone without the expertise needed, or sometimes even a basic understanding of why a piece of equipment does what it does, attempts to alter the equipment to do what they think it ought to do. Almost 100% of the time this results in a piece of equipment that now doesn't do what it's supposed to and has become a danger to the user. Hopefully this doesn't occur in this case.

 

[tetchaje1]

As for the 9mm's lack of stopping power, I think I have the solution.
Use a different twist of rifling that just barely stabilizes the bullet. Upon impact, you get tumbling. Yes, this may impair accuracy, but a pistol is a close range weapon anyway. By doing this you could still keep existing weapons and ammo, and still stay legal.

Umm, don't mean to rain on your parade, but this wouldn't work for a pistol round. There is not enough difference in mass from the bullet nose to the base to induce an instability in the bullet as it passes through tissues. This works in rifle rounds because the nose profiles are so much narrower (and therefore have much less mass) than the base of the bullet. The most stable position for the bullet upon impact with tissue (which is over 400 times more sense than air) is base-forward, and therefore you get yaw of the bullet, but this only occurs once because the bullet is now in the state of lowest energy.

OTM rounds, and those with a cannelure (like the M855), fragment because the jacket is fragile enough that the hydraulic pressure causes bullet failure when the round has yawed through 90 degrees.

Pistol rounds just don't work in the same way.

The only thing I don't understand is why somebody hasn't come up with an OTM pistol round that would still be allowed under the Geneva Convention, but that would either fragment or expand...

 

[Destructo6]

Seems like stretching the mag springs would do more harm than good.

I don't know how the Army does it, but when I was attached to the 3rdMarDiv, we were required to go to the armory and clean our issue weapon every month, regardless of whether we'd even touched them in between. My M9 mags were like new because ammo went into one, one time only.

 

[dsk]

True, most any brand of handgun will have issues to deal with in an environment such as the Middle East desert.

That having been said, the M9 is/was still a poor choice. Too big, too fragile under hard use, and with too many openings to allow sand and grit to get inside and cause problems. The double-stack mag is the biggest problem regarding insufficient spring strength. When the mags stay double-stacked as with an M-16 mag it's not as big a problem, but forcing the rounds back into a single column adds friction, something a mag choking in dust doesn't need.

Back when the 1911 was general issue, the complaints were mostly limited to "it's too heavy", "kicks too hard", or "goes off too easily". I think it's high time the soldiers learned to complain about heavy, hard-kicking dangerous guns again.

 

[Blueduck]

Saw video footage of JMB's "Ultra reliable" .50 being used over there. Soldier was clearing a jam every 5th or 6th shot and didn't seem particularly upset or surprised about it

Maybe nothing but AK's and oil wells work in Iraqi sand

 

[Tamara]

Blueduck,

That Ma Deuce may have been twice as old as he was; there are some in inventory that are just slap wore out.

 

[Tamara]

dsk,

How come on an M9 it's "too many openings to allow sand and grit to get inside and cause problems" but on an M1911A1 it's gaps and loose tolerances to allow the junk to get out of the gun?

 

[Thumper]

Those greasy eye-talian pistols just seem to attract all manner of nastiness.

The 1911 repels dirt and sand as well as boarders.

 

[fgr39]

blueduck,
one more thing about the Ma Deuce, alot of people who fire it don't know how to set the headspace and timing, I've seen guys show up on the 50 cal range to qualify and not even know there was such a thing as a headspace and timing gauge. I have put the Ma Deuce thru its paces more than a few times and never had a problem, and yes that includes the desert in the middle east.

 

[cslinger]

TAMARA said...

"How come on an M9 it's "too many openings to allow sand and grit to get inside and cause problems" but on an M1911A1 it's gaps and loose tolerances to allow the junk to get out of the gun? "



I was thinking the same thing about the AK.

 

[Boats]

One thing everyone overlooks when kvetching about the M9 is that most of them have long not had factory mags floating around with them. The Armed Services, to save a buck or two, have largely bought non-OEM replacement mags (made by Checkmate, IIRC) for their Berettas and the results speak for themselves.

I owned constantly loaded/fired Berettas for years and never had a magazine issue with any of them to the point I was "stretching" the springs to achieve "better feeding." The Beretta is one of the more foolproof feeding selfloaders I have ever encountered, but then again, I was never relying on Eagle Mags in them either, or my opinion might be radically different.

Sand is kind to no pistol, as Larry Vickers demonstrated on 1911forum some time ago, but if we are going to blast Beretta rather than the 9mm FMJ, let's at least blast the Italians for something that they, rather than Pentagon bean counters, did with their design.

 

[Akurat]

I can vouge for the fact that the Coast Guard's pistols are extremely beat up and worn out. All the ones I handled and fired seemed as if they were on their last leg, yet the armorers on the boats would just sit there, shrug, and 'clean them again'. It was the most they could do without replacement springs and parts...and as most know, overcleaning simply accelerates wear and only temporarily makes the gun function semi-properly.

That said, Berettas are great firearms...I love mine and don't think it will ever fail me. BUT, given enough wear and tear(read misuse and abuse) by GI's who don't give a crap about the weapon cause 'its not theirs'...and the fact that the guns are taken down and cleaned so often, and so unneccessarily (even when they have not been fired)....you can only expect a piece of machinery to last so long.

I think any gun would fail under this kind of constant handling and abuse, mixing/matching of parts, and generally bad/uncaring treatment by relatively inexperienced operators.

 

[Al Thompson]

I dunno Akurat - we had 1911s under those conditions for 80 years (1911 to 1990?) and the M9 for maybe 13 years.

Looks bad for the Beretta to me.

 

[George Hill]

After we pay off the Strykers and Ospreys and the XM-29... then maybe we can look at replacing worn out guns.

 

[Boats]

As a 1911 fan who handled and fired some of those service 1911s, I cannot imagine every Beretta as being in as bad shape as most of the 1911s by the time they were replaced. The Beretta certainly doesn't have the advantage of millions of junkers sitting around to be cannabalized for refurbs. Have the Berettas even had a factory refurb or is the DoD just scheduling to replace them at some point?

 

[firestar]

My friend was a armorer for the Marines and his take on the situation is that most military guns are in bad shape and not well maintained. They are old and beat up with parts that should be replaced. The 1911s had just as much or more reliability problems due to the same reasons.

The 1911s and Beretta M-9s are two of the most loved and hated pistols in America. Most of the bad press comes from the fact that the military guns are in such bad condition. Imagin buying a new gun (any gun) and passing it around to a bunch of novice gun handlers for 20-50 years. See how long it takes until it starts having problems.

The fact is, you can't judge a pistol based on war stories. I have had several 1911s and I own a Beretta 92fs. Both of these types of guns are supposed to have major flaws that will get you killed in a gunfight. The 1911 is supposed to be unreliable and inaccurate and the Beretta is supposed to be weak and fragile. I don't agree with either of these myths. A 1911 or Beretta in good condition will be at least as good as any other pistol.

I get so tired of all the 1911 and Beretta bashing. Most of it is not even based on facts and is just silly. Whenever there is a super popular gun, people either love it or hate it. The three guns that everyone seems to have feelings about are: Glocks, Berettas, and 1911s. There is so much emotion surrounding these guns that all info about them is now suspect. The best solution is to take the middle ground on these guns. Don't believe the extremes about these guns. Glocks don't Ka-Boom every other round, Berettas don't impale their slides in people's forheads, 1911s don't jam every other round. On the other hand, don't believe the stuff that seems too good to be true either. Glocks don't have a magical ability to never jam, Berettas can't fire 30-40 rounds out of a 15 round mag like in the movies, 1911s won't pick up the enemy and knock them back 15 feet with the .45ACP cartridge.

As far as 9mm not being powerful enough for a defensive gun, I think that it has proven to be just as good as .45 in a lot of ways. In any case, it is too close to really tell. Some people like 9mm and some like .45acp.

 

[Andrew Wyatt]

I don't know of another 9MM that would do better in those conditions

a BHP, a SIG, or damn near anything without an open slide.


What the military needs is a fully enclosed, two flap holster. , like the british pattern 37. that thing has an almost mystical ability to repel dirt.


if the military ever decides to replace the beretta, they'd well to pick one that's not so incredibly huge around the grip, and has a shorter trigger reach, as not everyone in the military is a 6 foot tall, square jawed, large handed Gi joe american hero type guy.

a kahr t9 would be an excellent choice, as would a slimmed down 1911.

 

[mephisto]

My brother in law was over there for 5 months. Before he left the whole family saw him off and he was telling me about the sidearm he had been given. When he showed me it i thought i was looking at a 40 year old pistol. It was beat to hell. he is a navy doc that was put with the "Jarheads". He never had to use it while he was over there.