Well, it so happens that I acquired a little extra cash recently. Of course, this brought on an acute case of the dreaded 'Have money, need gun' disease. In spite of my wife's best efforts to apply a home cure....frying pan to the skull...the disease got the best of me, and off to the gun store I went. Yep, I'm a revolver guy and that's what I went looking for. But the only revolvers the dealer had in which I was interested in were from Taurus. Now I know their revolvers have a good reputation, but after my experience with the PT1911, I just couldn't bring myself to give them any more of my money.
So I drifted over to the display case where they keep the autos. I immediately eyed a Beretta 92FS, which I ended up buying, for a number of reasons. First of all, the widely acknowledged reputation it has as a solid, reliable gun. But another thing that influenced me was my gunsmith training. The Beretta 92 uses a dropping block locking system. That's why the gunsmith course focuses very heavily on it. It's unique. Even Glocks, which are breed to themselves, still use the common cam operated tipping barrel system used in the vast majority of modern center fire automatics.
Another thing unique to the Beretta is its safety. It uses a two stage firing pin. The first stage of the firing pin is very short and is contained entirely in shaft of the safety which passes through the slide at the rear. The second stage is in front of it. When the safety lever is up (fire), the two firing pins line up. The hammer strikes the first pin, driving it into the second, and in turn into the primer. But when the safety lever is depressed, the shaft rotates, taking the first firing pin with it. There's nothing for the hammer to hit, not matter what happens. And the the forward firing pin is totally isolated, making it absolutely impossible for this gun to discharge with the safety on. Even if dropped or struck very hard.
So having a Beretta to actually dismantle and play with will be a definite plus. Of course, on that note, the minute I got home, I started dismantling it. Had it torn down to all its basic parts in no time. Very easy gun to work on. So it got a good cleaning and oiling, at which point I found it was just as easy to reassemble as it was to take down. Haven't done a smooth and tune on it yet, but that's not far off.
The good news is, I didn't have to wait long to shoot it. I got it yesterday, and had a chance to take it to the range this morning, along with my
STI 45 auto. The Beretta is a totally new gun in my experience. Never owned one. Never even had a chance to fire one. But I can definitely say that it took me exactly one magazine to fall in love with it. For one thing, it functioned flawlessly, from the first round. No problems of any kind. But that wasn't the only thing.
The Beretta isn't known for its accuracy. Wasn't designed for it. It's a defensive gun, pure and simple. The design makes no effort to make the barrel return to the same spot after each shot. So I didn't have a very high expectation. I was pleasantly surprised. Put the first shot dead in the 10 ring. Followed by the next. With aimed fire, shooting offhand at 7 yards, it was putting round after round inside a three inch circle, most inside two inches. Nothing to win competitions with, but much better than I expected. And it shot that way from the first round. Most new guns I've had required at a least a short break in before they shot worth a damn.
Another thing I noticed right away, was the very light recoil. I don't know if that's because of the sheer size and weight of the gun, its design, or a combination of the two. But I've fired several full size 9mm's that weren't nearly as easy to control. In rapid fire, I could throw lead down range in a hell of a hurry.
The controversy over the 9mm's stopping power not withstanding, the Army didn't go wrong picking this gun. I can see this one getting a lot of shooting time.
