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Good Article on M9

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Room 055

Posted: Apr 13th 2010, 02:25 PM

Having had an issued Beretta M9 and a personally owned 92FS, I can say that it was one of my favorite pistols and I regret ever selling the 92.

I got into a conversation a month or so ago with an Army Colonel about the Beretta reliability in the field. It seems the history of the slide failures and magazine problems stay on the surface with military personnel and gun shop groupies alike. I have nothing bad to say about Beretta, and it's a pistol I'd like to own again. Doing some reading on the matter to get to the bottom of myth or truth, I came across this article. It's a nice summary of the failures and Beretta's solution.

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

It sounds like my original 92 and M9 could have seen failure past the 10,000 round mark (most probable after 20,000 rounds), especially dependent on the type of ammunition used. These issues have since been addressed, and now I am armed with real information when I hear the 'problematic' Beretta mentioned around the Glock counter.

That's not a dig on Glock. I've never heard of a single failure on any Glock. It's just that I see more Glock counter space than any other....

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LoneRanger

Posted: Apr 13th 2010, 03:34 PM

I suspect my trigger finger would break before the slide or frame of
a new issue 92, but it was interesting to note the problems associated
with the current magazines, something I would hasten to correct if I
owned one. I've always like the grip and look of the 92 and wouldn't
hesitate to purchase one if the right deal came along. I used to own
a Glock 23 in 40cal, but traded and don't think I would buy again.
Nothing bad happened, just didn't ride in my hand right and had
mediocre accuracy, but it was new at the time and I hear from all
owners of Glocks that accuracy these days run from good enough
to outstanding. I really think the accuracy problem with mine was
ammo related and I didn't bother to try many brands of 40 cal
because of the hand fit thing. So many great guns on the market!

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RevolverGuy

Posted: Apr 13th 2010, 04:08 PM

I've hardly had enough experience on my new 92FS to offer an expert opinion. But the gun and its problems, particularly relating to the slide, were covered at length in my gunsmith class. The problem is that if you take the slide and look at it from the top, you'll see that half way back there are deep cutouts on the inside of the slide. These are the the locking slots for the falling block. This makes the metal quite thin at that point, which is also the point where the slide sides are already at their smallest. When that slide recoils, its the front that hits the slide stop and halts it. That means the job of stopping the heavy back end falls on metal in those two thin areas, which is where they break. I don't know what Beretta did to address the breakages themselves. But at least they addressed the major safety issue a broken slide presents. They added a very oversized head to the hammer pin. This head sticks up into a slot on the under side of the frame at the rear. This allows the slide to come rearward only so far. So if the back of the slide should separate during recoil, it stops the slide from coming completely off the rails and embedding itself in the shooter's face. This modification was made to the 92F, which then became the 92FS. Were it not for this, I wouldn't have bought the gun. I wouldn't be happy if it broke. But that can be fixed. I'm ugly enough without a slide sticking in my face.

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Snipe1

Posted: Apr 13th 2010, 10:29 PM

Nothing against the M9 but with the .45 ACP it ALWAYS functioned. Hell, the pistols I trained on in Boot Camp were from a 1942-43 contract (if my memory serves me correct -getting old, got CRP Disease Can't Remember Sh$t ) were probably 30 years old and still worked well. Granted they weren't tight and didn't group like my Gold Cup. I do know My old man shot a bunch of North Koreans and ChiComs with one when things went to Sh$t and got UP CLOSE and PERSONAL along with his Carbine at Inchon. Didn't find out about that until I was Grown up while drinking a few with a now Deceased best friend of his. My old man, you couldn't PRY sh$t out of him with a crowbar. He never belonged to any Vet organizations or anything. He didn'tt or wouldn'tt talk about nothing.... Anyway, don't mean to do a .45 comercial. Beretta makes really fine hardware for what-500 years But if things get REALLY bad and Personal I'll take and use what i carry. >45 ACP.

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Room 055

Posted: Apr 13th 2010, 11:24 PM

Just to reiterate in case someone doesn't read my full post: Beretta fixed the issues very early on, as in the late 80's. The intention of my post was to dispel the water cooler talk that exists with the general public today about how the M9 has major issues. ie slide breakage. I think it's a great pistol from a great company that addressed an early on problem. Good to know the real story and not the perpetuated myth.

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Bishopn87

Posted: Sep 1st 2010, 08:40 PM

I know this is thread necromancy ... but I gotta chime in on this one about issues. I've never seen a slide break, but I HAVE seen internal parts break. It's been 7+ years now since I got out, so I don't remember exactly WHAT it was - either disconnecter or sear, I think, maybe trigger bar - but EVERY single qualification shoot on my second ship, we'd have between 1 and 3 Berettas go down with a broken part. On my first ship, the pistols were brand new, and didn't have quite so many problems. Second ship was older, they converted from the 1911 in ... I want to say the mid 90's? Don't know for sure on that, but the M9's were at least 5-8 years old. Maybe our GM's were just lousy at maintaining the guns, I don't know. The same problems happened when I did Chief of the Guard school with the base PD.

Whichever part it was, it'd result in a loaded chamber that you couldn't drop the hammer on. Like I said, I don't remember which part it was, but you could pull that trigger all day long and it wouldn't drop the hammer.

(That said, if they made a version in .45, I'd probably be interested, if there was a way to prevent slide bite. I've never shot a Beretta pistol of any sort - M1934, 70S, or M9 - without getting a nasty case of it. Forgot to warn my wife about it when she shot the 70S.

)

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