Gun Digest Book of Beretta Pistols: Function, Accuracy, Performance

by Massad Ayoob

For instance, I won’t name the executives at other gun companies who privately admitted to me that they knew damn well that Beretta had won the U.S. military contract fair and square.

BOOM!!

Gabriele de Plano,

Hey, I know that guy!

I would like to thank Ernest Langdon, who knows more about winning combat pistol championships with Berettas than anyone else because he has done it more than anyone else. Ernest’s work is also the gold standard for combat Beretta pistolsmithing,

OORAH!

Thanks also to master Beretta armorers Bill Pfeil and Rick Devoid.

Oh wow, I knew Rick was an LFI guy, but I didn’t know he was a Beretta armorer.

Huge thanks to the men of the U. S. Marine Corps RTU and the U.S. Army Marksmanship Training Unit for their insights into the accurizing of the Beretta M9 into a match-winning bull’s-eye pistol.

order. To that end, portions of a number of the reviews that appear within this book were first published as magazine articles when those guns were first brought to market. In all cases, my assessments of the pistols in question still stand as they did when I wrote the original

When my first-born was ready for pistol shooting at age 8, I started her with the littlest Beretta; the Minx .22 Short. With that gun, she learned the fundamentals of good handgunning. Eleven years later, she used another Beretta at the National Tactical Invitational, and her skillful use of that Model 92FC 9mm won her the women’s championship. She still owns those guns. The 92FC is one of the carry pistols on her license.

I got my first centerfire handgun “of my very own,” when I was 12 years old. It was a Beretta Model 34. The gun was a World War II veteran and so was the man who gave it to my dad. The first owner had retrieved it from an Axis soldier who, in the words of the day, “… didn’t need it any more.”

Back in the good ol’ politically incorrect days when American GIs could still get away with that shit!

Cat Ayoob fondly reminisces with the Beretta 92FC she used to win her class at the National Tactical Invitational at the age of 19.

those who’ve won pistol championships with Berettas are those who have used them to win gunfights and cheat death. They’ve used all three types, including Model F pistols both on and off safe. Let me introduce you to a few of them now.

Stacy Lim is a member of the LAPD. She was off duty and carrying her department-issue 92F when she experienced a carjacking by gang-bangers. When she identified herself, the point man of the bad guys shot her through the chest with a .357 Magnum. The bullet tore her spleen apart, pierced her heart, and punched a massive exit wound in her back. Her 92F had already been off safe, carried that way per department edict, and she brought it up and shot him a couple of times, chased him when he ran, and shot him twice more. All four of the 115-grain Remington hollowpoints she unleashed found vital flesh. He died. Stacy survived. She is, to my knowledge, the world’s only known survivor of a .357 Magnum gunshot wound to the heart. Eight months later she returned to full patrol duty.

Don’t expect a puff piece. I don’t work for Beretta, I work for you, and my job is to tell you the truth that I’ve investigated and experienced.

I will show you how and why the Model 92 has earned a reputation as one of the all-time great handguns and why the Model 9000 was the worst piece of crap that ever left a Beretta factory.

While many other pistols have this feature – and many such saves have been documented with them – it is worth noting that no such pistol’s slide-mounted safety lever is easier to operate than the Beretta’s.

For the same reason the importance of proper care of the gun and using only proper magazines is emphasized again and again. The war in Afghanistan and Iraq reinforced the lesson that using cheap aftermarket magazines, even if the Government buys them on bid, can cause the finest pistols to jam. The advice is clear: Use only Beretta and MecGar brand magazines in these guns.

BIN-GO!! Something that the late great COL David Hackworth (R.I.P.), with all due respect, conveniently overlooked in his polemic hit piece on the Beretta M9 in his column in SOF Magazine.

The history of the Beretta firearms company is huge and rich. It is worthy of a lavish book of its own and I won’t cover it here because that book is already in print. It is The World of Beretta: An International Legend by the man who is probably the world’s leading firearms historian, R.L. “Larry” Wilson.

Must add to my reading list!

Small pistols with small bullets have a place. I don’t want a small-caliber pistol for self-defense. If, after taking all things into consideration, you make the informed decision that you want a small-caliber pistol, I don’t think you can do better than those made by Beretta.

Fine accuracy and extreme reliability make the Beretta the .25 caliber pistol of choice in my book. A lot of these very small guns are prone to malfunction. The .25 Berettas are not. No more reliable pistol has ever been manufactured in the caliber.

Whether the .22 LR or the .25 ACP is the more effective is a matter of debate. The ballistics tables give it to the .22, but the ballistics tables are calibrated on longer barreled pistols that produce more velocity and therefore more energy. When you chronograph the two calibers out of identical short-barrel pistols, the .25 is generally seen to be putting out a little bit more power.

Perspective! And I love my Beretta M9A1-22 .22 LR thus far!

Because of its much lower cost, .22 LR ammunition is much more conducive to skill-building practice than even the cheapest .25 caliber ammo. Reliability, however, is a factor that cannot be compromised in a defensive firearm. The .22 LR is a long, narrow cartridge with a proportionally wide rim that has given gun designers and engineers fits when they try to build a small pistol around it. I have seen some Beretta 21 series pistols that were 100 percent reliable in .22 LR, and some that were not. Every Beretta .25 ACP I have seen has been totally reliable.

“The Bobcat/Model 21 pistols have a light firing pin moving within a heavy firing pin spring,” explains Gabriele de Plano of Beretta.

In his excellent book, Modern Beretta Firearms (Stoeger Publishing Company, 1994), gun expert Gene Gangarosa, Jr.

In 1978, when Beretta began assembling these guns in Maryland instead of Italy,

She quickly progressed to bigger guns, but not before she had acquired an S&S courtesy of famed gunsmith John Lawson. John likes kids, and the “S&S” stands for “Sugar and Spice.” It was a 950 EL, the deluxe model with gold inlay.

The best very small plinking pistol ever, in the author’s view, was this uncommon 4-inch variation of the Beretta Minx.

If I were to find myself in a country that said I could carry a gun, but it had to be a .25 caliber or smaller, I would unhesitatingly carry a Beretta Jetfire .25. Or two. Or three.

But a squirrel is to an aggressive human assailant as a man is to a Tyrannosaurus Rex. You wouldn’t take a .38 Special as your primary armament if you went to Jurassic Park to hunt the elusive T-Rex.

That maker of the best .22 conversion unit for the Beretta is … Beretta.

Ba-da-BING!!

or for the armed citizen who has chosen one of those models, the Beretta .22 is a hugely practical adjunct to the system. Surprising accuracy and full functionality make it a perfect practice companion!

The Beretta 92 series pistol is a modern classic. Bill Wilson has called it the most reliable out-ofthe-box double-action auto on the market, and he has frequently made a point of shooting one in the competition he started, IDPA, the International Defensive Pistol Association. IDPA’s national championship has been won more than once with a Beretta 92, with the double-action 9mm outshooting supposedly more “shootable” single-action autos like the ones Wilson himself is famous for building and customizing. The Beretta is the preferred DA auto of former World Champion Ray Chapman.

Wow, Bill Wilson AND Ray Chapman!

In the Chicago area, where there is no concealed carry option and, suburbanites buy handguns for sport and home protection only, a veteran gun dealer with a huge stock told me recently that the Beretta 92 is his single best-selling handgun model.

While it appears on their website, Beretta does not actively advertise their neat little .22 conversion unit. This is a shame. It may be true that if you invent a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door, but first the world needs to know that you have a better mousetrap.

Yeah, c’mon, man!

Since the Army and National Guard mandate on-safe carry of the holstered 9mm service pistol,

??? Unlike the Air Force? But do the Army and National Guard now alike carry with a round actually chambered?

Beretta recently made a series of special Model 92 pistols to commemorate Operation Enduring Freedom. The epoch of the Beretta 92 itself could be called Operation Enduring Reliability. Despite rumors spread by Internet commandoes to the contrary, the military armorers I’ve talked to have been virtually unanimous in their opinion that the Model 92/M9 is an extremely reliable pistol.

I’ve got one of those (USAF Edition)!

The .22 conversion unit is less picky about ammo than many other .22s, including some other Beretta options in the caliber.

Or the Browning Buck Mark and Ruger 22/45!

Bear in mind that at this time, approaching 1,500 rounds, the conversion unit had not yet been cleaned. Carbon and lead buildup were visibly present, but the pistol kept chugging along.

With any .22 auto pistol, it’s a good idea to clean the gun every 500 rounds or so.

Duly noted; I cleaned mine at the 401-round mark!

With conversion units I’ve found it’s better to clean them every 50 to 100 rounds. It’s hard for me to blame the gun.

The Blazer, which I bought over the counter for $9.95 per brick, had actually given the best accuracy, beating even the Pistol Match by a very slight margin.

This is called “4+1 syndrome” and is widely documented. It occurs with semiautomatic pistols (and to a lesser degree with semiautomatic rifles) when the first hand-chambered round puts the parts in a very slightly different firing alignment, or “battery,” than what they go into during firing when the mechanism cycles automatically and auto-loads each subsequent cartridge. Interestingly, the standard Beretta 92 in 9mm does not seem to be particularly prone to this, certainly not to the degree I saw in the test sample of Beretta’s .22 conversion unit.

I like the Beretta 92 conversion unit. I like it a lot. It is more reliable and less maintenance-intensive than any other .22 caliber handgun conversion unit I’ve ever worked with.

Colt named many of their revolvers after dangerous snakes: The Cobra, the Python, the Diamondback, the Viper, the Anaconda. Few arms companies have named their guns for dangerous cats, though a copy of the Winchester 1892 carbine that was long popular south of the border, usually in caliber .44-40, was given the name “El Tigre.” Beretta, however, has an affinity for feline nomenclature.

As I’ve noted in my 19FortyFive articles! https://www.19fortyfive.com/?s=Christian+orr+snake+gun https://www.19fortyfive.com/?s=Christian+orr+beretta+feline

You see, the .32 caliber is a pussycat in every respect, but, comparatively, naming a .32 after felis domesticus and the .22 after a wildcat seems a bit over-reaching insofar as the latter. It’s a little like naming your goldfish “Moby Dick.”

Beretta’s Tomcat has earned itself a lot of friends. Some owe it their lives.

Personally, when danger threatens I’d like to have the cry of angry 9mm leopard speaking for my side, or the snarl of a .45 caliber lion, or the roar of a .357 caliber Siberian tiger. But, you know, the meow of the Tomcat is still a better sound than the whimper of a victim …

You can respond with the roar of the Cougar (9mm Parabellum, .40 S&W, .357 SIG, or .45 ACP caliber). You can reply with the growl of the Cheetah (.380 ACP). And now, you can answer with the meow of the Tomcat, the smallest .32 auto that Beretta has offered.

and if there is an extraction failure, you can’t just work the slide to clear it. Doing that will merely bring up another round against the jammed spent casing, the dreaded and erroneously-named “double-feed jam.”

I myself recently committed that semantic error on Facebook and had to be corrected for it.

The Tomcat is bigger, significantly bigger, than the Seecamp .32. However, it’s smaller than any other .32 automatic on the market. (Yeah, I know, at least two companies are supposed to be offering Seecamp clones. Call me if you see one in a gunshop. I haven’t.)

it’s a fact of life with tight-to-the-body carry of any semiautomatic pistol. An autoloader’s grip profile is flat on the sides and tight clothing or holsters hug it close to your body requiring your fingers to sort of claw in to get a drawing grasp. The rounded profile of a small revolver’s grip frame allows a much easier draw in these types of carry. The rounded edges of the revolver’s stocks sort of guide your hand quickly into position.

This little gun is not the glass-smooth Beretta 92/96, whose exquisitely polished moving parts and contact surfaces are the envy of the rest of the handgun industry.