Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Massad Ayoob
Read between
December 22, 2023 - February 21, 2024
I’m sorry, but I can’t buy that. I’ll go with Affirmative Action hiring so long as it’s enlightened Affirmative Action hiring. What that means is, Affirmative Action hiring does no one any good if it’s construed as lowering the standards to let in people who otherwise wouldn’t qualify for the job. Enlightened Affirmative Action hiring is, you let people of every size, color, gender, and belief system compete and the ones who can do the job better are the ones you put to work. The history of it is, if you hire people who can’t do the job because it seems politically correct or convenient, the
...more
When cops were whining in the 1970s and 1980s about having to be backed up by women and small-statured men, they shut up after the new hires showed they could do the job. With this in mind, I test even pocket guns the way I test service pistols, including 25-yard shootability tests.
Does this just mean that Beretta has more lawyers than Seecamp? It can’t mean they have better lawyers than Seecamp, which was represented by current NRA director Howard Fezell in the lawsuit that beat the Maryland Gun Board’s attempt to ban that pistol in that state.
I hadn’t put the requisite 200 rounds of any one hollow-point through the mechanism and don’t trust any handgun until I have.
I’d rather you carried a .32 auto than a .25, or no gun at all. But this is not the accurate, point of aim/point of impact, glass smooth, and sufficiently potent Beretta that the U.S. military adopted for soldiers, and that INS adopted for U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.
Argh, c’mon Mas, it’s U.S. Customs and Border **Protection** (CBP) which is the successor agency to both INS and U.S. Customs Service! The Office of the Border Patrol is a component of CBP!
My first centerfire handgun was a Beretta Model 1934 that had come back from the European theater as a souvenir of WWII.
Over its many years of service – and its many more as a popular concealed carry handgun all over the world – the 1934 series earned a reputation as perhaps the most rugged and heavy-duty .380 made. It was certainly the most shootable.
The Series 70 had a cross-bolt safety forward of the grip tang. In theory, the median joint of the right thumb would press it inward to “fire,” and it would have to be pressed back out from the other side for “safe.” In practice, most people found it not only different, but just plain difficult. The same had proven true earlier, when Beretta had put it on their 1951 model 9mm Parabellum service pistol.
You may have read that the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence/counter-intelligence agency, was long quite partial to the Beretta .22 pistol. This is the gun. Its flatness made it carry very comfortably and discreetly when concealed, and its excellent pointing qualities lent themselves to the Israeli doctrine of point-shooting with pistols.
Mazel Tov!!
Their first double-action in this caliber was the Model 90, introduced in late 1968 and produced through early 1982. Writes Wilson, “The medium-frame Model 90 was the first Beretta automatic pistol with a double-action trigger system, barrel of stainless steel, enclosed slide with ejection port on the right side, and the magazine release located by the rear of the trigger guard. The frame was of aluminum alloy; the hammer was exposed; the slide remained opened after the last shot was fired. Although the pistol did not prove a success, the future of the double-action system was assured.” (2)
...more
In the immortal words of SNL’s Dana Carvey as the late great Johnny Carson, “I did not know that!”
The Model 81 is seldom seen in this country. It was realized early on that a 13-shot .32, generating 125 foot pounds of energy per shot with 60-grain Silvertip jacketed hollow-points and 129 foot-pounds per shot with 71-grain full-metal-jacket ammo, would not sell well to Americans when for the same price they could get the identical gun as a 14-shot .380 generating 189 foot-pounds with 85-grain Silvertip JHP and 211 foot-pounds with 95-grain FMJ.
This is subjective, of course, but the reader can easily test a given handgun for this factor without firing a shot. Triple check that the gun is unloaded. Pick a spot that could safely absorb a bullet. Lower the gun, close your eyes, and keeping the eyelids shut, bring the pistol up and point it by feel at that pre-selected spot. Freeze everything, and open your eyes. If the gun is aimed where you wanted it to be, that gun “points well for you.”
Like the second-generation Beretta .380s, the current third-generation has a .22 caliber understudy gun available that works exactly the same way. It is the Model 87.
When editor Harry Kane and I were putting together the 2005 edition of the annual Complete Book of Handguns, we included an article on very small hideout guns. These ranged from the little Guardian .32 auto, to Beretta’s .32 Tomcat, to the J-frame S&W Airweight .38 Special revolver, the sweet little Kahr PM9 micro-size 9mm Parabellum and the Beretta 86 .380. There was no question that of all these guns, the Beretta .380 was by far the easiest to shoot and to hit center with at high speed.
I’ve seen Colt .380s that worked with JHP, and Colt .380s that didn’t. Contemporary .380s from Colt are scaled down versions of the Government Model .45, and if you have average size adult male hands and shoot with a strong grasp in which your thumb is curled down, there’s a good chance that you’ll accidentally depress the magazine release and dump the magazine on your foot.
Remington-UMC easily kept all five shots in the head of an IPSC target at 25 yards,
Bearing in mind the proven rule of thumb that the best three of five shots handheld from a bench rest will come awfully close to what the same gun/cartridge combination will do for all five shots from a machine rest,
The Model 92 is the defining Beretta pistol of modern times. Adopted by all branches of the United States military in 1984, one of the three or four most popular law enforcement pistols in the nation and one of the most distinctively recognizable handguns in the world, the Beretta 92 has become a modern classic, like it or not.
I say “like it or not” advisedly, because with the arguable exception of the Glock, no other pistol has been the subject of such controversy in modern times, if ever. The great are envied. The great are resented. Therefore, the great are attacked. It is human nature.
Ain’t THAT the frickin’ truth!!
The American police, half a million strong, were switching from revolvers to semiautomatic pistols and the Beretta 92 was the sales leader in that market. The American public had historically based many firearms purchases on what their nation’s police and military were carrying. Accordingly, by 1997, Beretta would sell 2 million of these pistols.
My college grad year (Fight On, Trojans✌️✌️)!!
For Colt, the first flagship was the Model P single-action revolver, designed in 1873 and still in production.
i.e. the Single Action Army AKA “Peacemaker?”
The key design elements that distinguish the Beretta Model 92 from other auto-loading pistols are its open-slide design, its distinctive locking mechanism, and its double-action lockwork. None are unique. The uniqueness came from the nature of their combination by Beretta, and from the collective design genius of Carlo Beretta, Giuseppe Mazzetti, and Vittorio Valle.
roots in the relatively simple design of Tullio Marengoni’s Model 1915.
The true “open-slide look” would come with the Model of 1934, the blowback 7.65mm and 9mm Corto that would be the definitive Beretta pistol of the early 20th century,
Walther was the first to produce a double-action mechanism that functioned only on the first shot, cocking itself to single-action for follow-up rounds.
By 1950, Beretta had manufactured some two million pistols, but not yet a 9mm Parabellum. In this, the company was decades behind the rest of the European small arms industry. It was time to catch up. The catch up gun was the sturdy Model of 1951.
Similarly, the open top above the barrel eliminated a major area where sand and dirt could accumulate and create friction against the barrel that could jam the weapon.
The Maadi Company was licensed by Beretta to build copies of the 951 for Engineering Industries of Cairo. This Egyptian-made pistol was known as the Helwan.
F-series/M9 pistols are carried on safe by many private citizens and police officers, and by the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps as standard doctrine.
F-series/M9s are carried off safe by many cops, civilians, and the USAF.
and the use of pistols and light machine guns, despite the development of new weapons possessing a very high destructive power, cannot yet be considered as obsolete even in modern theatres of war.” (3) As this book is written, that lesson is being proven in Iraq and Afghanistan. While not universally issued to all personnel, the Beretta M9 pistol is dramatically present, strapped to the bodies of a greater percentage of American combat troops than in any conflict in collective modern memory.
The Model 1951 proved that Beretta could build a rugged, reliable 9mm Parabellum service pistol. The foundation had been laid for the Model 92.
The first prototypes, reports Larry Wilson, were complete by 1975.
My birth year!
“The idea to purchase a new military sidearm was initiated by the House Appropriations Committee, where Chairman Joseph Addabbo’s staff conducted a study which verified that an unnecessary proliferation of different types of weapons and ammunition existed in the military stockpile.
The most detailed and informative accounts appear in Wilson’s book, and in the United States Marine Corps Diary 1990 in a segment by Matthew T. Robinson, the associate editor of the Marine Corps Gazette. That account was called “The Long Road to Change: Procurement of the Beretta 9mm M9 Service Pistol,” and Larry Wilson dubbed it “the most succinct and straightforward piece” explaining the complex testing procedure and its various “back-stories.”
It was determined that the United States Air Force would be the service branch that would lead the testing, which kicked off at the USAF’s Eglin Air Base in Valparaiso, Florida.
HOOAH!
Gene Gangarosa, Jr. is a handgun authority who has written an eminently readable book on Beretta pistols, and several great articles.
In 1990, following several slide separation incidents in the U.S. armed forces’ training and experimentation, Beretta incorporated a ‘slide retention device.’ This quick fix consists of an enlarged hammer axis pin, which, if the slide’s rear end separates during recoil, engages in a groove machined inside the slide’s lower left rear portion to keep the slide on the frame. With the slide retention device fitted, Beretta designated the pistol Model 92FS, advancing the gun to its current configuration.”
The 92FS with slide catch device was designated the M10 pistol by the military. However, in all these years, not a single military person who works with these guns has called one an M10 within my hearing. Without exception, with slide catch or without it, FS or F style, the soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen who carry them call these guns “M9s”.
The entire, every-viewpoint-represented story of the giant cluster-coitus that was the test for the new 9mm U.S. military pistol has yet to be written.
“Cluster-coitus,” haha, good one there, Mas!
the Beretta Model 92 won virtually all of the tests. In the very last, it finished neck and neck with SIG-Sauer, and very slightly underbid the manufacturers of the SIG P226.
Suffice to say that Beretta considers 1985 to have been the official year of the U.S. adoption.
Beretta had shown a different attitude than most of its competitors. The majority had figured they made the best gun and it would stand on its own. Beretta, more than any other player in the race, had sent its top people back and forth between the U.S.A. and Italy to ask the testers and the military in detail what they wanted and demanded, and had custom-tailored what became the 92F – and ultimately, the M9 – to those wants and needs.
When the slide separations started happening, I was on it like white on rice. I had for many years done the “Industry Insider” column for American Handgunner, and was proud that I had earned a reputation of telling it like it was. I had exposed a number of bad firearms, and a lot of manufacturers didn’t like me for it. I had been banned at various times from Charter Arms, Glock, Smith & Wesson, and Sterling Arms for writing things about their products that the executives didn’t appreciate.
I contacted those sources. They told me that the allegations against Beretta had been hugely overblown. The term they most frequently used was “bullshit.” The guns, they said, were working great. Offered total protection from any comeback in the form of anonymity, they had no reason to lie for Beretta.
Those who’ve raised their voices to condemn the 92 series Beretta fall into three categories: competitors beaten out on testing, .45 fans, and those who detest double-action autos in general. All three fit another category: sore losers.
Haha, ZING!!
Officials of LAPD, LASD, Border Patrol (INS) and other major police agencies that have adopted the Beretta tell me they’re thrilled with it.
Including one of my ex-roommates (former CBP colleague)!
Extremely high reliability, a superb frequency-of-repair ratio, outstanding accuracy, and excellent hit potential both on the qualification range and in street shootings have been the hallmarks of the gun in actual field service.
Now that the initial overreaction to a few separated slides has settled down, every single military authority I talk to (currently serving military, not gun writers who’ve never been involved in monitoring the Beretta in action) tell me the guns require much less service than the...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
In the private sector, it would be hard to find a more knowledgeable authority on semiautomatic pistol reliability than national champion, master gunsmith, and handgun manufacturer Bill Wilson. Ask Bill what’s the most reliable semiauto pistol you can buy out of the box today, and he’ll tell you what he told me: “Beretta 92.” His opinion is shared by such master trainers of advanced pistolcraft as Ray Chapman and Ken Hackathorn. Significantly, both Wilson and Hackathorn told me they had chosen to shoot Beretta 92s at the inaugural IDPA (International Defensive Pistol Association) national
...more
Talk about high praise!
