in the JSSAP project at Eglin. He had told me that the reason the Beretta had won was that it had simply outperformed everything else, and that 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. One company had pulled over a million dollars worth of advertising out of the PDC magazines, with a senior exec telling the publisher that they would buy again as soon as I was fired. To his enormous credit, founding publisher George Von Rosen told them to stuff it. Later, when that particular executive was fired, his gun company determined that I was no longer the problem. By then, the company had addressed every one of the shortcomings that I had mentioned in the long article series on their guns that had so enraged their former decision-maker.
In short, I was ready to find the fire that was generating the smoke, and expose Beretta for its shoddy workmanship. I had taught at the U.S. Army Marksmanship Training Unit at Fort Benning, and still had honest and trustworthy sources there and in the other services, and in the many major police departments that had adopted the Beretta 92.
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.
My job was to find out the truth, and tell it to the readers. I did. What I found out, and what I told those readers, is as follows.
The Beretta Continues
Few modern pistols have been so vilified as the Beretta 92 ... and fewer still so thoroughly redeemed by excellence in wide-ranging field performance.
Known as the M9 in U.S. military parlance, the Beretta 92 is now the primary standard handgun of all the United States’ armed forces and has been the official service pistol for more than a decade. Other nations have been similarly impressed, ranging from the region Jeff Cooper calls “the sandbox” where it was in use by both sides during Arab-Israeli conflicts, to South Africa where it is produced locally under license as the Z-88.
Similarly, the free world’s police establishment has been responsive to the 92 series. The French national gendarmes carry the 92G, and the South African police issue the Z-88. But nowhere have police taken to the Beretta with more street-proven enthusiasm than the United States. Crisscrossing the nation, major departments carry it: Maine State Police to Los Angeles County Sheriffs, Washington State Patrol to Florida Highway Patrol, and countless major agencies in between. From New Orleans (92F) to St. Louis (92D) to San Francisco (96G), the Beretta is as well represented among city cops as among their state and county cousins. Of the four types of handguns authorized to LAPD personnel, the 92F is the overwhelming favorite and the one issued to new recruits at the academy.
The Beretta 92 has been – and still is – widely carried by American law enforcement officers.
Nor have the Feds ignored the Beretta. When I taught at the DEA Academy I noticed a disproportionate number of 92Fs on the hips of agents training for the high-risk Operation Snowcap in South America, despite the fact that most Drug Enforcement Agents preferred something smaller on the list of approved 9mm pistols for daily plainclothes carry. The U.S. Postal Service inspectors are said to have adopted the Beretta.
Seen from below the pistol, this is the subtle yet difficult movement a criminal would have to perform, while an officer held his Beretta still for him, to disassemble the gun in the cop’s hand. The concept of such a disarm is simply an urban legend.
FBI made headlines in the firearms press with their adoption of the S&W 10mm, subsequent large-scale purchases of the SIG 9mm, and orders for a few hundred Para Ordnance and Springfield Armory .45 autos and a small contract for .40 caliber Glocks. Yet almost lost in the shadows was the vast purchase of thousands upon thousands of Beretta 96D Brigadiers as standard sidearms for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, a volume acquisition that dwarfs all the auto pistols the FBI has purchased, combined.
The Beretta is also extremely popular among armed citizens as a home and store defense weapon, its frame size being somewhat large for concealed carry. American civilians have historically followed their military’s choice of small arms, and have historically been satisfied. The Beretta pistol seems to be no exception.
Praised by Faint Damns ...
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.
The military’s adoption of the Beretta over certain other brands brought threats of lawsuits and Congressional hearings and put the rumor mill into three-shift overtime. Yet subsequent endurance tests validated the Beretta’s durability, reliability, and longevity.
No, the Beretta didn’t and doesn’t come in .45 ACP. Nor did any other gun the U.S. military was going to adopt in keeping with NATO ammo inventory specs. Had the contract been won by the SIG P-226, the S&W 659, the Ruger P-85, or the HK P7M13, that
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