The Beretta/Taurus 92 Platform

It seems that folks cannot dispassionately discuss firearms design. One of the problems is that there is a wide range of experience that each of us bring to the table (speaking of within a design not just over all experience) and the other is that the conditions under which we gain that experience varies greatly.

I have been unintentionally involved with the 92/M9 since 1986. A good friend who I frequently employ as an assistant instructor recently retired as an Armorer and was a combat vetran of the 101st Airborne in Viet Nam. I include some of his armory experience here.

I have owned 3 Beretta 92s. One I gave away to a partner so I am not sure just what the experiences are with it (he does not shoot it much). I briefly had an Elite II but the fat slide prevented using it with standard military equipment and it recoiled noticeably more than the standard 92 so I ditched it....with it I had 4 malfunctions in the first 500 rounds but that could be just break in and that was with the factory 10 round mags which I hardly use. I then installed a regular 92 slide on it.

In 2003 I purchased over a quarter of a million rounds of 9mm ammo and watched military classes fire all of that. 2004 saw a little less. Here are just a few random bits of information (I will try to keep opinion out of it - everyone has an opinion);

The Above mentioned armoer had 500 M9s in his arms room. 100 were older and had approximately 6,000 rounds through them, 400 newer with approximately 3,000 rounds through ea. I happened to ask him on a vist how they were doing and he said of the 500, 135 were depoted due to broken firing pins, cracked locking blocks or cracked slides (only 2 of the latter). I have a sandwhich bag full of broken parts and we gave another one to a retired Colonel who helps to spread the word on firearms maintenance. We can discuss the causes of this later, this is just a fact.

Our first military classes were, frankly, appalling in the number of malfuncitons that we saw with both the M9 and the Colt Commando (the first series of classes was a special unit that had been carrying Commandos that were built by an armorer for 12 years). I finally tasked someone to log each malfunction and the number was almost unbeleivable. I would have to ask him or look back at my notes but the malfunciton rate on the M9 was either one malfunciton every 54 rounds or every 74 rounds - either is simply amaizing!!!! This on a near perfect range day. The only real factor may have been that we were firing 500 rounds a day, much more than these guns are used to. I have an opinion as to why this was happening also but lets stick to facts.

Another problem we see is that a significant number of these pistols have a truly egregious DA trigger pull. I noticed an officer having trouble and attempted to show him how to manage the trigger on his relatively new M9 and I could just barely make the gun go off - we found the mainspring was fully 1/4" longer than the standard spring and the trigger pull went off my 24 lb scale!!!!

Yet another problem is that most soldiers do not seem to be able to disengage the safety without losing their grip. I and several other people can but apparently some folks just cannot due to differences in hand size. This is a *serious* problem. A pistol is a reactive instrument. We were fortunate enough to have the ear of a simpathetic General and he instantly order the pistol to be carried loaded with the safety off.

Still another is that if you use standard remedial measures - which are necessary with this pistol more than some others - you will inadvertently engage the safety/decocker. This too is a serous problem, remedial actions in combat happen at the worst possible moment by definition - having your firearm not work *again* after fixing a malfuncion can easily be fatal!

The weapon is not really repariable in the field by the soldier. It takes an armorer just to fix the firing pin and they really need a vice and a set of pin punches to do it. It is so bad that while some armorers will take the time to repair a firing pin (and I beleive should) they are allowed to send it back to the depot level for this repair.

In older versions the locking blocks were sure to eventually break but that has been fixed by a design change. If you own one make sure it has the newer design because a broken locking block frequently results in a cracked frame. One of Tom Given's range guns broke 7 locking blocks in one year (fortunately they were caught early and the gun was not damaged).

Just to highlight the opening statement about experience, while I have seen all of these problems, the two guns I use are reliable (one has had no malfuncitons and the other about 1 in every 1,000 rounds). But I know how to clean it. One of my staff's guns which is one of the new issue General Officers M9s, had indeed malfunctioned (it also had about a 20lb trigger - so much for special issue :-/). After we learned how to maintain them (which is *Not* the Army way) we poured dust, coffegrounds and all manner of stuff on it, brushed it off and as of now it has fired some 5500 rounds without malfunciton or cleaning. If the only pistols I had seen were mine and this other one then I would think it was a great design also.

Also, all is not bleak, our military classes are down to about 5 malfuncitons in every 1,000 rounds since we do a maintenance secton before we go to the range.

BTW, you do know that it is essentially a P-38 right?

Just some random experiences.

Best of luck,
Jim

Parson;

First off, I don't want to give the wrong impression. My experience in this regard is almost by accident - I was sort of "drafted" :-[

What we found was that a "comedy of errors" contributed to this situation (there was a similar happening with the 1911a1 back in the early 80's).

The guns we were seeing here, were very well cleaned and lubed according to the practice of that service's doctrine (meaning lightly lubed).

The real culprit (complicated by the design of the M9) was that at some point the old CLP - "Cleaner - Lubricant - Protectant " (that's the Army way of getting three lies for the price of one ) was changed from the old stuff manufactured by Break-Free (which was not all that great a cleaner but it was a good lube!). This stuff is much thinner and it is a very poor lube. It works for a while but after about 100 to 200 rounds you could actually hear the guns "squeek" if you ran the slide manually....anyone who has used an M9 knows it is known for smoothness...well not after this new stuff is applied.

We cleaned the guns thoroughly and applied TW-25b grease the way it is supposed to be (well we did not heat the guns up) - which means to remove any excess. They then run for quite a while though a few get balky at about the end of the 500 round day and have to have a shot of TW25b spray. I feel sure any other modern high tech lube like Militech or Tri-Flow or Ultimalube would work also.

The new locking block has little rounded cuts on the inside corners. Also be sure to lube the locking surfaces and its pivot point!

On my guns I replace the mainspring with a Nowlin 21 lb 1911 mainspring - some use the 19lb but it is not as reliable in ignition with some really junky foreign ammo. This results in a trigger pull roughly equivalent to the Langdon custom trigger but that one has an overtravel stop that is well worthwhile. If you have a military gun you will have to live with it - though we were able to do something through "semi- official" channels (some Generals do have an account with Brownells ) for one group going to Afghanistan.

There is a Border Patrol mod to the trigger return spring which replaces the "mousetrap" spring that comes in the gun with a coil spring and plunger. I prefer the heavier of the two springs available from Brownells but to be honest, I can live witht the factory piece.

*Do not Dry Fire* the M9 wihtout a snap cap or piece of empty brass in the chamber - almost all broken firing pins come from this. I have seen firing pins broken in as many as 4 pieces form repeated inapropriate dry fire. Decocking blocks the hammer and is no problem.

A common problem is magainzes. The original Beretta mags are best but there is a cleaning and assembly problem also....people get the spring back in wrong. Look for the end of the loop of the spring in the little window at the top of the mag where the slide stop would engage the follower....if it is not there the spring is in backwards.

Keep it clean, inspect it frequently (Somewhere I have a copy of an Army PM magazine article that says : "Your M9 will develop cracks, it is a question of when"). Watch the left side of the slide right at the little trademark oval. Watch the locking block corners. Watch the square cuts in the frame.

The little "slide catcher" does work if your slide does break but they should never reach that point if you check.

Make sure the little star washer is under *every* grip screw - else they enter the mag well and drag on the magazine.

Never load 16 rounds in the mag!!!!

Learn to manupulate the lide *underhanded* to avoid inadvertently actuating the safety.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Onward,
Jim

PS, I have no idea how many of the problems transfer over to the Taurus - obviously the safety is different.

Hello all and thank you for the replies.

Something I'm noticing is that it seems that the civilian version of the Beretta 92 is different, and better in consistant quality, than the military version. That bothers me to no end. I would not want to go into the field with one.

I've mainly looked at Taurus, but the Berettas I've looked at, and in some cases fired, at gunshops just don't exhibit these problems even when heavily used by the previous owner.

I do have a partial solution to the locking block however, Mr. H. They need to be replaced every 5,000 rounds. This is considered normal maintenence on these pistols.

I was aware that the design borrowed heavily from the P38. In fact I almost bought a WWII P38 just to see how similar... but that's for another post.

What is this grease you're speaking of sir? I don't know the designation. I've actually thought about using a bit of automotive bearing grease to see how it worked but since this is my carry gun I don't want to experiment too much with it. I use Gunslick on the rails and locking block and it works very well.

Josh <><

Hello All,

Interesting posts on a steamy subject...

My experience on Beretta's is limited to 3 92s:

- one 92SB Compact that I sold after after a few hundreds rounds to an avid collector: nice gun with shiny blue finish and wood grips, no malfunctions if memory serves.

- two 92FS Compact, both made in about 1995: perfectly reliable, all metal parts, nice guns too. In both cases I finished by selling them to make cash for something other.

In short: good guns, very well made - I would rate them just under german pistols as SIG Sauer, Walther and HK - reliable in range conditions at the least, manageable triggers and grips - I have large hands. On the negative, they are blocky, the safety-decocker lever isn't very usable and the sights are on the small side for a modern weapon.

My only experience with Taurus is very negative: a PT-908 - single stack compact 9 mm similar to a SIG Sauer P225. The fit between slide and frame was horrible and the barrel was so badly unsupported that the shells were terribly buldged at the belly. The dealer didn't take it back as long as the shells didn't explode and the importer told me to negociate with the dealer... So I said bye bye to the guy and to Taurus and its "lifetime warranty".

I should have been smarter: the Taurus catalogue was to nice...

About P38 and Beretta 92: the Walther has a 60-years long rep of reliability in extreme environnements... and it shares only its locking block and safety-decocker lever with the Ber'

Bye

L.