26 of 31 years.

Designated units within the United States Special Operations Command.

What the Army did with 'em once we turned them in I haven't a clue.

No, NATO shit is just hot

 

Do you know what they do with the Sigs and Glocks they now have?

Uhhh.  Shoot 'em?

I believe thats been corrected as well.

They recycle the Glocks into cans of C4 pre workout after 5K. Sorta the same thing for Sigs except those are made into cans of Rip-It.

Its the Special Operations Green Guns Initiative, or SOGGI.

M882 9mm NATO is not a +P equivalent.  Look up Army Small Caliber Ammunition Data Sheets (there are a couple of on-line .pdfs) and look at page 12-5.

A360 115-grain 9mm Ball for submachineguns is pretty hot stuff and is NOT authorized for use in the M9.

SAAMI limit for standard pressure 9mm: 35,001 psi. M882 max pressure: 36,250 psi. It's not loaded to the max for +P, but it does fall in the +P range.

Pine Sol is the best weapons cleaner ever.

I qualified expert as well having never held an M9 before. I quite liked it, mild recoil , the trigger seemed O.K.



fundamentals, how do they work?!



 

We always shot A363....which is m882. I don't recall what fragile ammo was but I recall it seeming to be hot

 

Every gun will fail eventually without replacing worn parts. Trash can glocks included, but if you maintain them they will last a hell of a lot longer.

There was a thing about Euro 9mm being loaded hotter for the subguns quite a while back. And open top design. All i got.

Because they don't change out recoil springs according to maintenance protocols.........

Yup. But Beretta was supposed to have addressed it after the problem cropped up.



Wiki

Never saw a broken slide.

Heard of a few on tne Seal teams in Coronado

Ps..they were NOT shooting standard ball ammo.  As i recall they were even heavier than the 147gr rounds.

Years ago

Have seen cracked locking blcks. Most issues are caused by poor maintenance.

No matter what pistol is used, troops will bitch about them in time

My 92f never has had an issue.

My 92FS Vertec a piece of the frame broke off at 70k rounds.  The slide and locking block were still fine.

This.  124 grn NATO is pretty hot.  Recoil springs rarely get changed.  Actually I have never seen a slide crack, but have seen a shit ton of locking blocks break.

The new locking blocks are better but will eventually fail.  I don't particularly care for this gun but have tons of trigger time with it.  I have won several competitions/awards with it so shoot it reasonably well.  But it is still the hardest gun for me to shoot fast and accurately with.

As an aside:  The shitty phosphate magazines work great if you oil them then use them enough to smooth down the finish.

I've read this was a big part of it.  And the cut out in the slide is obviously a weak point.  The 92 "FS" was meant to keep the slide from hitting the shooter in the face when it broke.  From wiki:


"The FS has an enlarged hammer pin that fits into a groove on the underside of the slide. The main purpose is to stop the slide from flying off the frame to the rear if it cracks. This was in response to reported defective slides during U.S. Military testing.["

For those who may have missed it (from January):

What was the build date? They switched trigger return springs because of them breaking prematurely.

Get a 92G Brigadier slide if you're worried about a weak slide.

Worn springs, lack of proper maintenance, etc. I was never in the military but am I a Beretta fan and I've heard PLENTY of horror stories from family and friends in the military of soldiers either OVER-cleaning or not cleaning weapons at all and also not maintaining them. Recoil springs need to be switched out every 5k rounds for pretty much ANY gun. I've owned about 8 different Berettas over the years and NEVER had a problem. People don't maintain their shit, especially the military.


ETA: read above, forgot about the 124gr Nato. That is a hot cookie too LOL but it really boils down to lack of maintenance.

I gotta agree. Some of the shit we were told to do in the spirit of keeping a weapon 'clean'....

That is all the solid truth. Quite frankly, I don't think it'll matter what gun they get. They'll find a way to destroy it.

That cracked me up.

thanks for postins, Sinister, always interesting to see your experiences with this stuff.

It has. My first Beretta 92FS broke the trigger return spring after a few thousand rounds so I bought 5 to have spares that turned out to be a little thicker. The Vertec I bought later also had a thicker trigger return spring that never broke so I still have 4 spare trigger return springs.

Biggest problem with the Beretta 92 is just what you're saying here--Maintenance. Keep on top of the springs, and the locking blocks, and they'll go for a good long while.

I do have one minor point, though--I think the broken slide issue actually goes back to another source than the "officially sanctioned explanation". If you were to take my personal, Italian-made Beretta 92FS, which was supposedly identical to the M9 made in Accokeek, and then do a comparison of the quality of machining that went into them...? The Italian gun had much smoother, much nicer cuts. The earlier Accokeek pistols I was issued were rough as f**k, and you could look inside the slide where the recesses for the locking block were machined, and see where there were rougher spots along the inner edges of the machine cuts. The Italian version I had showed much sharper definition, and cleaner work. Plus that, the gun just felt overall "smoother". The issue M9, you'd go to pull the slide back and you could feel the difference--The Italian one was like glass, and the M9 was like pulling through gravel.

I think a lot of those slide breakages started with stress cracks propagating from those rougher cuts, coupled with the hot ammo that was being fired by some units.

One thing I will note, though: My Glock 19 swallowed over a thousand rounds of what I was told was standard-issue ball ammo from Israel. What I was actually firing was some crap that had been loaded up for the Uzi, and hadn't been color-coded with the black paint on the nose of the round. When I saw the dealer I bought it from, he blanched, and told me I needed to a.) not fire it, and b.) return it to him for an exchange. Seems he'd sold a bunch of it to one of the local police departments as cheap training ammo, and they had broken two or three of the slides on their Beretta 92 pistols in training, and when he'd gone back to the source on it, they were like, "Oh, yeah... The carbine ammo? Yeah, that'll do that, when you fire it in a pistol...". So, the same load that blew up a couple of what I think were Accokeek Berettas after just a couple of boxes went through a Glock 19 without issue, and only produced a really impressive muzzle flash for me. Firing that on a dark range was really kinda cool, because there was this huge-ass fireball with that stuff that made you think you were firing some kinda cannon.

You're fibbing.

They didn't exist 92 years ago and...neither did you.

sheesh...

Look at AF weapons, they are beat to shit and for the most part never see combat.

The average AF weapon is gouged up and beat to shit 90% handling and maintenance related and about 10% shooting or combat related.

They have changed the type of steel and heat treatment to address this issue.

This is the answer you seek.  Normal use and following manufacturer's instructions and that 92/96 will be functioning just fine 100 years from now.
Beretta still has the highest QC and manufacturing standards in the business today.

My old now closed indoor range had Beretta 92, really popular gun to rent when it is working, the problem is the locking block. It would break them pretty frequently.
BTW The most reliable gun Glock 17, went 500,000 and broke the slide. Up until then zero maintenance except for cleaning.

I was an armored on the M9 platform for a decade. Great pistol, assuming maintenance cycles are kept up with. I never found it to be a good service weapon. It's way too easy to dislodge various springs within the weapon during cleaning. Example, that trigger bar return spring.

I had to detail strip far too many of these for my liking. They are seriously over complicated. I had an Officer roll down a dirt hill on his retention holster and jam the gun full of debris. The slide had to be beaten open due to all the debris that fell in around the locking lugs on top of the slide. I had to strip the gun to the frame and boil the parts in water to get the grit out of it. Later we moved to Glocks. Mother of god are they easy to take care of. They're damn near retard proof.

That is my thought too.

^^^^^^^^^^^

'strewth, that right there. My Berettas all got sold for just these reasons--The damn things are finicky, overly complex, and not amenable to being abused. The Glocks that replaced them? Seriously hard to screw up, simple (and, cheap!) to maintain, and just all-around more effective defense guns. Ugly as fuck, though.

Hot rounds and a weak design.  That's why they came out with the "brigadier" slide, with more reinforcement.

humble brag: my newest pistol is a Wilson 92G Brigadier and the thing is built like a brick shithouse. I love it.

That's pretty much it.

Did you pull the hammer back?

or are you not allowed to shoot single action?



I don't know how anyone could not shoot the M9 well unless you were using double action only all the time.

It's the first 'high' power handgun (after using a Ruger Mark3) I let all my new shooters use....and they shoot exceptionally well.



The intent of the fire arm design, is not: carry safety on and hammer down...



Carried practically: safety off, hammer down....draw & pull hammer back, shoot.

The 'safety'...is a de-cocker....that can act as a safety.

Hence it's location (as stipulated by the US mil) on the slide.

Original Berettas were designed and built (the way Taurus is today since Beretta sold the Brazilian plant to Taurus) safety on the frame and it was carried like a 1911.



The US gov specified (at the time): Must be US made (hence relocation to Maryland and sale of Brazilian plant), decocker (they didn't want the intimidating look of 'hammer cocked' while holstered), 9mm (so wimpy's could qualify), large capacity magazine.



 

really....that's in the top 3 greatest BS's about the Beretta I've read.

Mine is pushing over 20k....I changed the recoil spring once a while back just because.



 

Recycled many times, but here are some pics (first is from 2011 at the All-Army Championships at Benning:

See, you're special.  Uncle Sam says what he required for all the guns HE bought.

If you told any American the pistol he was about to buy won't go 5,000 rounds without breaking something he'd burst a vessel and froth and spit.  Especially if he bought a Kimber or a Nighthawk.  

Uncle Sam don't care -- he stated his minimums.  He keeps the vendors' feet to the fire by putting a government inspector who tests weapons in each lot to destruction.  If they fail they have to fix it.  If the batch fails it's rejected.  If the next batch fails they may have to "Show cause" as to why they should keep their contract.

The average single GI isn't going to shoot that damn thing 5,000 rounds in a 20-year career.




When an M9 goes in for depot re-build they can put all the brand-new parts you want on it -- but a peened and worn aluminum frame isn't going to fit any better than a peened and worn M1911A1 frame.

The M9 isn't a bad gun.  It works.  But it ain't infallible, either.

SMG ammo tends to break them.

Before there was 882, they did use smg ammo in the beretta.  There by causing the broken slides initially