Here's more about the M9 (92FS) found at
http://beretta.squawk.com in the armorer's notes:
Beretta, The Company
Records dating back to 1526 show P. Beretta S.p.A. employed to manufacture firearms for various European governments. This company has been headquartered in Brescia, Italy and run by the Beretta family ever since ... making it the world's oldest industrial concern. The main facility in Brescia currently employs 1,300 men and women working in a 600,000 sq.-ft facility.
In the United States, Beretta USA is headquartered in Accokeek (abbreviated "Ackk"), Maryland. This facility was recently expanded to 140,000 sq.-ft and employees approximately 475 people. Also located in this facility is Benelli USA (15-20 employees); Beretta has owned 60% of Benelli for years, and now completely controls the company. Benelli USA will be running its own armorer schools, etc.
Also in the US: an import receiving station in Pocomoke, Maryland and a small warehouse in Buffalo, New York. Additionally, Beretta operates two "Beretta Galleries" -- one in New York City and the other in Dallas, Texas -- that sell a wide variety of Beretta merchandise.
Gun nut trivial pursuit question: What do the three arrows in the Beretta logo mean? They stand for "Aim Well, Shoot Straight, Hit the Mark."
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Manufacturing
One of the first activities in the armorer's class is a tour of the Beretta USA facility. Beretta is one of the last firearm manufacturers still forging and machining all of its gun parts. Many companies nowadays use castings or stampings, which are cheaper to make but are more prone to structural imperfections.
Another advantage to precision machining is that Beretta can manufacture all of its parts to within one micron (one-third the width of a human hair) tolerances. In order to assure such quality, Beretta USA uses more the 6,000 gauges -- at an average cost of over $11,000 per gauge -- to check every possible dimensional measurement of all of a gun's parts.
Barrels and slides are made from high-grade steel. Both are heat treated within extremely tight tolerances to achieve the best compromise of durability and function. Barrels are cold-hammer forged and the bores are hard chromed, guaranteeing extended life, corrosion resistance, and ease of maintenance. They are then blued.
Slides are parkerized and then sprayed with an epoxy resin finish that contains inert Teflon. The slide is then baked for half an hour. This is the "Bruniton" finish, which provides excellent corrosion resistance and reduced friction between moving parts.
Frames are made from 7075-T6 aluminum and anodized in a sulfuric acid bath, making the hardness and durability equal to steel. Anodized aluminum is almost completely corrosion resistant. Beretta only makes one frame style for each caliber, so all 9mm 92-series guns (FS, G, D, Brigadier, etc.) use the same identical frame; all .40S&W 96-series guns use the same frames.
Most small parts in a Beretta are either Bruniton-treated steel or anodized aluminum. The only exceptions are the grip screws, which are merely blued. Thus, the barrel and grip screws are the two parts of a Beretta handgun which are subject to rust.
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Testing
Once a Beretta handgun has reached the end of the manufacturing process, it is placed in a machine which mechanically cycles the slide 350 times in two minutes. This not only guarantees the proper functioning of the gun, but it also makes the gun useable by mere humans ... due to the tight tolerances on these guns, they are not loose enough for a person to cycle the slide until this process is completed!
A Quality Control expert next inspects each gun to guarantee fit and finish. Next, the gun is sent to a special room where it fires a 55-65kpsi proof load before being magnafluxed to check for microscopic structural fractures, cracks, or other imperfections. Beretta is the only manufacturer which subjects each and every gun to this testing.
Each gun is then put in a ransom rest, settled (3-5 shots fired), and accuracy tested. M9 military guns must meet a standard of 8" 10-shot groups at 50m, while law enforcement and commercial guns are tested with 10 shots at 25yds. A law enforcement department can specify a particular load for testing; otherwise, they (and all commercial guns) are tested with Black Hills "Red Box" (new manufacture, not reloaded) ammunition. Therefore, all 92-series and Cougar handguns are function-fired 13-15 times before leaving the factory.
The final step before packaging and shipping to distributors/agencies is one last visit to a Quality Control expert, who checks every part of the gun to assure that it is within spec and shows no signs of wear or damage.
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Name Dropping
A lot of people use Berettas. The most famous contract, of course, is the Dept. of Defense. At last count, somewhere on the order of half a million M9 handguns had been delivered to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard. According to Beretta, the US Navy SEALs just placed an order for 1,800 9mm Brigadiers, specially modified for cocked-and-locked carry (they also placed an order for a large number of 1201 shotguns).
Probably the next biggest and most public contract was the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, which also encompasses the US Border Patrol. Over 16,000 96 Brigadier D model guns (DAO .40&W with the heavier Brigadier slide) have been delivered to INS/BP.
The US Postal Service Postal Inspectors also carry Berettas, specifically the L Type M compact single-stack version of the standard 92-series gun.
Both the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Office use Beretta handguns, as do the Maryland, Ohio, and Pennsylvania State police.
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The Design of the 92-series Handgun
A significant part of our time was spent discussing the design particulars of the 92-series pistols. Many of these details are changes over earlier model guns (all the way back to the 951) made in order to improve the firearm specifically for use in a military role. For example, the squared and serrated trigger guard is intended to make sentry removal with a suppressed M9 easier by providing positive support when firing from a barricade; also, the frontstrap and backstrap are serrated rather than checkered because checkering, while pretty, is much harder to keep clean in a dirty environment. Even the trigger spring is special: it has bends on both ends, so if it breaks in the field, all you have to do is pop it out, put it in "backwards," and go … it acts as its own spare spring.
The crown (interior radius at the muzzle) of Beretta barrels is deep set, as opposed to the lap crown found on most other factory firearms. The crown exists to protect the lands and grooves; damage to these can result in drastically diminished accuracy. The Beretta crown's deep set provides much better protection in the event the gun is dropped or the muzzle is otherwise abused.
One of the most misunderstood aspects of the 92-series pistols is their open-top design. The slide is not open for weight reduction, or to help keep gunk from getting trapped inside the gun. The primary role of the open-top slide is to provide a 180° ejection port. Compare the 4" long, 1" wide, completely open "ejection port" on a 92-series pistol to the small port in other manufacturer's guns, and it's easy to see why the US Army rates the M9 good for an average of 21,000 rounds between failures. Another advantage of the 180° ejection port is that right-handed shooters can cant the gun inwards for doing malfunction clearances (like Tap-Rack-Bang) which allows for the greatest leverage; other guns cannot be canted inwards because the ejected brass falls back into the chamber, further jamming the gun.
The second reason behind the 180° port is what Beretta calls "emergency tactical loading." In other words, it is very easy to drop a round into the chamber of a slidelocked 92-series pistol. While most firearm manufacturers recommend against direct chamber loading because of possible damage to the extractor claw, the 92-series guns were designed with this capability in mind; you will not hurt your extractor by direct chamber loading. As a corollary, this ability means it is easier to keep a gun "topped off" (full magazine plus round in chamber) because you do not have to fiddle with your magazine; just drop a round in the chamber, close the slide, and pop the magazine in the gun.
The ejector on 9mm Berettas has a small angle cut in it to make sure brass is ejected to the right of the gun. Due to the larger diameter of .40S&W cartridges, this cut was not possible in 96-series guns so occasionally the shooter might have a spent case ejected backwards.
Unlike other handguns on the market, the Beretta has a visual firing pin block. You can check the proper functioning of the firing pin block simply by taking your unloaded gun and pulling the trigger; you can even do this with the safety engaged. If the firing pin block pops up (it's the small rectangle just forward of the sights) and goes back down when the trigger is released, you know it's working properly. This design also provides a means for residue to escape from the firing pin block channel. Other guns (especially those with firing pin block channels very close to the muzzle -- the 92-series firing pin block is as far from the residue-creating muzzle as possible) which have completely enclosed firing pin block safeties run the risk of failure when dirt, burnt powder, brass shavings, etc., can trapped in the channel.
Related to the firing pin block is the trigger bar. The trigger bar has a special notch cut in it, which traps the firing pin block in the downward (engaged/safe) position immediately upon firing the gun. The firing pin block remains locked until the slide reciprocates all the way back into battery. Therefore, the gun cannot be fired out of battery. A second feature which also protects against out-of-battery firing is the slant cut into the bottom rear of the slide. This cut blocks the hammer from touching the firing pin plunger unless the gun is completely in battery; if the gun is even slightly out of battery, even if the hammer drops it will not touch the plunger and therefore the firing pin will not move forward.
The takedown latch on the Beretta is the subject of much discussion due to the supposed "Jackie Chan" disabling technique, which, the urban myth tells us, allows a properly trained person to strip the slide and barrel off the gun in one quick motion. Beretta now makes a replacement takedown latch which does not have the finger shelf, requiring much more leverage and a sharp object (like a fingernail or cartridge rim) to push into the downward position. However, the original/standard latch was designed to allow soldiers in the field (where they might be wearing heavy gloves) the ability to get their guns fieldstripped quickly and easily in the event they fell into mud, etc.
The decocker/safety on a standard M9 or "FS" model gun serves three purposes. First, it drops the hammer, guaranteeing a long goof-resistant trigger pull on the first shot fired when drawing the firearm. Second, it disconnects the trigger from the hammer/sear, making it impossible to drop the hammer while the safety is engaged. Third, it rotates the firing pin plunger out of position, so even if the hammer were to drop with full force, there is no way for the firing pin to be pushed forward to strike the primer of the chambered round.
The Beretta does not function on the tilt-barrel concept common with many other popular handguns. Instead, the barrel is locked into place for locked-breech delayed recoil operation. The less the barrel moves, the more accurate the gun will be, because the slide and barrel lock up in the same exact position every time. While there is some play between slide and barrel when the gun is at rest, at the moment of discharge the locking block wings and slide shoulders lock up completely.
The slide stop of the Beretta frame is located so that it is engaged by the rear face of the recoil spring shroud when the slide moves backwards during recoil. This has two effects. First, the lowered position of the stop directs the force of recoil straight back into the hand. This helps alleviate the tendency of muzzle flip with guns which do not allow a very high grip on the frame. Second, the wide heavy stop helps to spread the force of recoil better, minimizing wear on the aluminum frame. Other aluminum frame guns which do not have this specially designed and located slide stop have much shorter service lives (e.g., Beretta claims anywhere from 35k to 100k rounds through one of its frames, while SIG-Sauer, using the same exact grade aluminum, frequently has problems near the 10k round mark).
The firing pin hole on a Beretta is chamfered. This reduces the possibility that a bad or burred case will bind on the breechface, causing a jam. It also aids proper feeding when a primer is not properly fitted flush to the cartridge head. Beretta polishes their breechfaces to make feeding more reliable. One of the students in our class was a firearms examiner for a state police agency, and he commented that matching brass cases from a Beretta was extremely difficult because they left no unique breechface marks due to this polishing.
Even the magazines of the Beretta are designed and manufactured for reliability. Each magazine is laser welded (rather than zipper welded) to enhance toughness and reliability. Furthermore, each magazine is tumbled in a vibratory cleaner before shipping to eliminate burrs and guarantee 100% reliability.
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Maintenance
Beretta recommends the following procedure for cleaning its handguns. Note that this procedure was written for large agencies which must clean dozens or even hundreds of guns in short succession. Therefore, it may not be practical for the average gun owner.
You will need two pails, a compressed air gun (or bottle of compressed air), and lubricant (Beretta, obviously, recommends their own Olio Beretta; I've found Militec to be excellent).
Each pail is filled with kerosene (mineral spirits can be used instead, and in fact this is what is used at the Beretta USA factory). Dunk the fieldstripped pistol parts in the first pail and allow them to soak for a moment. Then lift the parts out of the pail, allowing the kerosene/spirits to drip back into the first pail.
Next, dip the parts in the second pail of kerosene/spirits to rinse them clean. Remove the parts from the second pail and use a toothbrush to scrub the parts. Run abore brush through the barrel a few times and then follow it with a clean patch; if the bore is not clean, use standard bore cleaner (I like Shooter's Choice) and clean normally. Use compressed air to blow the remaining gunk and kerosene/spirits from the gun, making sure to clean out the firing pin channel and other nooks and crannies.
Finally, lubricate the gun. Beretta recommends oiling the takedown lever, the slide catch, the safety, and the extractor joint (lift up on the extractor to apply the oil and move the extractor back and forth to assure proper penetration). You should put a drop on each end of the locking block (where it mates with the barrel fore and aft) and a drop on the locking block plunger. A drop or two of lubricant down each slide rail should be sufficient to keep the gun cycling properly.
DO NOT put any oil on/under the hammer … it will flow down into the magazine well and may deactivate primers, making your ammunition useless.
Personally, I also like to put a drop of oil under the trigger bar where it rests just over the trigger on the frame of the gun, as I've found this to be an area of wear. Lubricating this area can also smooth up trigger pull just a little bit. I also add a little Militec to the bottom edges of the slide and top edges of the frame where the two meet, and I try to keep all of the contact points between the locking block and frame lubricated. Remember to use oil sparingly, though, because it can attract grit which and turn into an abrasive rather than a lubricant. I then rub the frame, slide, and barrel (especially the barrel!) with a Sentry Solutions Marine Tuf-Cloth for additional lubrication and corrosion resistance.
Another option mentioned by Beretta was the use of Gun Scrubber (which is nothing but expensive break pad cleaner). However, be aware that this will completely degrease the gun, leaving it dry as a bone. If you do not properly lubricate the gun afterwards you can accelerate wear and even cause functioning problems. (A totally degreased Tomcat will be so locked up that the trigger cannot be pulled until the gun has been lubricated)
Beretta recommends against using Breakfree or ultrasonic cleaners. Don't use Hoppes or other bore cleaners on anything but the bore, as it will gunk up and make the gun inoperable (the Ohio State Police were apoplectic when their Berettas were jamming constantly; Beretta rep eventually figured out they were cleaning their guns by dipping the whole gun in Hoppes and then allowing the guns to dry out). Don't use WD40.
Be careful about trying to clean the magazine well. The trigger bar spring (the spring you see when you take the right grip off) can be knocked loose easily, rendering the gun less than 100% reliable. If you absolutely must clean that area, remove the grips and gently scrub without touching any springs.
Also remember that when using the plastic stocks ("grips") which most commonly adorn 92-series pistols, you must use lock washers with the grip screws. If the lock washers are missing, the screws will travel into the magazine well and interfere with the proper insertion and removal of magazines. When using the wood stocks available from Beretta or the Farrar rubber stocks, the lock washes should not be used. Beretta does not authorize any other stocks for use on their handguns.
Finally, one last "maintenance" task recommend by Beretta is to rotate your ammunition once a month if you carry your magazines, keep them in the car, or otherwise subject them to more or less constant motion. The first five rounds in the magazine are subject to wear due to the interior design of the magazines (the same features which make the magazines so reliable also cause this wear, unfortunately). Over extended periods of time the cases rub against the magazine indents and become burred (reducing feed reliability); under extreme circumstances, the magazine can literally saw through the brass case, cutting the cartridge in half and effectively rendering the magazine inoperable.
Beretta recommends changing the recoil spring every 8,000 rounds.
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The Locking Block
Much ado about nothing? The Army's testing shows that the locking block on an M9 will function for 17,000 to 22,000 rounds of NATO-specification (+p or +p+) ammunition before needing replacement. Ted Nugent fired 100,000 rounds through his personal Beretta 92, replacing the locking block once. Various SWAT teams have fired over 65,000 rounds through each of their Berettas without needing more than one locking block replacement. There are actually two types of locking blocks, an older straight-sided version and a newer, redesigned version with a radius relief cut made along the sides for longer life. You can see pics of both at the Locking Block page of the Beretta-L website.
The locking block, for those unfamiliar with the terminology, is the little pyramid of steel which is connected to your barrel (and which sometimes becomes loose enough to remove; that is a normal function of wear and does not impede function of the gun in any way). When a gun fires, the barrel's natural tendency is to fly forward (like a rocket, with the bullet acting like a jet propulsion unit). So part of a gun's design must include a method for keeping the barrel "locked" in place during the firing sequence. Many modern handguns use a locking block which is literally part of the barrel, called a "barrel block." If you look at a SIG or Glock barrel, for example, you will see that the chamber area is actually a square or rectangle of metal. This "block" mates up precisely with the ejection port to keep the gun locked.
The downside of this design is that the locking area of any gun has to survive tremendous force every time the gun is fired; therefore, it is an area of great wear. When that wear occurs on the slide and barrel, eventually the slide and barrel have to be replaced. If you look at the barrel and ejection port of a much-fired "barrel block" gun, you will see peening of the barrel and slide.
With a Beretta, the removable locking block performs this locking function. So while the part may wear more quickly than a "barrel block" design, the only thing you need to replace is a $50 locking block rather than a $150 barrel and $200 slide.
However, if the locking block does break and the gun continues to be used, it can potentially lead to a broken slide. If the locking block or slide is going to break, it will happen on the right side first, so you should inspect this area whenever there is a possibility of trouble. A broken locking block will still be "safe" to use for approximately 700 rounds, giving the user plenty of time to replace the part.
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Things Not To Do With Your Beretta
Many of the following suggestions apply to guns intended for duty/personal protection use. Obviously, you can try any widget and gadget you want on your "toy" guns.
Don't try to make a hybrid gun. You cannot change an "FS" model into a "G" model or a "D" model without changing slides and making other internal changes to the gun
Don't use stocks ("grips") other than the plastic or wood ones sold by Beretta, with the sole exception of the Farrar rubber stocks which are specifically authorized by Beretta USA.
Don't try to put barrel weights or bushings on the muzzle of your barrel in an attempt to lock the gun up tighter, etc. Not only don't they work (as mentioned above, the barrel locks during the firing process) but they interfere with the balance of the gun, which can accelerate wear on the barrel, frame, and locking block. Also, putting weights on the front of the barrel will most likely result in a point of impact 8" to 12" below point of aim.
Don't rush into refinishing your gun with new high-tech materials. Beretta handguns are manufactured to very tight tolerances, and some finishes are so "thick" that they can bind up the gun, making it unreliable or even inoperable.
Don't muck around with the hammer spring to change trigger pull, or the recoil spring. The two are engineered to work in a precise way together. Too light a hammer spring (also called a "mainspring") can result in light primer hits; it also lessens the shock-absorber effect of the hammer and therefore can lead to accelerated wear of the frame. Using too heavy of a recoil spring can lead to ejection failures and other reliability problems.
Don't shoot +p+ ammo in the gun all the time. Higher-pressure ammo will wear any gun out faster. The Beretta is designed to handle hot NATO-spec ammunition, but it will last longer if you do most of your ordinary practice with standard SAAMI-spec ammo (ammo which is not marked "+p" or "+p+").
If you have a 'D' model double-action-only gun, don't stage the trigger without dropping the hammer. The firing pin block will not move out of the way, and the full force of the hammer is delivered to the firing pin plunger, which can get damaged. For the same reason, do not thumb-cock the 'D' model hammer and then let it slam back down (this is why 'D' model guns come with bobbed hammers).
Don't dry-fire a Beretta excessively without something in the chamber for the firing pin to strike. Beretta recommends spring-loaded snap caps, but used brass or plastic dummy rounds can be used. When the firing pin moves forward and strikes nothing but air, it can wobble as it returns into the firing pin channel, possibly getting nicked and damaged along the top or bottom of the firing pin hole. With the chamfered firing pin hole on a Beretta this is less likely, but getting snap caps is cheap insurance.
Don't pull the trigger and drop the hammer when the slide is off the gun. This allows the steel hammer to slam against the alloy frame and can lead to unusual wear.
Don't reload. The Beretta 92-series and Cougar series of pistols were never designed to use reloaded or remanufactured ammunition. The barrel leads up quickly, so only jacketed ammunition should be used. Furthermore, the ramp on 92-series barrels undercuts the chamber at the 6 o'clock position, which causes brass the bulge at the web and become unsuitable for reloading.
Do not polish the web support shoulder of the barrel. While an experienced gunsmith can polish the feed ramp (it's not necessary, but some people like to do it), throating the chamber or polishing too far into the chamber can result in dangerous out-of-spec problems.
Do not assemble the pistol upside down; always hold the frame in the upright (normal) position. This forces the firing pin block down, and can damage the firing pin. It can also damage the wings of the firing pin block lever or decocker lever.
Do not get excited if the rails of your Beretta turn white, or the top of the frame shows wear patterns. These are both perfectly natural and do not harm the gun in any way and in fact signal that the parts of the gun are mating properly. However, if metal starts to get chewed away, the gun needs to be returned to Beretta for repair.
) You won't be sorry.
