Durability&Longevity of aluminum alloy frame pistols (Taurus PT 92/Beretta 92)

John is right on the money, of course, but I wanted to add to it.

Shock buffs are sold/used so that people who spent a ton of money on a nice 1911 can keep the gun working a bit longer in practice before the gun needs a rebuild. This also includes high volume shooters.

SD or pistols in combat are low volume weapons. The issue the shock buff is trying mitigate is moot. This is why no police force or military uses them. Plus, in adverse circumstances, they can induce a failure. If your 92 is a home defense weapon, 1) why would you care about the wear and tear of shots fired in HD? 2) Why would you introduce a new point of failure? What gain do you expect get from it?

As John pointed out, your O ring isn't doing much, if anything, for your gun since you're shooting low powered rounds. If you were firing +P high velocity ammo, the O ring may help. But rounds that barely cycle the gun are inherently putting less energy in the recoil cycle. This means less battering.
 
Unlike polymer buffs this rubber o ring most likely will stay below the guide rod if it desintegrates. I believe due to the beretta design it can not go anywhere and will not induce jams.
It most likely will stay trapped beneath the guide rod and since it is rubber continue buffing the slide impact.

Just my guess.
 
Regarding shock buffers and 1911s. I have a 99 year old original Model of 1911 made by Colt. It has had many, many, many rounds through it. It never needed a shock buffer. That 99 year old Colt is as accurate as my 1978 Colt Series 70.

This is not a formal study of course, rather it is one data point.

However, I still believe this thread is to offer argument only, in favor of a mindset that has no intention of change, no matter what is presented to the contrary.
 
Well yea. Stubborn Ass me!

The idea is to protect the most possible the Frame with the O-Ring. Since it is rubber I believe it has an edge over polymer.
This is what Wilson Combat Claims:
The SHOK-BUFF® prevents the slide from battering the frame during recoil by sandwiching a 1/10" thick poly fiber buffer between the slide and frame contact areas. When you are shooting high performance loads in your 1911 style pistol, you want the extra protection that the original SHOK-BUFF® provides. One "Imitations" brand on the market claims they are better because their buffer lasts a little longer. The object of the frame to slide buffer is to protect the pistol from wear, if the buffer is not soft enough to take the damage instead of the pistol what have you accomplished? We feel the original SHOK-BUFF® is the optimum balance between shock absorption and longevity. Easily replaceable after absorbing up to 1,000 rounds of repeated firings, the SHOK-BUFF® slides over the recoil spring guide between guide and spring. Why take a chance on an inferior die stamped copy when you can have the original injection molded SHOK-BUFF®? With over 30 years of competition and street proven experience and hundreds of thousands sold, the original SHOK-BUFF® is still the best. Don't be fooled by imitation products, current production Wilson SHOK-BUFF® buffers are royal blue and bear the SHOK-BUFF® name.
Click to expand...
Source: http://shopwilsoncombat.com/Shok-Buff-Recoil-Buffers-1911-Package-of-6/productinfo/2B/

Remember one Thing: For you guys no worries in the US. If it breaks you send the gun to the manufacturer and they fix ya up.

No such commodities over here. If it breaks, I am pretty much screwed. Throw it away and buy an new gun! (for triple of the US Price).
 
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I do not regard you as "stubborn" about recoil buffers. I consider you unwilling to consider any wisdom except that which you wish to support however.

Wilson can claim whatever it likes, and Colt, despite my residence in the USA, will not be repairing my 1918 manufactured pistol. But this issue illustrates my point: you believe that the recoil buffer prevents damage that must and will occur if they are not used. Since we can get manufacturers to repair the pistols do to our being in the USA, that's not a problem for us.

Your conviction is that this is what happens. Explaining to you that it doesn't will not convince you of anything. To you, this is the truth.
 
Confesion! The rubber O-Ring does NOT work

Dear ya all,

specially JohnKSa, Chris B, ratshooter, and others who were against the shok buff.

I confess, admit and apologize I was WRONG about the rubber O-Ring not being an hazard for reliability.

Do NOT use any Kind of such devices in the gun.

I was going to shoot today 8 of my reloads.
First round did not go off. It had a very light strike of the firing pin. I wondered what the heck is going on. The third restrike it went off. Again a light strike.
Same Thing with almost all others so I almost blamed the brazilians for making an shabby gun.
Then I figured it may be the O-Ring used as shok buff. I took it apart and everything seemed fine. Anyways I took the ring out.
From then every round fired flawlessly and with an good firing pin strike.

Grouping were nothing to write home but from 12 Yards the 124 grain lead bullets penetrated an 1.2" hardwood Wood and went into the tree behind. That seems to me of plenty of power. The lead cast bullets are a few months old and have cured for hardness by air and that way of the 2 recovered None had very dramatic Expansion but acted as FMJ and only the Truncated Cone deformed heavily. Even from 900 fps to 1037 fps These penetrated the 1.2" Wood and I believe have plenty of Penetration for self defense.

Again sorry guys for my former insisting for the Shok Buff. They make the gun unreliable.

You see Chris B: the truth is NOT relative to subject views. Or it works or it does Not.
In this case the Shok Buff does NOT work. Any other my previous arguments were an lack of insigth and understanding.
 
No, an O ring does not work as a buffer.
Maybe the Wilson device made of a tougher material and molded to fit the space available would be satisfactory, for target shooting, at least.

I use buffers in my competition guns. It didn't cost me anything but match results when one shredded and dragged on the barrel, causing misfunction. I should have inspected it more often.

My defensive weapons, usually shot only for refamiliarization and load reliability testing, do NOT have buffers.
 
Jim Watson,

Do you believe the Wilson Combat Shok Buff will not do this in my gun?

It seems it did not go all the way into battery since the firing pin had Trouble to reach enough the primer.
 
I looked a bit to the frame and saw that the case ejector is a steel part (most likely MIM part) pinned with 2 roll pins to the aluminum frame. That part seems the be held ad well in place with another bolt below together with another MIM steel piece which seems to be a kind of a lever.
Both pieces flank the hamner on both sides.

Most things on this pistol frame are held in place with roll pins. I hope those are steel.

I hope just these MIM parts are steel and not an weak alloy since the ejector has to withstand stress.
 
Now again I believe the rubber O-Ring was NOT the reason for the light firing pin strike.

It was rather the overlubricating with liquid grease. This grease spray gets really sticky (glue like) when the weather turns cold and that was the case today.
I sprayed grease into the firing pin assembly. So probably the firing pin did not have much velocity or the hammer got sticky or it might be the slide safety Plunger not squeezed up by the safety Lever (how that is related to grease I dont know).

I fired the gun and now and then a round went off. I did NOT have the rubber O-Ring installed.
So I cleaned the gun wiping off the grease and lubricated the gun with sewing machine thin oil which I put into the firing pin assembly as well to get rid of the grease liquifying it.

From then on with the O-Ring installed the gun fired reliably (till now).

The rounds have an velocity of about 1000 fps.

This gun is more sensible to lube although the SD9VE I had before I never greased the striker assembly.
 
Jim, It is never a good idea to lubricate the firing pin. Any kind of lube on it just becomes a magnet for the grit and grime that is ever present in the firing of a gun. I have seen lots of manuals that warn against it but not one that suggests it.
 
See if you can find a can of brake cleaner or pneumatic tool cleaner.

You want one of the spray cans with the little "straw" that attaches to the nozzle so you can direct the spray. The brake cleaner in the link has one of the "straws" taped to the side of the can to give you an idea of what to look for.

Remove the slide from the pistol and test the spray cleaner to make sure it won't damage the overcoating on the decock/safety levers. If it looks ok, put on some safety glasses and go outside.

Check to make sure you have your safety glasses on because brake cleaner really stings when it gets in your eyes.

Hold the small "straw" which attaches to the spray nozzle so it blows directly into the firing pin hole.

Spray until nothing comes out around the back of the firing pin but clear brake cleaner. You don't want any oil or grease in the firing pin channel.
 
Has anyone experience with overlubricating the Beretta 92 style pistols? or overgreasing?

This style of pistol seems to be more grease sensible than the Glock style pistols.
 
It is generally recommended that no lubrication be used in the firing pin channel of a firearm. Oil is bad because it causes fouling to collect which can then cause the firing pin to jam. Grease is bad because it can be thick enough to retard the firing pin motion even without any accumulated fouling.
 
As you all may guess by now my biggest fear will be damaging the finish, metal or Frame if break cleaner is applied.

I tried to flush the firing pin channel with very thin sewing machine oil and it seemed to dilute a bit the grease. Over time the grease will loose anyways a bit it's sticky property.

However I am still not 100% sure what caused really the Problem of the light firing pin strike.
Sure is it started after I covered almost the entire gun in and outside with this grease spray.
If the weather gets a bit cold then it became almost as sticky as half past dried paint.
 
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