I think the 9mm Berretta was pretty much the gun that originally took the place of S&W and Colt Revolvers back in the mid 1980s. What ever happened to them? They didn't seem to have a very long lifespan with LEOS. In the past 10 years you see mostly Glocks and Sig Saurs now. Was there some major problem with Berrettas?
LEOS: Berrettas to Glocks
- Thread starter Doug.38PR
- Start date
LAPD still has them to some degree
(Berettas, that is, unless they've changed lately and I just haven't noticed.)
Glocks made inroads into LE agencies for another important reason: Price.
Glocks are cheaper than Berrettas. Or SIG. Or H&K. Or Colt or S&W.
I think Raven outbid Glock, but then PDSR Calif ran them out of bidness.
(Berettas, that is, unless they've changed lately and I just haven't noticed.)
Glocks made inroads into LE agencies for another important reason: Price.
Glocks are cheaper than Berrettas. Or SIG. Or H&K. Or Colt or S&W.
I think Raven outbid Glock, but then PDSR Calif ran them out of bidness.
Size, particularly weight. Berettas are a handful compared to Glocks. Smaller males and most females had problems with the grip and how far you had to reach for the trigger. Simplicity was another big factor. A lot of officers don't put in enough time with weapon handling and a lot of dept's don't make them (or can't afford to). Glocks seemed to do the trick with no safeties, decockers, etc.
glock just plain out does them.
Glock is just LEO friendly...for most that may not be experienced with guns when entering the field of law enforcement, Glock is the gun for them.
It's lightweight.
It has no "real" external safety...just point and shoot.
It field strips easily with the least amount of parts of any semi-auto
It's mostly poly...no rust, easy maintainence.
For agencies...
It's inexpensive to purchase.
It come in all calibers and sizes and each gun relatively the same; meaning only one armorer needed.
It's replacement parts are easy to purchase, are inexpensive, and easy to repair.
A few other nut and bolt reasons make it the most popular law enforcement weapon.
Glock is just LEO friendly...for most that may not be experienced with guns when entering the field of law enforcement, Glock is the gun for them.
It's lightweight.
It has no "real" external safety...just point and shoot.
It field strips easily with the least amount of parts of any semi-auto
It's mostly poly...no rust, easy maintainence.
For agencies...
It's inexpensive to purchase.
It come in all calibers and sizes and each gun relatively the same; meaning only one armorer needed.
It's replacement parts are easy to purchase, are inexpensive, and easy to repair.
A few other nut and bolt reasons make it the most popular law enforcement weapon.
guntotin_fool
New member
Beretta's are a well made nicely finished gun. The grip puts some people off. the inch long trigger pull is another limiting factor. I had a DAO 96 for a time and boy, that trigger pull was just not conductive to shooting well. and fora pistol with a grip that big, it should have held more than 12 .40's.
The grip is bigger than a 14-45 Paraord buy holds fewer rounds.
Glocks had hollywood on their side. I wonder how much money Gaston threw at the movie industry but it paid off. Beretta started the hollywood trend with the lethal weapon movies, Glock tried to counter with the Die hard movies and all the gAnsTa rap BS. and it worked. people at it up.
Well maybe Beretta did not start the hollywood craze, Maybe Colt did with all those Six guns we all saw as kids. Everysunday night. Gunsmoke and Matt Dillon.
The grip is bigger than a 14-45 Paraord buy holds fewer rounds.
Glocks had hollywood on their side. I wonder how much money Gaston threw at the movie industry but it paid off. Beretta started the hollywood trend with the lethal weapon movies, Glock tried to counter with the Die hard movies and all the gAnsTa rap BS. and it worked. people at it up.
Well maybe Beretta did not start the hollywood craze, Maybe Colt did with all those Six guns we all saw as kids. Everysunday night. Gunsmoke and Matt Dillon.
XavierBreath
New member
Here's how I remember it.........
15-20 years ago, the Beretta 92 series was the gun to have. The adoption of the Beretta 92 by the US military ignited the wondernine craze that the Beretta led. Beretta fought long and hard for the contract, supplying an adequate 9mm pistol and greasing palms along the way. Beretta got decent product placement in the Lethal Weapon movies, as well as a few other shows. The Beretta 92FS almost pushed the 1911 off the gun rag covers for a year. Many police departments liked the Beretta 92FS and adopted it. Then Beretta started resting on it's laurels, designing rotating barrels, and plastic guns that look like inverted tennis shoes. They did put out a .40S&W Beretta 96, as well as a shorter barreled 92, a shorter gripped 92 and the single stacked Vertec. None of these were heavily marketed, and were presented as a solution to a problem in the original Beretta 92. To this day, the Beretta 92 has probably been on more movie posters than any other gun.
Meanwhile, Glock arrived with a plastic pistol that was cheaper to produce, homely as Quasimoto, but rugged as a crowbar. Glock made some trade-in deals to get those Berettas out of LEO hands. Glock secured product placement in multiple movies. Glock did not protest the use of thier name or image in gangsta rap videos and lyrics. Soon Glocks were the ubiquitous LEO pistol. It was the gun of choice among criminals. While people were lamenting the military's loss of the 1911, those "in the know" were packing Glocks. Glocks were spit out in every caliber except .380 and .22LR (and the lack of those calibers surprises me!), Glocks were available in every size and configuration, but they were all Glocks, and presented as a variation of a sucessful theme. Glocks were and are billed as perfection. To many people, they are perfection.
Marketing works.
15-20 years ago, the Beretta 92 series was the gun to have. The adoption of the Beretta 92 by the US military ignited the wondernine craze that the Beretta led. Beretta fought long and hard for the contract, supplying an adequate 9mm pistol and greasing palms along the way. Beretta got decent product placement in the Lethal Weapon movies, as well as a few other shows. The Beretta 92FS almost pushed the 1911 off the gun rag covers for a year. Many police departments liked the Beretta 92FS and adopted it. Then Beretta started resting on it's laurels, designing rotating barrels, and plastic guns that look like inverted tennis shoes. They did put out a .40S&W Beretta 96, as well as a shorter barreled 92, a shorter gripped 92 and the single stacked Vertec. None of these were heavily marketed, and were presented as a solution to a problem in the original Beretta 92. To this day, the Beretta 92 has probably been on more movie posters than any other gun.
Meanwhile, Glock arrived with a plastic pistol that was cheaper to produce, homely as Quasimoto, but rugged as a crowbar. Glock made some trade-in deals to get those Berettas out of LEO hands. Glock secured product placement in multiple movies. Glock did not protest the use of thier name or image in gangsta rap videos and lyrics. Soon Glocks were the ubiquitous LEO pistol. It was the gun of choice among criminals. While people were lamenting the military's loss of the 1911, those "in the know" were packing Glocks. Glocks were spit out in every caliber except .380 and .22LR (and the lack of those calibers surprises me!), Glocks were available in every size and configuration, but they were all Glocks, and presented as a variation of a sucessful theme. Glocks were and are billed as perfection. To many people, they are perfection.
Marketing works.
the Beretta M9/92F
We had the Beretta M9s for the last half of my career in the ANG. I have big hands and long fingers and I LOVE those guns. However, many adult males with average size hands found the grip to be too thick and the reach to the trigger a little bit too long, and it was a HUGE problem for those with smaller hands, females in particular.
Most of the police agencies in my area transitioned to the auto pistol in 1987 to 1990. (I did a bunch of the conversion training as a part time instructor for the local regional police academyl) The agency I am with now bought SIGS. Another local agency went with Smith & Wesson, and the Sheriff's Department had a wide open policy where officers could carry virtually anything that was DA/SA.
For agencies where the officers had a choice and provided their own weapons, the Smith & Wessons were probably the most popular at that time, followed by the Sigs. Personnel with some military affiliation (Guard or Reserve or just off active duty) tended to select the Beretta unless their hand size precluded it. The befuddled and confused bought the Ruger P85 and then couldn't figure out why their guns didn't work.
The Glock didn't become popular around here until about 1994 and after. In the late 1990s many of the local PDs chose to standardize on the Glock and either issue them to personnel or require the Glock as a duty gun and then partially subsidise the cost of purchasing a new gun. My department stayed with Sigs. We just got DAK Sigs at the end of last year.
I've had a Glock 19 since 1992, and I like the Glocks, even with that weird, mushy trigger. In fact, the major thing I don't like about the Glocks is that weird, mushy trigger. And in the last 10 years locally there have been about a dozen accidental discharges caused by officers who weren't paying attention who cranked a round off because they didn't clear the chamber on their Glock before pulling the trigger to release tension on the striker prior to disassembly. (A few of those instances occurred to people who are generally competent who just suffered a bad case of brain fade, but most of those incidents occurred to people who probably shouldn't be operating anything sharper than a rubber ball)
We had the Beretta M9s for the last half of my career in the ANG. I have big hands and long fingers and I LOVE those guns. However, many adult males with average size hands found the grip to be too thick and the reach to the trigger a little bit too long, and it was a HUGE problem for those with smaller hands, females in particular.
Most of the police agencies in my area transitioned to the auto pistol in 1987 to 1990. (I did a bunch of the conversion training as a part time instructor for the local regional police academyl) The agency I am with now bought SIGS. Another local agency went with Smith & Wesson, and the Sheriff's Department had a wide open policy where officers could carry virtually anything that was DA/SA.
For agencies where the officers had a choice and provided their own weapons, the Smith & Wessons were probably the most popular at that time, followed by the Sigs. Personnel with some military affiliation (Guard or Reserve or just off active duty) tended to select the Beretta unless their hand size precluded it. The befuddled and confused bought the Ruger P85 and then couldn't figure out why their guns didn't work.
The Glock didn't become popular around here until about 1994 and after. In the late 1990s many of the local PDs chose to standardize on the Glock and either issue them to personnel or require the Glock as a duty gun and then partially subsidise the cost of purchasing a new gun. My department stayed with Sigs. We just got DAK Sigs at the end of last year.
I've had a Glock 19 since 1992, and I like the Glocks, even with that weird, mushy trigger. In fact, the major thing I don't like about the Glocks is that weird, mushy trigger. And in the last 10 years locally there have been about a dozen accidental discharges caused by officers who weren't paying attention who cranked a round off because they didn't clear the chamber on their Glock before pulling the trigger to release tension on the striker prior to disassembly. (A few of those instances occurred to people who are generally competent who just suffered a bad case of brain fade, but most of those incidents occurred to people who probably shouldn't be operating anything sharper than a rubber ball)
Jack Malloy
New member
There were two big reasons why the Glock wound up taking law enforcement by storm and neither had anything to do with quality or performance or perfection.
* Glock is almost always THE lowest contract bidder.
• Trendiness. When all the gun rags and Tactical Ninja types started spouting off about how the Glock was the best pistol ever, sooner or later gullible police chiefs started tradin' and swappin'.
I think the best example of this is the Lexington Ky police department. They had no problems whatsoever with the model 66 .357 service revolvers, except one case where a suspect soaked up six rounds of .38 ammo (the female officer involved said she just could not handle full power magnums in her k-frame) back in the mid 1980s.
When Larry Walsh became police chief, he authorised the Beretta 92-F pistol for officers who wished to carry a semi-automatic. Many officers did, going through a pretty good auto pistol training course and there was no problems with the Beretta. New officers still were issued the Model 66 smith or given the option of taking semi-auto training. Detectives were allowed to take the semi-auto training and carry S&W model 459s.
One of my friends was among the first officers to switch over and despite the fact that he put about 7,000 rounds through his Beretta in the first year, there were no problems with his pistol in many years of service.
Not so long after that, when the Glock began popping up all the time in the gun rags, low and behold the Lexington department starts issuing all new officers Glocks.
If I remember right there were about three ADs in one month with the Glock 17s, including two incidents where the G-17s went full auto on the range. I examined one of these guns. You could lock the slide back, insert a fully loaded magazine and trip the slide and presto, handgun size machine gun! That looks cool in "Blade" movies, but in reality its' scary. Do you want to reload your gun and have it go off like a burpgun?
Glock refused to admit this was a problem or do a recall, but they did a recall anyway, calling it something else. If I remember right, they recontoured the firing pin somehow.
* Glock is almost always THE lowest contract bidder.
• Trendiness. When all the gun rags and Tactical Ninja types started spouting off about how the Glock was the best pistol ever, sooner or later gullible police chiefs started tradin' and swappin'.
I think the best example of this is the Lexington Ky police department. They had no problems whatsoever with the model 66 .357 service revolvers, except one case where a suspect soaked up six rounds of .38 ammo (the female officer involved said she just could not handle full power magnums in her k-frame) back in the mid 1980s.
When Larry Walsh became police chief, he authorised the Beretta 92-F pistol for officers who wished to carry a semi-automatic. Many officers did, going through a pretty good auto pistol training course and there was no problems with the Beretta. New officers still were issued the Model 66 smith or given the option of taking semi-auto training. Detectives were allowed to take the semi-auto training and carry S&W model 459s.
One of my friends was among the first officers to switch over and despite the fact that he put about 7,000 rounds through his Beretta in the first year, there were no problems with his pistol in many years of service.
Not so long after that, when the Glock began popping up all the time in the gun rags, low and behold the Lexington department starts issuing all new officers Glocks.
If I remember right there were about three ADs in one month with the Glock 17s, including two incidents where the G-17s went full auto on the range. I examined one of these guns. You could lock the slide back, insert a fully loaded magazine and trip the slide and presto, handgun size machine gun! That looks cool in "Blade" movies, but in reality its' scary. Do you want to reload your gun and have it go off like a burpgun?
Glock refused to admit this was a problem or do a recall, but they did a recall anyway, calling it something else. If I remember right, they recontoured the firing pin somehow.
IZinterrogator
New member
Umm, since the Beretta was in use by the LAPD, doesn't that make the Lethal Weapon movies technically correct vs. a result of product placement?
Master Blaster
New member
I just sold my beretta Inox compact 92FS, I had it for 5 years. It was inaccurate, the barrel has no lock up to ensure it returns to battery the same after every shot. Please spare me the story about how it locks just before the bullet leaves the barrel. I have shot it from a rest, and other folks who are very experienced bullseye competitors have shot it. The best it can do is about a 6" group of 5 shots at 25 yards, I can outshoot it easily with my Glock 26 which is half the size and holds more rounds. (g-17 and g18 mags fit it). The trigger on the beretta is horrible compared to the glock.
My g-34 will shoot rings around any beretta any day. Any browning highpower will also outshoot a beretta. I can shoot better groups from my S&W 642 snubbie on a bad day than I can get out of a beretta on a good day. Did I mention how huge even the compact is comapred to other semi autos????????? Worthless as a range gun due to poor accuracy and poor trigger. Worthless as a carry gun due to huge size and terrible DA first shot accuracy. They look cool but they are truely a horrible firearm.
My g-34 will shoot rings around any beretta any day. Any browning highpower will also outshoot a beretta. I can shoot better groups from my S&W 642 snubbie on a bad day than I can get out of a beretta on a good day. Did I mention how huge even the compact is comapred to other semi autos????????? Worthless as a range gun due to poor accuracy and poor trigger. Worthless as a carry gun due to huge size and terrible DA first shot accuracy. They look cool but they are truely a horrible firearm.
XavierBreath
New member
Gentlemen,
As I stated, that was how I remember it. I read the gun rags as a young shooter back then, as well as watched the movies. The internet was an infant.
Movies do not reflect reality. Mel Gibson could have just as easily carried a Colt 1911 in Lethal Weapon. I suppose Eddie Murphy's movie issue of handgun reflected the Detroit Police Department's choice of weapon in Beverly Hills Cop? If I remember right, Murphy carried either a 1911 or more likely a Star Model B since it was difficult to fire blanks in a 1911 at that time. I maintain that the Beretta in Lethal Weapon was as much product placement as Tommy Lee Jone's Glock in The Fugitive, or the Walther whatever 99 was in that James Bond flick.
I am not a member of a Glock cult. I owned one, I sold one, and have had no desire to buy any more. Strangely, I still own my first Beretta, and several others since.
Peace.
XB
Skeetin'870
New member
There are 2 .380 GLOCKS the 25 and the 28
S.E.R.T.SGT
New member
We have both at our department.
Jack Malloy
New member
In Shane Black's original script for Lethal Weapon, the Riggs character was carrying a Ruger .22.
Black thought the gun looked cool. He didn't know anything at all about weapons by the way.
Most likely whoever did the rewrite or the technical advisor on the film chose the Beretta. Notice that in the script Murtagh carries a .38. In the films, Danny Glover carried a Model 19 .357.
Technically, Murtaugh would be the "maverick" cop as he was carrying a non-departmental approved weapon, LOL...
Other than John Millius, most movie writers don;t know crap about guns, period. Sometimes the directors don;t listen to technical advisors either.
This is why you get the "porceline glock" in Die Hard 2, the various dropped revolvers in Dirty Harry that function okay and don;t get scratched, pistol whippings with plastic framed glocks and HKs in more recent films (how can you knock a guy out hitting him over the head with the butt of a plastic gun?) and people fanning away on Single Action revolvers without breaking springs.
I really doubt product placement has anything to do with it for a couple of reasons. Number one, most Hollywood productions are PC. They will churn out gun porn while mouthing platittudes about gun control (look at the Handgun Control posters in the background of the Lethal Weapon flicks).
Number two, gun companies don't have the money generally to pay for product placement.
Usually unless the director decides to listen to the script the prop department decides what gun will be used. Thats why Juliane Moore carried a Glock in Hannibal instead of a custom .45 as in the book.
Its also why Bond flubs up with his line about "thats a S&W you have had your six" in one early Connery flick even though the bad guy is using a Colt .45 auto.
Product placement deals do take place in films for things like Coca Cola and cell phones. The closest I ever heard of it being used in a movie was one early Steven Segal flick where Springfield Armoury or Federal Ordnance loaned them a custom 10 mm for the film.
>>Umm, since the Beretta was in use by the LAPD, doesn't that make the Lethal Weapon movies technically correct vs. a result of product placement?
<<<
Black thought the gun looked cool. He didn't know anything at all about weapons by the way.
Most likely whoever did the rewrite or the technical advisor on the film chose the Beretta. Notice that in the script Murtagh carries a .38. In the films, Danny Glover carried a Model 19 .357.
Technically, Murtaugh would be the "maverick" cop as he was carrying a non-departmental approved weapon, LOL...
Other than John Millius, most movie writers don;t know crap about guns, period. Sometimes the directors don;t listen to technical advisors either.
This is why you get the "porceline glock" in Die Hard 2, the various dropped revolvers in Dirty Harry that function okay and don;t get scratched, pistol whippings with plastic framed glocks and HKs in more recent films (how can you knock a guy out hitting him over the head with the butt of a plastic gun?) and people fanning away on Single Action revolvers without breaking springs.
I really doubt product placement has anything to do with it for a couple of reasons. Number one, most Hollywood productions are PC. They will churn out gun porn while mouthing platittudes about gun control (look at the Handgun Control posters in the background of the Lethal Weapon flicks).
Number two, gun companies don't have the money generally to pay for product placement.
Usually unless the director decides to listen to the script the prop department decides what gun will be used. Thats why Juliane Moore carried a Glock in Hannibal instead of a custom .45 as in the book.
Its also why Bond flubs up with his line about "thats a S&W you have had your six" in one early Connery flick even though the bad guy is using a Colt .45 auto.
Product placement deals do take place in films for things like Coca Cola and cell phones. The closest I ever heard of it being used in a movie was one early Steven Segal flick where Springfield Armoury or Federal Ordnance loaned them a custom 10 mm for the film.
>>Umm, since the Beretta was in use by the LAPD, doesn't that make the Lethal Weapon movies technically correct vs. a result of product placement?
<<<
IZinterrogator
New member
Don't forget the entire plot of Lethal Weapon 3.