Beretta M9

Origins

The Beretta company of Gardone Val Trompia in northern Italy introduced its Model 92 pistol in the mid-1970s. It was designed by Carlo Beretta, Giuseppe Mazzetti and Vittorio Valle and built on the firm's earlier Model 1951, keeping that pistol's open-topped slide and locking system while adding a double-action trigger and a large double-column magazine. Italian police and military units and the Brazilian army were early buyers.

By the late 1970s the American services wanted a single 9 mm pistol to replace the aging M1911 Pistol and a mixed stock of revolvers, and to match the ammunition used by NATO allies. Air Force tests at the end of the decade favored the Beretta, but the Army disputed the results and further rounds of trials followed. In the Army's XM9 trials of 1984 only the Beretta 92SB-F and the SIG Sauer P226 completed the tests satisfactorily, and the Beretta bid was the cheaper. In January 1985 the Beretta was announced as the winner and designated the M9, with a first order for more than 300,000 pistols. Rival makers protested, and a repeat competition later in the decade confirmed the choice. Early pistols were made in Italy; production then moved to the Beretta USA factory at Accokeek, Maryland.

Design & Construction

The M9 is a large, full-sized service pistol. It works by short recoil. The barrel moves straight back with the slide for a short distance and is then unlocked by a wedge-shaped block that drops beneath it, a system that goes back to the German Walther P38. Because the barrel does not tilt, and because most of the top of the slide is cut away, spent cases are thrown clear easily and stoppages are simple to remedy.

The frame is aluminum alloy and the slide and barrel are steel, with a chromium-lined bore. The trigger is double-action for the first shot and single-action afterward. A lever on the slide, fitted on both sides, acts as a safety and lowers the hammer safely on a loaded chamber. The magazine holds 15 rounds of 9x19mm ammunition, roughly twice the capacity of the M1911A1. The civilian equivalent is the Beretta 92FS.

Combat Use

The M9 reached units in the later 1980s and was first used in action in Panama in December 1989. It then served in the Gulf War of 1991, in Somalia, in the Balkans, and throughout the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In most units it was issued to officers, military police, machine-gunners, vehicle crews and aircrew rather than to riflemen. At the Battle of Mogadishu in October 1993 it was the regulation sidearm of the US Army Rangers and of the infantry who came to their relief, while the Delta operators beside them mostly kept their .45 caliber pistols.

Its record was mixed. In 1987 and 1988 a small number of slides cracked during heavy firing, and in a few cases the rear part of the slide struck the firer. The cause was disputed between the maker and the services. Beretta added a device to hold a broken slide on the frame, producing the 92FS standard, and the problem did not recur on any scale. Naval special warfare units nonetheless turned to the Sig Sauer P226. In Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers complained of worn-out pistols, of contract-made magazines that jammed when fine sand got into them, and of the limited stopping power of 9 mm full-metal-jacket ammunition. Others valued its accuracy, mild recoil and ability to keep working when dirty.

Legacy

The Marine Corps adopted an improved M9A1 with an accessory rail under the barrel in the mid-2000s. Several hundred thousand M9 pistols were delivered in all. In January 2017, after the Modular Handgun System competition, the Army chose the SIG Sauer M17 and its compact companion the M18 to replace it, and the other services followed. The M9 remained in armories for some years afterward as the new pistols were issued.

The pistol's long service made the Beretta 92 one of the most recognisable handguns in the world, and it was widely adopted or copied abroad, including licensed production in Brazil and versions made in France, Egypt and South Africa. It marked the point at which American forces gave up the .45 pistol they had carried since 1911 and accepted the high-capacity 9 mm sidearm already standard in most other armies. It is described with other United States Arms & Weapons of the late twentieth century.