The M9 Beretta, the pistol that displaced the 1911 in the holsters of our service men and women.
The winner of the 1980s US Service Pistol Trials and the subsequent government contracts was the Beretta M-92, or as it is known in government parlance, the M-9. It is a big, double-action pistol with a hammer-dropping safety mounted on the slide.
The M9 Beretta, the pistol that displaced the 1911 in the holsters of our service men and women.
When I first wrote this book, the M9 was still relatively new. Since then we’ve been involved in a couple of hot wars, a whole passel of local actions, and the government has re-ordered the M9 in a couple of big buys. They even upgraded to the M9A1, with a rail for lights, lasers, etc. Law enforcement agencies across the country adopted it, then changed to .40s, then went back to 9s, and shifted to other pistols. None of which is a knock on the Beretta.
In combat, the Beretta’s 15-round capacity was meant to offer an extra measure of reassurance. The double-action trigger pull and hammer-dropping safety meant fewer accidents. The change to 9mm meant lower costs for ammunition and less recoil. Having been adopted as the “pistol for all,” the Beretta M-92 soon found itself castigated as suitable for none.
Early on, there were some problems with slide durability; the government-issued ammunition was grossly over-pressure. The ammo was changed. Beretta also made changes, modifying the slide so if it did break the broken piece would not come flying off the back of the pistol.
Because of broken slides some shooters complained that the Beretta M-92 lacked reliability. Others, noting its aluminum frame, started questioning its durability. Still others claimed it wasn’t accurate enough. Yet for the most part, the Beretta has served well. There are a few things it can’t overcome, like the size and the caliber. But it does work, well, and for a long time.
Ernest Langdon, who has used the Beretta to win six National and two World Championships.
All service competitions now require Berettas. Outside of the armed forces, many competitors in the International Defense Pistol Association use the Beretta, favoring its light recoil and good accuracy. The Beretta turns in good performances in Production Division of the USPSA. Production was meant to encourage the use of box-stock 9mm pistols, and it quickly garnered an avid following in IPSC/USPSA competition. After all, with a factory gun, inexpensive holster, and ammunition from the gun counter of the big-box discounters, you’re as well equipped as the National or World Champion..
Yet, the Beretta is not built to be a target pistol. If you want it to be one, you have to make it one.
The Beretta plant, as it appeared a century ago. Rows of machines, each with an operator, each performing one operation. A single CNC machine can do everything in this photo, and more.
Before we begin customizing, heed the warning against buying parts with government stock numbers on them for your Beretta. Except for magazines, no parts manufactured for the government have been released for civilian use. This means that if the parts you are looking at have a National Stock Number on them, they have been stolen. Remember this when buying parts! (Since writing the previous paragraph in 1997, I have begun seeing NSN-marked parts at gun shows. Either the parts makers are manufacturing deliberate over-runs for the “surplus” market or the government doesn’t care about excess parts making an appearance on the civilian scene. Still, be careful.)
Beware of parts. If someone tries to sell you this slide, you can be pretty sure it didn’t leave government service in an appropriate manner.
To customize your Beretta, look first to the sights. The Beretta’s front sight was a permanent part of the slide for a number of years and on a number of models. If you want to make it different, you have two choices. Paint it or send it off to have it drilled. For night sights, you must send the slide to Trijicon’s installation address: Tool Tech Gunsight Co., 20 Church St. Oxford, MI 48371.
A Wilson sight, installed on a Beretta 92.
Not all Beretta slides have dovetail front sights. You can buy a new slide to get this feature, but what you can’t do is mill the slide you already have to add one.
Beretta Brigadier, Elite, Elite II, Vertec, and 92A1 have slides on which the front sight “hoop” is large enough to support a dovetail. Those have dovetailed front sights. If you’re lucky enough to have one of these, or you hunt down and buy a replacement slide you can have a new sight. Changing it is exactly like changing any other dovetail sight, push out the old, fit and push in the new.
Unlike its fixed front sight, the Beretta rear sight rests in a dovetail in the slide and can be readily changed. Mec-Gar makes adjustable rear sights you can fit to your dovetail, and Aristocrat makes a fixed sight. Both use the standard front sight.
Millett makes an adjustable rear sight that slides into the dovetail. It requires a replacement front sight that, after you have drilled the original sight, slips on. Use a drill press, with the new sight base as a guide. Install the cross pin to keep the new sight in place.
The rear sight on the Beretta isn’t as easy as it is on some other designs. First of all, the Beretta slide isn’t as self-supporting as others. A 1911 slide, for instance, as long as you clamp it above the rails, will be so tough you’d have a hard time crushing it. The Beretta slide isn’t so tough as that and has to be clamped in a special way. Take the bare slide and turn it on its side. Place your padding substance (soft wood, etc.) on the vise jaws so you are clamping on the open part of the slide, on its top and bottom. Clearly, you can’t use a wide-jaw vise for this. While you’re lining up the slide and the vise, find a support for the slide. You have to have a support underneath the slide, or the slide will twist in the vise, marring it.
This isn’t a 92 slide, but this is how factory assemblers hold slides while they install sights, extractors, etc.
First, remember to use a flat surface and measure the location of the old sight, at its notch, in the slide. This will be your target for the new sight’s notch location.
Second, the sight is in there hard. Clamp the slide so the left side is down, and drift the sight out from right to left. When it first starts to move, get easier on the tapping, as the sight moves, ease up on your hammer hits. Once it comes free enough to move by hand, slide it out and set aside. Unclamp the slide and remove it from the vise. Make sure the safety lever is down when you go to drive out the rear sight. Use masking tape if you have to, to make it stay in place.
Now, before you jump right into installing the new sight, check the fit of the old one. Slide it back into the dovetail by hand (from left to right) until it stops. That’s your index point for the new sight. If it stops short of that point, you’ll need to file on the sight (not the slide) until it fits the old sights’ index point. This is where you use your safe-edge triangular file, and file only on one of the sight dovetail faces, evenly.
Once it reaches the index point, reverse-clamp it (left side up) in the vise as before, and use a hammer and drift punch to drive it back to center.
Unlike the 1911, the Beretta barrel does not have to lock up snugly in the end of the slide to be accurate. The pistol is designed so the back end of the barrel rides in rails cut in the frame. The front doesn’t need to fit snugly to operate and be accurate enough for military issue. For competition, though, reducing this play will increase accuracy significantly.
One shortcoming with the Beretta in the beginning was the locking block. The locking block is the moving, wedge-shaped part on the bottom of the barrel. It pivots up and down, locking the barrel to the slide, and unlocking to allow the slide to cycle. Locking blocks had a tendency to break in military applications with their massive volume of shooting. Broken locking blocks are no longer a problem. Beretta improved the blocks with an alloy, heat-treat design, and you can buy replacements directly from Brownells. The fourth generation (the current ones) locking blocks do not appear to have a measurable service life, as they outlast the barrels to which they are installed.
Fitting a new block is not difficult. Strip your Beretta and remove the barrel. Drive out the retaining pin and remove the pin, the activator pin, and the old locking block. Insert the new block and reassemble the barrel to the slide. The new block should press in place without binding. If it binds, apply Dykem and find where it binds. As with all fitting, you have choices of where to stone to fit. As the slide is the expensive and difficult to replace part, you should confine your stoning to the new locking block. If the block binds on one side of the rear bearing surface and not the other, stone that binding surface. If it binds equally, use emery cloth to polish the front pivot face. By polishing the front, you avoid the possibility of stoning the rear surfaces unevenly and thus have them bear unevenly when locking. Polish only until the locking block will press in place without binding.
There are a number of firms that make replacement barrels for the Beretta. Beretta offers their own which you can obtain through Brownells. Fitting a barrel to the Beretta is not hard. You can get a large improvement in accuracy without any fitting by using a Bar-Sto drop-in barrel. If you have a suppressor for 9mm, you can go direct to Gemtech to obtain a pre-threaded barrel to simply drop-in to your 92.
The Beretta family home, in Brescia, Italy. When you’ve been in business for five centuries, you get some perks.
The Beretta locks to the slide with that pivoting block on the bottom of the barrel we just mentioned. Before you install a new barrel, see how the factory barrel fits. You will be using the fit of the old barrel as a constant check of your progress. With the slide off the frame and the recoil spring out, check the fit to the breechface. Look at the movement of the locking block into its recesses in the slide. Your new barrel should fit this well or better.
Take the barrel out of the slide and drift the retaining pin out of the bottom rear lug of your old barrel. Pull out the activator pin. Slide the locking block out of the old barrel. You would need these parts for the new barrel, unless it came pre-assembled and ready to drop in.
Once you have your pistol apart, take your old barrel and slide it into its riding grooves in the frame. It should slide freely all the way back. Your new barrel should also slide this freely.
Some might ‘dis the 92, but it was good enough for the Vector company in South Africa to make a really good clone. Here it is being used in international IPSC competition.
Your 92 frame started out as a forging, and was ground flat on both sides before it went into the milling machine.
Later, after spending time in the CNC machining station, your 92 frame came out looking like this. Now, off to the anodizing bath …
Here, a Beretta factory assembler installs the parts in a frame.
The Beretta barrel starts as a really large-diameter barrel blank, and then the two lugs are lathe-turned and CNC machined.
Now take the new barrel and check its fit to the frame. If it does not slide freely, apply Dykem to the bottom rails to see where the barrel is binding. You will need a narrow file or stone. Stone the rails until the barrel slides smoothly all the way back into the frame.
Install the locking block and cam pin, and insert the barrel without the recoil spring into the slide. Try to press the locking block to its closed and locked position in the slide. If the block is sticky or will not close, the barrel must be filed on its rear face. Remove the locking block and cam pin, apply Dykem to the rear face of the barrel, and file or stone until the Dykem is gone. This should only take a few strokes. Check the fit again. Repeat until the locking block moves smoothly into the slide.
With a set of headspace gauges from Manson Reamers check headspace. The “go” gauge is precision-ground to the proper minimum chamber size, while the “no-go” gauge is made just larger than the largest safe size the chamber can be. Start with the “go” gauge. Place it in the chamber with the extractor cut lined up with the extractor. Place the barrel in the slide. The locking block should lock into the slide with a “go” gauge in place, and fail to close with a “no-go” gauge in place. If the locking block does not close with a “go” gauge, your chamber is under the minimum size. Get a chambering reamer. Apply cutting oil to the reamer, place it in the chamber and turn it one turn. Swab the oil out of the chamber and test with the “go” gauge again. If necessary, repeat, but only if necessary. Reaming your chamber even a little too large is hard on your brass. It also degrades accuracy. Go even farther and you will ruin the barrel. When the chamber will accept the “go” gauge, try the “no-go” gauge. The slide should not close, unless you reamed too much.
Test fire. Keep track of what ammunition you use. If your chamber is reamed to the minimum size, but your reloads are not up to snuff, some of your test-fire batches will perform better than others. You will have created an unreliable pistol. Double-check against factory ammo. If your pistol is unreliable with factory ammunition, then the chamber is too tight. In that case, disassemble the pistol, scrub the chamber and ream it one turn again of the chamber reaming tool. Then test-fire again. Repeat until your pistol is reliable, but do not ream past the point where the “no-go” gauge almost closes. If it then proves reliable with factory ammunition but not with your reloads, don’t ream the chamber again. Instead, improve your reloads.
Properly fitted, a match barrel for the Beretta delivers accuracy enough for even the most demanding competitor. The trigger is another story.
Designed as a service pistol, the Beretta has a heavy trigger pull. In single action, the trigger is not just gritty but requires noticeable travel of the sear from the hammer hooks. The Department of Defense service manual accepts a single-action trigger pull as high as 6-1⁄2 pounds. This built-in “accident-proofing” makes it difficult to shoot the Beretta both quickly and accurately. It requires TLC to perform in competition.
Wilson Combat has what you need; a new trigger, trigger spring and hammer spring, and your 92 feels like a new pistol.
The first thing to do is replace the factory spring assembly. To do this, detail strip the Beretta frame. Remove the grips. Press the hammer spring retaining cap or the lanyard loop (depending on which design you have) to compress the hammer spring. Push the retaining pin out. Allow the spring to push the cap out, and set them aside. The hammer strut should come out as well. If there isn’t enough clearance, it will come out after you’ve removed the hammer.
Pull out the hammer pivot pin, and lift the hammer out. Use a small screwdriver to lift the trigger bar spring out of its slot, and set it aside. Remove the slide stop lever and its spring.
Push the trigger pin out of the frame just enough to let you remove the trigger spring. If you push the pin out all the way, you’ll need three hands to get things back, so push just enough. Remove the trigger spring and put it away. Now, install the replacement spring.
This comes as an assembly, and instead of being a “mousetrap” design, it is a coil spring on a bar, pre-assembled. Get a standard-power spring from Wilson Combat and Brownells or a reduced-power (Wilson Combat) that you can combine with a reduced-power hammer spring for a much-reduced trigger weight.
The orientation of replacement matters. The replacement goes into the frame so the trigger pin passes through the hole in the yoke, which will be to the rear. The spring, on its bar, goes below the axis of the trigger pin; fat end of the bar towards the muzzle, bar below cam/yoke, and trigger pin through hole in yoke. To place the replacement spring and press the pin back through, it helps if you use a narrow needle-nose pliers to hold the new spring. Make sure the forward end of the replacement assembly is fully down into the recess in the frame. You can even press and release the trigger to check the function as it won’t fall out.
Before reassembly, I suggest you should have purchased a replacement hammer, or hammer and sear, as well. A replacement hammer can be lighter in weight, thus speeding up lock time. It can also have the hammer hooks precision-ground to produce a cleaner single-action pull. If you do not want a replacement hammer then proceed to stoning the hammer.
To stone the single-action of the Beretta properly you must have a stoning fixture. I recommend the Powers Series II. It lets you set the hammer and sear angles for proper let off without making engagement unsafe. Stoning without a fixture is an invitation to buy replacement parts.
Rather than try to photograph it inside the receiver, here is the position of the Wilson trigger return assembly, shown from the exterior.
Remove the sear from the frame and set the sear in the fixture. Adjust the angle. Use magic marker or Dykem to coat the entire width and depth of the sear’s face. Once the ink dries, make a single pass with the medium/fine stone. Check your Dykem. If you have the face evenly stoned, the ink will all be gone. If markings remain, carefully re-stone the face. When you have a clean face, switch to the extra fine stone, and polish to a gleaming surface.
With the sear stoned, re-set the fixture to stone the hammer. Apply Dykem to the hammer hooks. Stone the angle of the notch with the medium fine stone until the whole notch has been stoned. Then use the extra fine stone to finish the polishing.
When you reassemble, use a persistent, high-tech, slippery grease on the sear and hammer notch engagement surfaces, to reduce friction as much as possible, and to protect the freshly-stoned surfaces. With proper stoning and polishing you can reduce your trigger pull to a crisp and clean 4 pounds. A pull lighter than this is not likely to improve your shooting.
The trigger reach of the Beretta can be too great for some shooters. That is, the distance from the back of the frame to the trigger can be longer than some shooters fingers. To install the new trigger, press the trigger pin in far enough to allow the old trigger to come free. Slide the new one in, and install your replacement spring. I suggest even if you don’t want to change the trigger pull weight, but you do need the shorter trigger, you simply buy and install the replacement Wilson’s spring, just to make re-assembly easier.
The trigger bar is outside of the frame on the right side, under the right grip panel. If you tighten your grip panel enough to bind the trigger bar, you can interfere with the trigger pull. When you fit new grips to the Beretta, you must check the clearance between this bar and the new grips.
There’s some history attached to Beretta grips. A redesign to address the issue of some breaking slides in early government models caused the head of the hammer pivot pin to be enlarged to protrude into the bottom of the slide. Older replacement grips come with small clearance holes for the head of the hammer pin. The grips won’t clear the pin. If you decide to put such grips into service, use a carbide cutter in a hand-held grinder to open up this hole. Because the grips are thin, you must be careful that you don’t break through them or overheat them from cutting too vigorously. Considering the work involved, this just might be a place to draw the line on home gunsmithing, and just buy a new set of grips. Better yet, buy the new grips and then experiment cutting the old ones for practice.
Talon Grips offers an appliqué that has a non-slip grip on it. You degrease the grips, peel the backing off, and apply after you’ve checked fit, and sanded down replacement grips.
The Beretta magazine catch is designed to work from either side. The safety has a lever on each side of the slide. Moving the magazine catch to the right side makes the Beretta very friendly to left-handed shooters.
To swap the mag catch, remove the slide and grips from the frame. Put your thumb on the back of the magazine catch and push into the frame. With the button pushed in, pivot it away from the muzzle. The magazine catch assembly will drop out. Reverse the assembly and insert it through the frame from the other side. Push the tip of the button into the hole to compress the spring. When you can push the rear of the magazine catch down into its seat in the frame, press the entire assembly into place. You will hear a definite click when you are done.
If you don’t like the factory grips, and don’t want to be melting your own, try VZ Grips.
This is a perfect opportunity to not only reverse it, but to replace it. Wilson Combat offers three options; Oversized, Oversized checkered, and Extended Checkered. (Check the rulebook of the relevant competition to make sure that such changes are kosher.) So, when you get to the point in the process where you “reverse the assembly,” you don’t. Instead, you remove the magazine catch button spring and its two bushings, and install them in the same orientation in the replacement catch.
Then, re-install the new catch the same way the old one came out, and check function.
Magazines do matter. The original, fifteen-shot magazines are good. The new, sand-proof magazines are better. And the seventeen-shot ones are sand-proof and better yet.
The standard recoil spring in the Beretta M-92 is 13 pounds. Unlike the 1911, which many people over-spring, I believe 13-pound spring is a bit light. Especially if you commonly use hotter 9mm ammo like the 9mm NATO spec ball that is common, or high-performance 9mm+P hollow-points. A heavier spring, such as one from Wilson Combat, will ease the recoil burden on the frame and you. Of course, if you’re going to use a heavier spring you must test fire using the new spring and “limp-wristing” the pistol. An over-sprung pistol will fail to eject when “limp-wristed” and will also fail to lock open when empty. The original Buffer Technologies recoil buffer was simply a polymer gizmo. They have changed and updated that. It is now a complete guide rod and buffer assembly, onto which you either install your original recoil spring or a replacement spring. If you have either no buffer or the old buffer, get the latest one.
The latest recoil buffer for the 92, from Buffer Technologies.
Recoil springs wear. When they get tired, you replace them. You can use the original guide rod and a Wilson, or a Buffer Technologies.
Top, the steel, spiral-fluted Wilson Combat guide rod. Bottom, the Buffer Technologies rod, with built-in synthetic buffer.
This is my original, decade-old Buffer Technologies shok-buff, and it is holding up just fine. The spring has been replaced a couple of times, though.
Wilson Combat makes an over-sized magazine button, (this one is checkered) to make mag swaps faster.
A pre-war Beretta magazine, made under government contract. There’s a good mag in there.
If you are only going to use your Beretta for competition, and feed it only the softest ammo that will make the grade for the matches you’re in, then you might not need a heavier spring. But for all other use, a spring and buffer will extend the service life of your Beretta.
For most of us, the biggest obstacle to improved shooting is the cost of ammunition. Jonathan Ciener has developed a .22 conversion kit that lets you use cheap rimfire ammo in your Beretta. In traditional supply circumstances, .22 long rifle ammunition costs far less than 9mm ammunition. It is even cheaper than reloading your 9mm. The change in ammo costs over the last few years has adjusted some of the numbers, but .22LR is still cheaper than 9mm.
It takes a special setup, or a lot of extra bracing, to properly clamp a Beretta slide. Because of the open top, you can’t just clamp it. You have to turn it sideways, clamp across the top, and with wooden clamps, and then support it underneath. This is the direction to remove the sight. Sharp-eyed readers will note the safety is not down. This is bad, so tape it in place, down.
Older government magazines have the assembly number stamped on them.
The kit is a complete upper assembly of slide, barrel and recoil spring, and comes with a magazine for the .22 ammunition. Since the .22 does not have enough power to work the locking mechanism and heavy slide of the Beretta, Ciener makes his slides out of aluminum. The barrel does not lock to the slide. Because of cost consideration the slide lacks a safety.
Exercise caution when using the conversion unit. You cannot put the pistol “on safe.” Remember the first rule of safety: All guns are always loaded and should be pointed in a safe direction. If there is a time when this rule is especially true, it is when using this conversion kit.
Remove your 9mm (or .40) slide assembly and replace it with the conversion assembly. Load the magazine. You are ready to shoot. Although the same size as a 15-round 9mm magazine, the conversion magazine only holds 10 rounds of .22 long rifle. Even if present law allowed magazines to hold more than 10 rounds, getting a magazine to feed more of those little-rimmed .22s would be difficult.
This is the direction to put the sight back in, or put in its replacement.
The Beretta M9 will be with us for a long time. U.S. sailors fire M9 pistols during training on the amphibious dock landing ship USS Gunston Hall in the Arabian Gulf. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jesse A. Hyatt