Gun Digest Book of Beretta Pistols. Massad Ayoob

malfunction finally occurred when I handed it to a friend to try. He held it very casually, wrist and elbow both bent, and obviously with a very light grasp. A few rounds of Blazer into the magazine, the slide went only part of the way back and remained back. “I limp-wristed it,” he said immediately. I told him to go ahead and clear it. He jacked the slide back smartly, the pistol went back into battery; and he continued without further problem.

      Twice, again with light loads, the slide came back just enough to clear the spent casing but not far enough to pick up a fresh round. In both cases, oddly enough, the pistol decocked itself when the slide came forward, though the safety/decock lever was still firmly up in the “fire” position. Each time, the slide was racked again, and firing continued normally.

      With any .22 auto pistol, it’s a good idea to clean the gun every 500 rounds or so. By the time these few problems occurred, the gun was approaching three times longer than normal between cleanings. With conversion units I’ve found it’s better to clean them every 50 to 100 rounds. It’s hard for me to blame the gun.

      Now it was time to put it through its accuracy paces. Remember, the pistol still had not been cleaned after almost 1,500 rounds. We were trying to find out how many rounds it would take to make it stop running without being cleaned and lubed.

       How Accurate

      Accuracy testing was done with ammo at three different price levels, sort of like the old Sears, Roebuck thing of “good, better, best.” The shooting was done outdoors with two hands braced on the bench at 25 yards. Each five-shot group was measured overall, and also for the best three shots. I discovered several years ago that if five shots were fired from the bench and all felt perfect, measuring the best three factored out unnoticed human error and came remarkably close to what the same gun/ammo combo would do for five shots out of a machine rest.

      For a low-priced generic round I chose the CCI Blazer with a lead bullet at what felt like standard velocity. The five-shot group measured 3.25 inches. The first shot had gone wide. The next four went into a cluster measuring 1.63 inches. The best three shots were in 0.75 of an inch. Federal’s standard line Classic round-nose, plated, high-velocity load put five shots into 3.88 inches. Not counting the first shot, the group would have measured 0.94 of an inch, and the best three were in 0.88 of an inch. CCI’s elite Pistol Match, with lead bullet at standard velocity was the priciest load tested. The five-shot group measured a disappointing 3.75 inches, but that was once again due to the first hand-chambered shot. The subsequent four shots went into a diamond pattern that measured an inch on the nose, with the best three clustering into a group of 0.75 of an inch.

      The Blazer, which I bought over the counter for $9.95 per brick, had actually given the best accuracy, beating even the Pistol Match by a very slight margin. The cheapest load coming out on top for precision isn’t something that happens every day, particularly in .22LR.

      The first shot always going somewhere other than where the subsequent shots went was disappointing, but hardly a surprise. This is called “4+1 syndrome” and is widely documented. It occurs with semiautomatic pistols (and to a lesser degree with semiautomatic rifles) when the first hand-chambered round puts the parts in a very slightly different firing alignment, or “battery,” than what they go into during firing when the mechanism cycles automatically and auto-loads each subsequent cartridge. Interestingly, the standard Beretta 92 in 9mm does not seem to be particularly prone to this, certainly not to the degree I saw in the test sample of Beretta’s .22 conversion unit.

      Does this make it useless? Not at all. Whether you’re shooting bull’s-eye, IDPA, or IPSC, you go to the firing line cold each time and then load for the string of fire. Thus, competition with a gun that suffers from 4+1 syndrome can be a problem. Remember, though, that Beretta does not market this accessory as a match gun, they market it as a practice gun. Since practice is less formal, it should be no problem to load the gun with one round extra (.22 ammo is cheap, after all) and fire the first shot into the backstop, then simply keep the magazine topped off. By running the range “hot,” every subsequent practice shot can be fired with a round automatically cycled into the firing chamber by the gun’s mechanism, allowing the shooter to take advantage of what is obviously an otherwise “match-grade” level of inherent accuracy in this unit.

      For bull’s-eye practice, I would load each magazine with six and would have two targets up. I would take my time and put one slow-fire practice shot into the first target prior to each string, then set the timer and fire the next five in whatever Slow-, Timed-, or Rapid-Fire sequence I had chosen. The conversion unit tested was reasonably consistent, putting the first hand chambered shot high, and usually left, of point-of-aim in roughly the same spot.

       I loaded six Blazers and gave that a try. Sure enough, the first bullet flew to 12 o’clock, landing about 3 inches away from where the rest of the group followed. But those next five automatically cycled shots landed in a group that measured 1.44 inches, with the best three in 1 inch even.

       Verdict

      I like the Beretta 92 conversion unit. I like it a lot. It is more reliable and less maintenance-intensive than any other .22 caliber handgun conversion unit I’ve ever worked with. The fact that it duplicates the manual safety and decocker function of the service-caliber F-series guns is, to my way of thinking, a big plus. Even if you chose to carry your Beretta off-safe, if your gun is the F-series you need drawing, firing, and malfunction-clearing techniques, which verify that it’s off-safe. Working with a slick-slide practice gun that can’t accidentally be put on safe, it’s easy to get sloppy about those important subtleties of technique. This conversion unit’s design will keep us sharp with those things.

      I’m not sure how much of that errant first shot problem will clear up with scrupulous cleaning. We couldn’t find out because the gun was earmarked to go to a military firearms training unit after we were done with it, and the one thing being studied was how many rounds it could handle before it choked on the dirt.

      The accuracy for all but that hand-chambered first shot was a pleasant surprise. We took this gun out to the NRA Hunter Pistol range, where we tried it on steel silhouettes cut for small-bore shooting. They happened to be set up only at 40 meters (chickens) and 50 meters (pigs). However, they proved to be easy work for the Beretta conversion unit, even from the standing position. Given that NRA Hunter Silhouette uses half-size animals in comparison to the International Handgun Metallic Silhouette Association, this was good accuracy indeed. The “chickens” are about as big as pigeons, and I’ve owned housecats bigger than the “pigs.”

       Final Notes

      How good is the conversion unit? I bought the test sample. What’s more, I’m gonna have to buy another. My chief has dibs on the first one. Is Beretta gonna make a million bucks on this neat little setup? Well, there are over seven figures worth of guns out there to which they can be fitted. If every gunowner purchases a unit for it, and if Beretta makes a profit of a dollar per unit …

      For more information contact: Beretta, 17601 Beretta Dr., Dept CH, Accokeek, MD 20607;

      301-283-2191; www.berettausa.com

       Endnotes

      (1)“Beretta’s Model 87 Target Is A Rimfire Masterpiece,” by David M. Fortier, 2005 Shooting Times Handgun Buyers’ Guide, Peoria, IL: Primedia.

      (2)Ibid., P. 49.

The Beretta Tomcat .32

      Colt named many of their revolvers after dangerous snakes: The Cobra, the Python, the Diamondback, the Viper, the Anaconda. Few arms companies have named their guns for dangerous cats, though a copy of the Winchester 1892 carbine that was long popular south of the border, usually in caliber .44-40, was given the name “El Tigre.” Beretta, however, has an affinity for feline nomenclature.

      I am not sure why, after calling their little .22 LR pocket pistol the Bobcat, they would choose to name the distinctly more powerful .32 ACP the Tomcat. Not that I don’t think the name is