Gun Digest Book of Beretta Pistols. Massad Ayoob

a manufacturing company floats, it will have at least one flagship, one product that is hugely successful. For Smith & Wesson it was the K-frame revolver, introduced in 1899 and now with a history and popularity that touches three centuries. For Colt, the first flagship was the Model P single-action revolver, designed in 1873 and still in production. Now it is the Model 1911 semiautomatic pistol. For Winchester, it was the lever-action Model 94 and the bolt-action Model 70 rifles.

      For Beretta the flagship is the Model 92 pistol. To understand why it is as good as it is and as widely used as it is, we have to go back to its roots.

       The Derivation

      The key design elements that distinguish the Beretta Model 92 from other auto-loading pistols are its open-slide design, its distinctive locking mechanism, and its double-action lockwork. None are unique. The uniqueness came from the nature of their combination by Beretta, and from the collective design genius of Carlo Beretta, Giuseppe Mazzetti, and Vittorio Valle.

       … to this on a stainless 92FS produced in 2004.

      Says Beretta historian Larry Wilson, “The family tree of the Model 92 is one of the more complex within the domain of automatic pistols, with its roots in the relatively simple design of Tullio Marengoni’s Model 1915. Contrasting the two shows the sophisticated level of Beretta’s research and development team, as well as the advanced state of its manufacturing facility.” ⁽¹⁾

      On June 29, 1915, the first patent was issued on the handgun that would be known as the Beretta Model 1915. A blowback pistol chambered for the 9mm Glisenti, then Italy’s military pistol cartridge, it had a “hammerless” look with an enclosed firing mechanism, enclosed barrel, and extremely simplified design and construction. It was followed by a series of 7.65mm and 9mm Glisenti pistols (models 1917, 1922, 1923, etc.) with partially exposed slides, leaving the barrel less and less enclosed by the slide mass. The true “open-slide look” would come with the Model of 1934, the blowback 7.65mm and 9mm Corto that would be the definitive Beretta pistol of the early 20th century, and which would remain so until the coming of the Model 92. By then, the Beretta pistol design had evolved into a burr-style outside hammer format, though the pistol was still single-action.

       The Beretta 92 is accurate. This 92F is box stock save for LPA sights just attached by Bill Pfeil. Five shots from 25 yards and five from 50, hand-held from right-hand barricade position, resulted in this 10-shot group of less than 3 inches with inexpensive Federal American Eagle ball.

      In the shape of the barrel and slide, and to some degree the overall shape of the gun, the Model 34 presaged the Model 92. But other major design elements were drawn from elsewhere.

      The locking block design of the Walther P-38 pistol in 9mm Luger, adopted in 1938 by German armed forces as their primary service pistol, would also find its way into the Model 92. Gun expert Charles M. Heard explained, “The P-38 fires 9mm Parabellum rounds handled by a short recoil system with the barrel being disengaged by cams which are movable inclined planes.” ⁽²⁾

      The Walther P-38 also featured a mechanism in which the initial pull of the trigger, “double-action,” first raised and then dropped the exposed hammer to fire the chambered cartridge. As the gun cycled, the slide cocked the hammer, and subsequent shots would be fired with the easy single-action trigger pull. The hammer would be lowered by an internal decocking mechanism, activated by pushing down a lever on the left side of the slide, which when in the down position also functioned as a manual safety catch. This in turn derived from an earlier Walther, the PP/PPK series of pocket-size pistols in .22 LR, 7.65mm, and .380. These pistols had debuted in 1928. While Czech pistols had been built around the double-action feature earlier than that, they had been double-action only, even after the first shot. Walther was the first to produce a double-action mechanism that functioned only on the first shot, cocking itself to single-action for follow-up rounds. Smith & Wesson would adopt it before it was adopted by Beretta, but this Walther concept would find its way to the Model 92 as surely as the P-38 lock-up design.

       Heavy dust accumulation from too much holster carry with too little cleaning will not impair the function of this Beretta 92.

      Thus, we see that the key design elements that would distinguish the Model 92 were in place on various handguns well before World War II. However, they were not yet ready to be lashed together into that particular pistol. One more bridge had yet to be built: Beretta’s first 9mm Parabellum service pistol.

       One valid criticism of the Beretta 92 is that it is large for its caliber.

       The Beretta Precedent

      By 1950, Beretta had manufactured some two million pistols, but not yet a 9mm Parabellum. In this, the company was decades behind the rest of the European small arms industry. It was time to catch up.

      The catch up gun was the sturdy Model of 1951. Over the following decades it would go through various refinements and permutations, and be given various names. Model 1951. Model 51. Model 951. Brigadier. Model 104. In all cases, it was essentially the same rugged pistol. Its single-stack magazine held eight 9mm Luger rounds. The hammer was the common burr or rowel type, but more oval than circular, and in this it differed from earlier Berettas and most other European autoloaders.

      The magazine release was a button recessed into the lower rear corner of the left grip panel. The safety was a cross-bolt, which was pressed to the right for “fire” from the left side of the pistol, and to the left for “safe” from the right side of the weapon.

      Produced primarily in 9mm but also in .30 Luger, the gun featured the open slide concept of Marengoni. With no upper slide to snag a spent casing during its ejection arc if something went wrong, it was remarkably jam-free. The common “stovepipe” malfunction, in which a spent casing is caught in the ejection port and sticks up like an exhaust pipe, was virtually unknown with this gun. Similarly, the open top above the barrel eliminated a major area where sand and dirt could accumulate and create friction against the barrel that could jam the weapon.

      This feature was almost immediately recognized and appreciated by the fledgling nation of Israel, and by the Arab states surrounding it. The Maadi Company was licensed by Beretta to build copies of the 951 for Engineering Industries of Cairo. This Egyptian-made pistol was known as the Helwan.

       Pen points to the spot where the rare slide breakages were known to occur. To put minds at ease …

       … Beretta introduced what they dubbed the Brigadier slide, seen here in stainless and with added steel in that area.

       F-series/M9 pistols are carried on safe by many private citizens and police officers, and by the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps as standard doctrine.

       F-series/M9s are carried off