92s......setup to keep broken slide from flying off?

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jhb

jhb

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there is tons of data on the 92f and fs versions, but i can't find squat on the 92s. since these 92s are Italian police imports lately coming over.....do these suffer from the lack of design changes made on the 92fs to stop the slide if broken from flying off backwards? also i read talk of metal issues in the military trials where slides broke and hit special warfare members being due to usa setting up to make these pistols and them being american made vs. the Italian one that didn't suffer or participate in these trials. the point i took was the american made early versions ones slides cracked due to brittle metal from being over hardened. i don't know that to be true but i read it in a couple places.

so anyone have any feedback and insider knowledge on the 92s and if it can have this issue like the 92f have had?

this isn't a hammering on berettas or the 92 design by any means it's not my favorite but i do own one but i also own about every brand and multiple models..... so i'm not so interested in talk of hammering and criticizing just to criticize the 92. i'm only really interested in knowledge of it. thanks y'all.
 
Just keep up with recoil spring changes every 3k, and you will be fine. And, don't shoot +P
 
None of the Taurus PT92s have the FS modification either, and no one is complaining about loosing teeth.

The military gun failures were more of an aberration than a common problem.


If you are really concerned, you can get the slide milled for an oversize safety pin to bring it to FS spec. But I wouldn't bother.
 
You can also change the locking block to the FS version.
 
According to the story the slides came off after a group of SEALs fired thousands of proof loads through the 92F. If you are just using standard pressure ammo it shouldn't be a concern.
 
The locking block failures are a separate issue from the slide. During my time in the military (1987-2009) we went through 3 different versions of locking blocks to fix this problem. It never did get fixed- I personally broke 2 and replaced dozens range-side during training.
 
MAKster said:
According to the story the slides came off after a group of SEALs fired thousands of proof loads through the 92F. If you are just using standard pressure ammo it shouldn't be a concern.
Click to expand...
I also read a bulletin from the la police about cracking slides...no face injuries or anything....but they blamed it on poor poor lubrication, poor cleaning and high round count. Believe it was 92f. No mention of hi powered nato loads or +p etc. Not to argue either but saw more than a few posts on the rounds seals fired werent overpowered, but i guess that is debatable, and i only know what im reading....so i cant argue things i dont really know and me mentionimg this isnt to argue only to say...this whole thing is confusing.

Appreciate your input, Sir.
 
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FL-NC said:
The locking block failures are a separate issue from the slide. During my time in the military (1987-2009) we went through 3 different versions of locking blocks to fix this problem. It never did get fixed- I personally broke 2 and replaced dozens range-side during training.
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Sir would you mind elaborating on that issue? was it due to american vs. italian or that has no bearing, etc? Thank you.
 
The majority of the slide failures happened with 92SB pistols - not actual M9s. One factor not often discussed was an alloy problem from the French sourced steel.


On locking blocks, they don't tend to fail all at once, and some people feel that the slide wears unevenly as the block does all the work on one side. Then you replace the block with a new symmetrical one and it gets stressed unevenly by the now asymmetric slide. Some advocate locking block fitting after a block failure.

The other issue is that M882 ball is hot and all over the place pressure wise. I'm certain that some of them are +P+. The military does not track round counts very well either. So these guns get beat up by hot ammo, high round counts and haphazard parts replacement.
 
FL-NC said:
The locking block failures are a separate issue from the slide. During my time in the military (1987-2009) we went through 3 different versions of locking blocks to fix this problem. It never did get fixed- I personally broke 2 and replaced dozens range-side during training.
Click to expand...
Well, has this been a problem with the Taurus pistols, too? Why do we hear of these problems affecting only the Beretta?

Taurus92_2.jpg
 
JHB- we fired the M882 US ball round, which to my understanding is the Winchester Ranger 124 grain ball +P. Standard US mil issue. Our pistols were US made Beretta M9 pistols. They were upgraded to Brigadier slides around 2002. The slide upgrade and numerous locking block changes didn't seem to have any effect since the locks continued to break, but it seemed like they would break at a slower rate. I can't tell you why it happened, only that it did happen, and a lasting fix was never realized. These issues and others led to our eventual adoption of Glock pistols.
 
Taurus PT92s aren't in US military service. Beretta 92 pistols in police and civilian use don't have the problems of the military pistols.


I'd love to see a picture of an M9 with a Brig slide.
 
Thank y'all...appreciate all the information. Feel i learned a whole lot about this pistol series and i know its beating a dead horse for many here. ..but im new to the 92 and so i appreciate y'all doing it again.
 
Ernest Langdon, who shot a lot of competition with a Beretta, had a maintenance schedule.

"I put in a spring pack (LTT package: recoil spring, trigger spring, trigger bar spring, cost $5) every 5,000 rounds. This keeps the trigger spring from ever breaking, I tear down the top end every 10,000 rounds, clean out all the carbon and unburned powder and install a new firing pin, firing pin spring and striker. Cost for these parts is $11. At 20,000 rounds I rebuild the top end. I replace all the slide parts subject to wear; extractor, springs, firing pin and such. Cost for parts is $40. I'll also fit a new locking block ($70) at this point."
 
"Rouge Warrior" by Dick Marcinko is an enlightening read on this subject. When he ran SEAL Team Six, in his own words, they ammunition budget for 90 men was larger than the entire USMC.

By his reckoning they shot 500-1500 rounds PER DAY, 7 days a week. That's an average, PER PISTOL, of 365,000 rounds a year, which is approximately a Beretta 92's expected 30 year service life.

It's no mystery they had some slides crack (official Navy reports say three...two guys got stitches and one guy lost a tooth).

http://www.sightm1911.com/lib/history/true_story_m9.htm
 
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RX-79G said:
Taurus PT92s aren't in US military service. Beretta 92 pistols in police and civilian use don't have the problems of the military pistols.
Click to expand...
Yes, but why is this? I heard that it could have happened because of the steel or alloy being used in the military pistols, but why should it be any different than the police or civilian models? Does Beretta cut corners on its military models?

It used to be that the Beretta 92s had a reputation of being overbuilt. They're big and have multiple contact points. Now they're rated as having a 5,000-round service life. That not the point where you change the recoil spring; it's the point where you toss it into the recycle bin...apparently. While I was at NAVSEA in the 90s, I was told by the top researcher who was working with these pistols that after about six or seven thousand rounds, they can fail any time with absolutely no warning. At the time this fellow was livid over the matter. He felt he was caught between Beretta and the Command. And he vociferously denied using anything but standard military issue grade ammo. There were zero hairline fractures and zero signs of fatigue in either the steel or the alloy. So to this day it remains as much of a mystery as it did then.

If anyone has photos of the failure points in the Berettas, I'd like to see them as I was never clear on what was failing. Were they impact points on the slide itself?
 
Confederate,

I answered your questions already in post #11.



The military pistols are not 5000 round guns. I don't know what you're referring to in claiming that.
 
The five things that break on 92 type pistols:

The locking block - usually one wing of the two.
The frame in front of the trigger guard - that was because of .40 on 96FS models, and was solved with the slanted dust cover.
The slide fractures were where the locking block engages the slide.
Trigger springs. These have been beefed up.
The MIM sear release lever for the decocker. I think they stopped using these.

In all cases Beretta made one or more alterations to effectively address the problem, though some problems aren't problems. There are 92 pistols out there with 100,000 rounds still on the original locking block - and not the newest type.
 
JR- Mr. Richard is known for stretching the truth and in some cases just lying. I got this directly from people who worked with him. To me, anything he says is suspect.
 
RX- My personal experience says the design is faulty. 3 (or more) locking block designs that were all supposed to address the faults of the previous design(s). If this had been a parachute or critical aircraft component, what do you think would have happened? One wing of the 2? You need both, and when 1 breaks, it often becomes lodged in the pistol.
 
BTW- I have spent some range time with Gabriel DePlano and some other reps from Beretta while testing some other products when I was in the mil, and broken some bread with him over lunch. They really don't like to talk about M9 locking blocks- sort of a sore subject.
 
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