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

[FL-NC]

RX- Glocks started making their way on to the scene in 2005. Those first Glocks are still running strong with minimum issues, despite multiple combat tours in iraq and afg., and the same firing schedule in training that the M9s were subjected to. From what the guys are telling me, mag releases are the most frequently replaced part, but they don't fail catastrophically- there's plenty of warning.

 

[BSA1]

Glocks are far from being as reliable as is being made out on this thread.

I know of three failures of Glocks in both LEO Duty and Civilian use. All of them had low round counts.

Why does the Berettas that fail have such high round counts? The Beretta has being in military inventory for several decades. Are these old guns that are failing?

I thought pistols were not fired in combat very often. Certainly not in daily combat especially with better weapons for the task...AR-16's, M-4's, artillery, tanks, close air support.

 

[FL-NC]

BSA- on our training ranges, 3 M9 failures in a DAY was considered normal. The most common Glock malfunction was front sights becoming loose due to recoil, which is a 5 minute range-side fix, or wear on the mag release or slide lock, normal for any pistol used to the level we used ours- none of which were catastrophic or resulted in the weapon being "dead-lined". Small arms of any type aren't used very "often" today, when you consider the amounts of them in the inventory, the fact that so many are issued, and the relatively small amount of service members who actually make contact of any type with the enemy. But for those whose job description requires them to do this, they are required to maintain a high degree of readiness and proficiency. This requires them to fire thousands upon thousands of rounds from their assigned weapons system(s) in preparation for those occasions.

 

[RX-79G]

Glocks can take more shooting than M9s. But that doesn't mean that the M9 problems aren't because those guns were pushed so far past their service lives.

It is great to have a gun with 300,000 round service life. But there's nothing wrong with a service life that's much shorter, IF you plan for that.

 

[FL-NC]

RX- The military has a "one size fits all" mentality. MOST handguns in the military are issued to support personnel like MPs, rear area types, etc., and as such, they aren't fired very often. Special Operations units train with and use their handguns much more than anyone else. If a piece of equipment isn't up to the task, a SOF unit will find out in a hurry. This is the reason that many SOF units have adopted handguns that perform better than the M9 in terms of being user-friendly, reliability, and service life. Thus, designs like the Glock, SIG, HK, and various versions of the 1911 are issued in these units. When the M9 was adopted by the military in the mid-80's, polymer handguns weren't even really out. Most hadn't even been invented, and the idea of a striker-fired handgun wasn't even discussed. Typically, "big military" advances in equipment originate in the SOF community and trickle down to the conventional forces over time.

 

[RX-79G]

I realize and have said there are better platforms, but you have no idea how good or bad the M9 is because you didn't have any service intervals or longevity expectations.

Helicopters would be raining out of the sky if they were just flown until something breaks, and nothing more than the broken part replacement being the repair.


Many years ago a big M1A fan was telling everyone that all the other .308 military rifle were junk, because they weren't used for high power shooting. He also said that the G3 was specifically garbage, because the ones he'd seen used in central Africa jammed a lot.

But the G3 is the most reliable of that generation of battle rifles, and the ones in Africa weren't maintained and probably had worn out rollers. Without any sort of real tracking, we have no idea what is going on with military M9s. In the early '80s, 92S and 92SB pistols is what many SEAL units were using.

 

[W.E.G.]

How does this account of how the military managed to break a few pistols keep surfacing?

Is there anything in possession of the military that HASN'T been broken?

The old example of locking a PFC in a closet with two bowling balls: Come back later, one will be broken, and the other will be pregnant.

Old news.

 

[1KPerDay]

I found this pretty informative

https://youtu.be/c2AZyOswi7g

 

[jhb]

How does this account of how the military managed to break a few pistols keep surfacing?

Is there anything in possession of the military that HASN'T been broken?

The old example of locking a PFC in a closet with two bowling balls: Come back later, one will be broken, and the other will be pregnant.

Old news.

my fault. i couldn't find much info on the Italian made 92s version. so i asked if the 92s had the redesign to stop a broken slide from coming off or not or if the issue was the early american made steel where there has been talk of poor metal heat treating from that event and if the 92s italian made suffered from this issue or not like the 92f had in the past.

so it took off from there, but my fault trying to learn more of the pros and cons of these 92s imports.

 

[FL-NC]

I took the time to watch that video from that Bartocci guy. He did have a lot of knowledge regarding the history of the M9, along with technical info. My curiosity got the best of me since I never heard of him, and he mentioned "being at Camp Vance" - which is where the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force is located at Bagram Airfield. So, I looked at his linkedin. It turns out his background is as an armorer, forensic lab guy, and technical manual publishing. Little (if any) OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCE. We do agree that the locking blocks were and continue to be a serious issue.

From my experience as both a team member and as an instructor in combat pistol shooting, CQB, etc., the M9 doesn't measure up to other designs in reliability, service life, or in the "user friendly" dept. for the US military.

 

[W.E.G.]

Comment on slide failures at https://youtu.be/c2AZyOswi7g?t=32m35s

 

[Tirod]

I don'take Marcinko's math at face value. If each gun was firing 1,000 rounds a day, 24/7/365 - when did they have time to pull missions?

As for "normally loaded ammo" there is a separate NSN for 9mm loaded to submachine gun specifications and in the day, that is what was reputedly the cause of the first failures. It WAS normally loaded 9mm - for a sub gun. It was much too hot to shoot thru the pistol, obviously.

I have been both a range safety officer and an MOS'd ammo handler, the supply sergeant can order the wrong stuff if they are not looking past "9mm." ASP's aren't likely to second guess your requests, you are supposed to know what you are doing. I suspect that has been addressed by now.

Moot point, the HK subguns were in use and I suspect plenty of ammo crosssed over as it was just "normally loaded" 9mm if you look at it.

Now, go buy surplus off the open market and then trace that country's ID marks to be insured you are getting pistol ammo not subgun ammo. There was a lot of it getting dumped at one time regardless of shooting schedules in fictional units.

We got this gun fielded because Italy called a favor - there is an airborne unit there and the Med refueling station. The gist of the message at the time was "buy Beretta or do without" so why not? It was intended as a low round count ceremonial badge of honor for MP's and officers. Just like the 1911 - it's only after it's adoption that some started trying to use them with abusive schedules.

I would suggest that few CCW weapons we see on the market today would even make it thru the first few months of a 1,000 rounds per day firing schedule. As the Henderson Rental Range threads elsewhere point out, most 1911's can't sustain that schedule and even Glocks crack the slides by the end of the year.

Handguns in general simply can't take that level of abuse and most were never intended to. Their owners couldn't afford to even try. What does 365,000 rounds of 9mm cost? At 30c a round its over $100,000 dollars. If the locking blocks lasted 10,000 rounds each then it would take about 35-40 each gun a year to get thru that kind of firing. Considering that the block needs to be hand fitted or it fails even faster, how did a unit firing 1000 rounds a day even get thru the year without replacing pistols daily?

It would seem Mr. Marcinko would be highly knowledgeable about that ongoing training issue but is there any word of it? Why stick with a gun that puts up noticeable failure issues within a few short months its not capable of the job?

I'm seeing "brags about high consumption rate" vs "silence the guns were failing constantly."

We then go to justifying that extreme a training tempo and why it was considered necessary - again, if you are pulling the trigger on 1,000 rounds a day and you're training to be effective, not an ammo disposer, when do you actually go do missions?

The gun actually does what it's meant to do. Look good in a holster. If you need a high rate of fire then I would strongly suggest the MK18.

 

[Deaf Smith]

I still feel it's pitiful... How does one know when it will fail? Does one keep a round counter on their gun? If we ever have a REAL SHOOTING WAR with such as China and Russia, I sure hope they have bags of these parts that fail right there on hand, cause they will need them!

Imagine a 1911 or Glock or Sig having to do THAT to keep it from failing. Or having to replace the locking blocks every 5k rounds. Who knows when they will fail. Same goes for the M4/M-16/AR series and their bolt that has to be replaced after something like 5k rounds. Sure hope it don't break in battle.

So why not make 'me like the 1911 or Glock or Sig???

Surely with better materials and design they can make them LAST MORE THAN 5000 ROUNDS BEFORE REPLACING PARTS!!!

Pitiful...

Deaf

 

[ATLDave]

I would just add that if you haven't seen a [insert gun type here] experience a failure through parts breakage, then you haven't seen a lot of rounds through that gun.

At a USPSA match earlier this year, I saw a Glock shear off its lower locking lug (or whatever it's called). That gun had to be disassembled to even get the barrel and slide far enough apart to remove the spent case.

Does that mean Glocks are bad or unreliable? No, nothing of the sort. It just means that it's laughable when someone says that X or Y gun can have this or that break after high round counts and that this means it is junk.

For the record, I do not own an M9/92, and have no particular interest in them.

 

[1KPerDay]

I still feel it's pitiful... How does one know when it will fail? Does one keep a round counter on their gun? If we ever have a REAL SHOOTING WAR with such as China and Russia, I sure hope they have bags of these parts that fail right there on hand, cause they will need them!

Imagine a 1911 or Glock or Sig having to do THAT to keep it from failing. Or having to replace the locking blocks every 5k rounds. Who knows when they will fail. Same goes for the M4/M-16/AR series and their bolt that has to be replaced after something like 5k rounds. Sure hope it don't break in battle.

So why not make 'me like the 1911 or Glock or Sig???

Surely with better materials and design they can make them LAST MORE THAN 5000 ROUNDS BEFORE REPLACING PARTS!!!

Pitiful...

Deaf

 

[RX-79G]

I still feel it's pitiful... How does one know when it will fail? Does one keep a round counter on their gun? If we ever have a REAL SHOOTING WAR with such as China and Russia, I sure hope they have bags of these parts that fail right there on hand, cause they will need them!

Imagine a 1911 or Glock or Sig having to do THAT to keep it from failing. Or having to replace the locking blocks every 5k rounds. Who knows when they will fail. Same goes for the M4/M-16/AR series and their bolt that has to be replaced after something like 5k rounds. Sure hope it don't break in battle.

So why not make 'me like the 1911 or Glock or Sig???

Surely with better materials and design they can make them LAST MORE THAN 5000 ROUNDS BEFORE REPLACING PARTS!!!

Pitiful...

Deaf

That is ridiculous. All guns have wear items, and recoil springs for most designs have around a 5000 round life with standard pressure ammo. Since the US military chooses to use +P ammo, then adjustments might need to be made.

The US military has long relied on non-round count systems to estimate service intervals, and that method clearly doesn't work with every type of weapon - especially when the armorers aren't even documenting the service they do.

On the M9, the recoil springs are replaced when they get as short as the barrel - 5". For the first many years of M9 issue, no one replaced any recoil springs - the 5" rule evolved.

Maybe no one else does a lot better, but the US military has had a really crummy track record for adopting and learning how to care for small arms systems. If we keep the weapon system for 30 years or so, then we start understanding how it works. That's how the M16 went from being the horrible rifle it supposedly was in Vietnam to being widely adopted by serious militaries everywhere. We eventually fixed the M60, and no one has come up with a good way to fix the Minimi that we screwed up by adding a magwell. The M14 was shortest lived military rifle of just about any modern military.


The M9 has a crummy reputation because it doesn't take to the military's ersatz maintenance and the legacy of the first decade of no real maintenance at all. It has an excellent reputation among competition shooters, many foreign militaries and major LE agencies that issued it from the mid-'80s until now.

Like ball powders in the M16 and no cleaning tools, the military's M9 problems are the result of the military, not the gun.

 

[tarosean]

That is ridiculous. All guns have wear items

winner winner chicken dinner.

 

[Deaf Smith]

That is ridiculous. All guns have wear items

Yea, but like I said, critical items like locking blocks and slides??? Or bolts in ARs? Being replaced often?

Springs and such as extractors are not main parts of the weapon. Still lousy pitiful designs.

Deaf

 

[JTQ]

The Beretta M9/92 locking block is a 20,000 round item, not a 5,000 round part as you seem to be pointing out.

 

[FL-NC]

JTQ- I've seen M9 blocks fail way before 20k rounds.

 

[FL-NC]

RX- the early M16 failures were a combination of bad ammo, little training, and improper cleaning equipment, along with barrels that weren't lined. The M60 was "fixed" by replacing it with the M240 (MAG 58). The SAW was redesigned for SOF by deleting the magwell (among other modifications) and redesignating it the MK46. This also spawned the MK48 LMG in 7.62.

 

[JTQ]

JTQ- I've seen M9 blocks fail way before 20k rounds.

I'm sure you have.

I've seen 40,000 mile tires fail way before 40,000 miles.

 

[RX-79G]

The fundamental problem is that what the US military is experiencing is entirely different than what all other users of the 40 year old 92 pistol are experiencing.


We can theorize why that might be, but as I've pointed out and FL-NC confirms, the US military has no idea what kind of maintenance it is doing to the pistols, when it is doing it or why they are replacing parts.

An M9 that needs a new locking block every 2000 rounds does not have a whole series of locking block problems. It is a pistol that has been worn out of spec to the point that firing forces are unevenly slamming the locking block, causing its premature failure. The gun doesn't become new just because you put a new locking block in it. Over time the problem is only going to get worse.


My references to the M60, M16 and Minimi are all about the incredibly long time it takes the US military to acknowledge and then institute programs to deal with weapons issues - many of which it causes by half-assed design changes and poor ammunition choices. The US military has not yet learned that lesson with the M9, and is pretending it can keep fielding worn out weapons as "rebuilt" because the replaced some of the parts. But it doesn't work that way.

Not having any idea how many rounds were fired between parts replacement, replacing parts without inspection and having no total round count for the frame, slide or barrel is just incompetent. Just because you can press a Vietnam era M16 receiver back into service doesn't mean that principle applies to every other weapon system.

 

[Deaf Smith]

But a question..

Does the AK-47/AK-74 have any kind of failures requiring the critical parts to be replaced every 5k, or 10k, or 20k rounds?

Does the 1911 have any kind of failures requiring the critical parts to be replaced every 5k, or 10k, or 20k rounds?

Does the Glock have any kind of failures requiring the critical parts to be replaced every 5k, or 10k, or 20k rounds?

Does the SIG M11 have any kind of failures requiring the critical parts to be replaced every 5k, or 10k, or 20k rounds?

Does the FAL have any kind of failures requiring the critical parts to be replaced every 5k, or 10k, or 20k rounds?

Not springs mind you, but critical parts like locking blocks, slides, bolts, opt rods, etc... M14? M1 Garand? Now I do remember the 03 Springfield had problems with breaking firing pins but that was, oh, 70 years ago....

Ok did the 1917 Enfield have any kind of failures requiring the critical parts to be replaced every 5k, or 10k, or 20k rounds? 1917 S&W revolvers??? Did the Colt SAA have any kind of failures requiring the critical parts to be replaced every 5k, or 10k, or 20k rounds?

See that is the thing. Why do our guns now days have to have their critical parts replaced so often?

 

[JTQ]

What critical part on the Beretta M9/92 has to be replaced every 5,000 rounds?