Beretta 96 longivity

[Erik M]

Ive always heard the rumor that the Beretta 92 was created around the 9mm cartridge, and therefore when chambered in .40 much more stress is placed on the internals. This aside, I purchased a 96 Centurion last week. I was told by another forum member that police trade in's for .40 caliber Beretta's are a poor purchase choice because the service life of these guns is between 15-20k rounds before catastrophic failure of the weapon. I remember the stores of the military tests where the slide split in half and struck the shooter in the face on a few instances, but is this still a reality for these guns? I thought the kinks were worked out...I got an amazing deal on my purchase, plus he fully warranties everything he sells for 6 months. Is it true that these guns an only handle 20k rounds till they have to be scrapped?

 

[hAkron]

The slide breaking story is that during some of the military testing of the beretta 92F there were some slide failures and, as I have heard the story, in at least one instance the rear of the slide broke away from the gun and hit the shooter. Beretta did a modification to the hammer pin and a relief cut on the slide of the 92F so that if the slide seperated, the hammer pin would capture it. They changed the designation of those 92's from 92F to 92FS. They also later traced the root cause of those failures to bad metallurgy and corrected that.

I have also heard rumblings about 96's not lasting as long as 92's, but I have zero first hand information. The barrel locking block is a wear part on these guns and will wear out and require replacement, but this is by design.

Go shoot your 96, have fun, and in the event that it breaks, come back here and tell us. That way we know for the next guy.