So I was living in Italy, stationed in Vicenza with SETAF (see crest on my beret to the left in my avatar) when the trials were taking place in the early to mid 80s. We were the 1/509th ABN Battalion Combat Team the nickle oh nasty, then we switched over to become the 4/325th ... long story short, I was FDC which, at the time being the Chief, I carried a 1911 and was on the Battalion pistol team.
One day they send us to Beretta's factory (very cool week long experience) where we shot 1000s of rounds through their prototype 92s at the time ... really just pre-92FS. They had already moved the mag release apparatus and they had already made the safety ambidextrous.
We literally had people loading 15 round mags for us all day every day for a solid week. At the end of the trials they had us write a debriefing .... what we thought of them, malfunctions they recorded like clockwork, what few there were, etc., etc., etc.
On the day we finished they gave us commemorative pistols ... they were beautiful. Our Battalion Commander, Colonel Nuke'em Needham, made us give them back.
So anyways, I really liked the M9. I liked the high caps, I liked the trigger, I liked the blowback design, the accuracy ... was a little concerned with junk coming in from the top, we all were, but the pistols held-up to the torture testing. Grip sizes were a concern for one of the smaller guys with smaller hands. They ended-up changing the sights .... loosening-up the front bushing, making the new mag release ambidextrous, and they experimented with a couple of different bluings.
The ammo we shot was Hert, German Hert not the Austrian Hert. Of course there was a problem with that later when one of the SEAL teams got ahold of some MP5 ammo ... "you've not a SEAL until you've eaten Italian steel" was famously coined. We never experienced that problem.
I've owned a few since. My brothers have two of them now, I kept one. I went with SIG some years ago. By that time Lethal Weapon had come-out, and a couple of others .... the one with Bruce Willis in the tower, the Christmas movie ..., Die Hard (took me a minute) amd the legend of the M9/92FS was born.
It's a good pistol. Not my first choice these days but it served its purpose for us for a lot of years. SIG P226 was always the better pistol ... it was just too expensive at the time.
The one I have remaining is an INOX 92FS and I'll probably hold onto it and leave it to my Son. I have some 21 and 25 round factory mecgar mags for it ... and they work in my CX4 Storm as well. It's kind of become my truck gun.
I also have a few P320s now and a couple of M17s. I like them a whole lot better than the Beretta. The modular thing is big, the whole CEK thing is what cost Beretta the contract.
A close friend, a dear old very close friend I served with at Bragg, former CSM of 5th Corp, he committed suicide with his Beretta in November just before Thanksgiving down in Alabama, just outside of Benning. He had a lot of guns .... I figured he chose the Beretta for a reason. I mean I get it ... been thinking about it a lot since the funeral.