From: Gale McMillan <" gale"@mcmfamily.com>
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: Re: flaw in the Beretta 92FS???
Date: 14 Sep 1997 20:16:20 -0400

Christopher Morton wrote:
#
# On 6 Sep 1997 23:44:48 -0400, Nick Sredy <virtue@erols.com> wrote:
#
# #Comment 6:  Not only has the US military adopted the Beretta pistol, but so has NUMEROUS Federal, State and
# #Local law enforcment agencies.  If there was a problem with the 92F, then why hasn't any of the users of the
# #pistol complained.


Believe it the Baretta was a real dog when first adopted by the
military  It was before the contract being canceled and re let, The Navy
Seals were changing slides twice a week to prevent injury from broken
slides.  As I posted on this subject Casper Weinberger was at a demo and
witnessed a slide separate and hit the shooter causing a serious
injury.  It was after that that they let a  R&D contract to explore
replacing the slides on all pistols to a solid toped slide.  The
contract was let to Phrobus who subcontracted Rock McMillan to design
and manufacture the test units.  After testing several over 70,000
rounds they were about to make a change to them when Beretta cleaned up
their act and quit making the parts in Brazil which was against contract
rules. As I posted This was a real screw up from the start.  Baretta won
the contract by underbidding the competition on the pistol and made up
by charging an arm and leg for the parts (which was a separate
contract) and once they bought the guns they had to have the parts!  This
all may seem wild to anyone who has never dealt with the military but
for those who have its old stuff.  We had an individual who had never
made a fiberglass stock win a stock contract over us by getting a
history of the contract and bid lower than we had bid the previous
contract.  He defaulted and they canceled the contract so he sued and
they paid him several thousand dollars for not being able to complete
it.  It was eazier to pay than let the big wheels know that they made a
mistake by awarding the contract to him in the first place.

From: baechler@lia.di.epfl.ch (Emmanuel Baechler)
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: for your bookshelves only... (A very interesting book)
Date: 13 Feb 1995 12:01:53 -0500

I recently found the folowing book:

Modern Beretta Firearms
Gene Gangarosa Jr.
Stoeger 1994

This book is about firearms produced by Beretta in the 20th century.
It is mainly about handguns. there are also a few chapters about
combat and hunting shotguns (self loaders only) and the Rifles. There
are several chapters about the model 92. Some models like the 89 are
not covered at all.

This book is well written and well made. It is rigourous and his
author is very honest about the advantages and drawbacks of the 92F
and about the nightmarish selection process (from 1979 until the M11
program).

Here's a few points that I found especially interesting (this list
is entirely subjective, and not representative of the whole book).

- The way failures to the various tests where treated during the M9,
  M10 and M11 program was everything but rigorous and consistent. The
  S&W gun was rejected on a test which was considered, by the testers
  as mandatory, while both the SIG and the Beretta failed to another
  one. If the interpretation had been the reverse, the S&W would have
  been the only acceptable handgun of the whole candidate list.

- The slide breaks are a documented feature. It is so serious that, for
  some time the US army recommenced to change the slides every 1000 shots!
  (at the beginning, they expected that the guns would last at least 7500 
  shots). 

- The slide retention added in the 92FS is a kludge in the sense that it
  prevents slides failures from harming shooters, but it doesn't prevent
  the slide failures themselves. The cause of the relatively high failure
  rate is not yet formally proved.

- The slide problem has a solution. A company called Phrobis International
  devlopped an enclosed slide with some reinforcements around the locking 
  area. This was done for an order of the US Navy. These slides were 
  tested on a device simulating recoil stronger than the ones due to NATO
  ammo. During this simulation, these slides proved more than satisfactory.
  They resisted more than 77000 manipulations and set a new record. 
  Unfortunately the US Army killed the project. The author adds that these
  slides are available for civilian and police orders.

- The US Navy did never like the Beretta 92. At least once, they refused to
  order their share of 92F. They ordered 1500 P-226 for the SEALS. (I
  personally guess that they are now ordering almost exclusively M11
  pistols, i.e. P-228).

- The M11 program was started after some little events were well 
  publicized. For example, it happened that some US navy pilots
  refused to carry the 92 in flight and bought some Glock 19 with
  their own money.

- When they sold their plant to Taurus, Beretta did not evaluate properly
  the potential of that company. They did not even ask for royalties for
  each gun produced. They just considered that it was a way to avoid the
  costly dismantling of this production plant.

- It is not yet clear wether the South African z-88 is a spectacular 
  example of reverse engineering or an example of hidden collaboration.

- There was an interesting, but little know event during the M10 program.
  The US army was able to bring back a few CZ-85 before this program and
  they tested it in parallel with the official candidates. The CZ-85 
  did either equal or outperform ALL the competitors, including the P-226
  and the 92FS. IMO, this tells a lot of the quality of the CZ, of his
  designers and manufacturers.

There are also a few very interesting comments about the Beretta 1934
and 84F.

Happy reading to everbody!

-- 
Emmanuel Baechler.                        | Tel.: ++41-21-314-29-06
Etat de Vaud                              | Fax:  ++41-21-314-45-55
Service des Hospices Cantonaux            | e-mail: baechler@lia.di.epfl.ch
Office Informatique                       |     or: baechler@liasun6.epfl.ch
Les Allieres                              | Standard Disclaimer
CH-1011 Lausanne	Switzerland

Political correctness = the replacement of historical biasses in the language 
                        by new ones that are more suitable for the speaker's
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A Smith & Wesson may beat 4 aces, but a 12 Gauge SPAS-12 beats a Smith 
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Gun control laws don't die, people do.
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