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Introduction

It is a good-shooting pistol, and I still have it. The previous owner had gotten tired of its awkward 180-degree safety and removed it. He replaced the safety with a plug of brass and apparently just used the half-cock notch for safety. Beretta ergonomics got a lot better later.

When my first-born was ready for pistol shooting at age 8, I started her with the littlest Beretta; the Minx .22 Short. With that gun, she learned the fundamentals of good handgunning. Eleven years later, she used another Beretta at the National Tactical Invitational, and her skillful use of that Model 92FC 9mm won her the women’s championship. She still owns those guns. The 92FC is one of the carry pistols on her license.

This is the author’s first Beretta. He received it from his dad for his 12th birthday. Ayoob has appreciated Beretta quality ever since.

It was a pleasure and an honor to be asked to write The Gun Digest Book of Beretta Pistols. I go back a ways with these fine handguns.

I got my first centerfire handgun “of my very own,” when I was 12 years old. It was a Beretta Model 34. The gun was a World War II veteran and so was the man who gave it to my dad. The first owner had retrieved it from an Axis soldier who, in the words of the day, “… didn’t need it any more.” The day came when the vet wanted to avoid the memories the gun brought with it and he traded it to my dad who gave it to me for my birthday.

Cat Ayoob fondly reminisces with the Beretta 92FC she used to win her class at the National Tactical Invitational at the age of 19.

Over the years, I’ve tested a lot of Berettas for various gun magazines including American Handgunner, Guns, Combat Handguns and others. Seventeen years as head of the firearms committee for the American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers put me in touch with senior weapons instructors of many police departments that had adopted Berettas. In the late 1980s, I experienced the humbling honor of being asked to teach for the U.S. Army’s Marksmanship Training Unit. Networking at various pistol championships has given me a chance to talk shop with the leading armorers of the Army and the Marine Corps, and over the years, I’ve also made the acquaintance of a number of Beretta’s staff. This put me in a splendid position in terms of resources to put this book together. The source material is everything.

In the pages that follow, you’ll meet many pistol champions who swear by the Beretta and use it by choice. You’ll see for yourself the pros and the cons of the three primary fire control mechanisms Beretta offers on its modern fighting pistols: the F series with manual safety, the D series with decocker only, and the slick-slide, double-action-only D series that “shoots like a revolver.”

Far more important than those who’ve won pistol championships with Berettas are those who have used them to win gunfights and cheat death. They’ve used all three types, including Model F pistols both on and off safe. Let me introduce you to a few of them now.

Greg Lee serves with the Nashville Metropolitan Police. He was carrying a privately owned, department-approved 9mm Beretta, on safe, when a suspect drew a revolver and brought it up on Greg and his partner. In one smooth, practiced movement, Greg cleared his 92F from his SS-III security holster, popped off the safety, and lit up the would-be cop-killer with a stream of 124-grain Federal HydraShok bullets. The bad guy went down dead, before he could hurt either Greg or his partner. Greg proved, among other things, that a Beretta carried on safe in a security holster could be operated fast enough and reflexively enough to win a quick-draw contest for the ultimate stakes.

Stacy Lim is a member of the LAPD. She was off duty and carrying her department-issue 92F when she experienced a carjacking by gang-bangers. When she identified herself, the point man of the bad guys shot her through the chest with a .357 Magnum. The bullet tore her spleen apart, pierced her heart, and punched a massive exit wound in her back. Her 92F had already been off safe, carried that way per department edict, and she brought it up and shot him a couple of times, chased him when he ran, and shot him twice more. All four of the 115-grain Remington hollowpoints she unleashed found vital flesh. He died. Stacy survived. She is, to my knowledge, the world’s only known survivor of a .357 Magnum gunshot wound to the heart. Eight months later she returned to full patrol duty. Last I knew she still wore at her hip the trusty Beretta that had kept her assailant from finishing her off. The gun had saved her life.

Sgt. Marcus Young serves with Ukiah, Calif. Police. A man armed with a knife and a five-shot .38 Special ambushed him. He was shot in the face, chest, back and one arm, and had the other arm torn open. While the homicidal attacker was trying to get at an HK machine gun in the patrol car, Marcus managed to aim with his badly damaged weak hand, the other arm being paralyzed, and trigger four careful shots. Each of the .40 caliber bullets went exactly where he aimed his privately owned, department-approved Beretta 96G and the suspect slumped dying in the front seat, his orgy of violence permanently ended. Marcus at this writing is still recovering from multiple surgeries, working light duty at the department, and very glad that he chose to carry a Beretta pistol that allowed him to shoot straight under some of the worst circumstances imaginable.

Author, left, with Sgt. Marcus Young, who won the NRA’s Police Officer of the Year award and saved many lives when, despite multiple severe wounds, he killed a heavily armed criminal with his privately owned, department-approved Beretta 96 service pistol.

Then there is the armed citizen I don’t have permission to name. This man got a permit and chose to carry concealed a Beretta 96D Centurion. In a road rage incident a man attacked and injured him severely. Realizing he was about to be beaten to death, he drew the Beretta and fired a single, accurate .40 caliber bullet into his antagonist’s chest. The assailant reeled back, mortally wounded, and the fight was over. The shooting was ruled a justifiable homicide.

The Shape Of Pages To Come

Don’t expect a puff piece. I don’t work for Beretta, I work for you, and my job is to tell you the truth that I’ve investigated and experienced. You’ll see why CCI may not be the best ammo for a customized 9mm Beretta, but why it is the best ammo you can put in your little Beretta Minx. I will point out where there were weaknesses with some of the guns and how to fix them if they haven’t already been fixed. I will show you how and why the Model 92 has earned a reputation as one of the all-time great handguns and why the Model 9000 was the worst piece of crap that ever left a Beretta factory.

Deputy sheriff David Maglio lowers his department-issue Beretta 92F after shooting a perfect score. Berettas have earned an impressive reputation in American police service.

In some of the quotes and reprinted passages, reference will be made to the magazine ban. It lasted for ten years and definitely affected sales and purchasing patterns of pistols. The references are left in to be true to the times the words describe and reflect.

There will be some intentional repetition, but only when it is a point worth repeating. For example, there is the life-saving potential of the F-series Beretta pistol when carried “on safe.” In the accounts rendered above, any number of quality handguns might have saved the lives of the brave men and women who wielded them. However, in studying the deaths and injuries of police officers in action I’ve seen again and again when the on safe pistol in general – and the on safe Beretta pistol in particular – saved the Good Guy’s life when the Bad Guy gained control of it.

After seeing cases in which the Beretta had saved their deputies’ lives in such incidents, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department made it mandatory for their thousands of armed personnel to carry their 92Fs on safe. Within just a few years of that policy change, according to that department’s veteran trainer, Harold Flynt, four more saves were documented. The North Carolina Highway Patrol has carried Beretta pistols on safe since 1983. The department progressed from the 92F 9mm to the 96F 9mm to their current Beretta Cougar Model 8357F in .357 SIG. One of their instructors told me that in 20 years of on safe carry, so many lives have been saved in gun grabs that the department has lost count. Yet LASD and NCHP have one more thing in common: No deputy or trooper in those departments has ever been hurt for failure to remember to disengage the safety on a Beretta during the draw to fire in self-defense.

That is a point that bears repeating. To say, “On safe carry saves lives” just once is to leave five words floating in the sea of a book that spans 130,000 words. It understates the huge importance of the documented information being imparted. On safe Beretta F pistols have saved many lives. While many other pistols have this feature – and many such saves have been documented with them – it is worth noting that no such pistol’s slide-mounted safety lever is easier to operate than the Beretta’s. The easier the safety catch is to operate the more likely the user is to employ it for its intended purpose.

The importance of keeping the finger off the trigger when not in the act of intentionally firing the weapon is likewise huge and is likewise repeated throughout the text that follows. Auto mechanics know how motorists drive cars and authors know how readers read books. Many jump from chapter to chapter. When talking about things that can save lives and prevent tragedy, the writer is irresponsible if he just mentions them once up front when he knows that many of his readers will dive into a book in the middle at a chapter heading that most interests them.

For the same reason the importance of proper care of the gun and using only proper magazines is emphasized again and again. The war in Afghanistan and Iraq reinforced the lesson that using cheap aftermarket magazines, even if the Government buys them on bid, can cause the finest pistols to jam. The advice is clear: Use only Beretta and MecGar brand magazines in these guns. Since MecGar of Italy is a primary vendor of magazines to Beretta, a MecGar magazine for a Beretta is, for all practical purposes, a Beretta magazine.

The history of the Beretta firearms company is huge and rich. It is worthy of a lavish book of its own and I won’t cover it here because that book is already in print. It is The World of Beretta: An International Legend by the man who is probably the world’s leading firearms historian, R.L. “Larry” Wilson. Larry has been both my teacher and my student, depending on the discipline involved. I’m proud to call him my friend. My respect for his work will be apparent in the following pages from the frequency with which I quote his exhaustive and scholarly work. This book will focus on the Beretta pistols currently in wide use, and how to use them. There is not room to do the company’s history justice, and no one is ever going to beat Larry Wilson at that game in any case.