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Beretta’s .22 Caliber Fun Guns

Beretta has built a lot of .22 rimfire pistols over the years, including many fine ones. Those produced today include ultra-compact pocket pistols designed for last-ditch defense. They can certainly be applied to informal target shooting – plinking – but aren’t geared for something like a pistol match, and don’t have the precise accuracy you’d want for small game hunting. For that, you need to branch to three other points in the Beretta line.

In the current Beretta catalog, I see three options that make particularly good sense for the recreational shooter. The choice will depend on what the shooter’s needs are. Will it be preparation for defense with a bigger Beretta? Small game hunting? Match shooting? Or just general plinking? As always, we need to tailor the tool to the task. Let’s examine each of Beretta’s .22 caliber “fun guns” in their own right.

The Beretta Neos in short-barrel …

… and long-barrel configuration.

Ayoob does not like the front trigger guard shape of the Neos. It goes too far forward leaving the fingertip on an incline that wants to slide back to the trigger, getting in the way of the “finger out of the trigger guard” safety principle.

U22 Neos

Joe Kalinowski wrote to the Beretta website, “Last Saturday myself and two friends were experimenting with the new pistol that my wife had bought for herself. She has a U22 NEOS. We attached a Red Head red dot sight to it. Using standard .22 LR ammo, we were hitting a 5-inch target consistently at 100 yards. We found it to be just a great pistol for target shooting. Both of my friends went out to purchase one after we were done shooting!”

The Neos is a futuristic pistol that would look at home in a Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon comic. The frame is polymer. The grip sweeps backward at a rakish angle that puts the shooter in mind of the German Luger or a 1950s era High Standard Supermatic .22 target pistol. Rising high above the frame, the flat-sided barrel and sleekly sculpted slide flow upward into a full-length rib with a ventilated space that makes you think of an ancient Roman viaduct. To that look of Rome, Beretta adds a touch of Greece.

“The pistol gets its name from the Greek word meaning ‘new.’ And the Neos is one neat gun, thanks to its ultramodern styling,” says friend and fellow gun writer Wiley Clapp in the Guns & Ammo online magazine, www.gunsandammomag.com. At 25 yards, firing with a two-hand hold from a sandbag rest, Wiley was pleased with the results. “Early on it was obvious that this was a decent gun,” he wrote. “The creep in the trigger system was annoying and made me wonder what a good pistolsmith might be able to do. But even with the annoyance – you don’t get a match trigger in a plinker – the accuracy was there. Shooting six premium .22 Long Rifle loads produced an overall group average of 1.40 inches. That is smaller than the X-ring of the Standard American Pistol target (1.695 inches). And the best single group, fired with Eley Tenex, measured .97 of an inch. I think that is far better than we have any right to expect.”

Handgun hunter and all around pistolero Paco Kelly got good accuracy with his Neos, too. Using Remington/Eley target rifle ammo, with a 4-power Simmons handgun scope mounted on Neos’ handy rail, he was able to get a 1.6-inch group. With PMC’s cost-effective new Scoremaster .22 LR match load, he got an outstanding 1.1-inch group. And these were 10-shot groups, not the usual five-shot sequences. Impressive!

Helping them achieve these excellent accuracy results was the full-length mounting rail that constitutes the topmost portion of the pistol. Continuing the viaduct allusion, the edges look like the hand-rails on a bridge. The flat surface is great for pointing rather than precisely aiming. It’s like looking down an aircraft carrier’s deck in one sense, and for a clay bird shooter, it’s more like looking down the wide ventilated rib of a Browning BROADway shotgun.

The wheel above the trigger releases the barrel, a’la the old High Standard Duramatic. The slide stop is ergonomically placed, but check out the location of the thumb safety, near the grip tang.

The sights themselves are an integral part of this design theme. The rear sight takes up the entire width of the sighting plane and proved to be reliably click-adjustable. The front sight rises boldly to give a clearly visible outline to the marksman’s eye. Explains Clapp, “Out front there is a superb front sight. It is really just a block of blued steel, but this one was cleverly designed. It’s tapered from the rear edge forward. This means the shooter who wants a crisp sight picture focuses on the front sight where he is looking at three edges (top and both sides) and not three surfaces. It is a small contour change, but it pays big dividends. Also, the top rib on the Neos is set up as a full-length Weaver base that allows for the mounting of various projected dot or scope sights.”

The Neos is a combined effort of Beretta engineers and the house of Guigiaro, the Italian designers. As noted elsewhere in this book, I thought the Guigiaro-designed Beretta 9000 was a spectacular failure, a triumph of eye candy over ergonomics and good mechanical function. But not all Guigiaro-styled Berettas are clueless. Witness the excellent ergonomics and function of the Extrema shotgun. In the case of the Neos, the engineers didn’t let the designers go nuts. They merely let them fancy up a very solid, functional .22 pistol.

The open-side Neos magazine has clean lines and an easy window through which to count rounds.

From this angle, we can see the fluted slide and ambidextrous safety of U22 Neos.

The front profile of U22 Neos gives good view of the protected muzzle.

I recently had a chat with one of the Beretta engineers who did the internal design work on the Neos project. He has since moved on to accept a similar position elsewhere in the industry. He told me, “Mas, it took us four years to get the Neos perfect with the whole range of American .22 ammo as well as the European ammo it was originally tested with. But we got it right … ”

And that’s the key. Most .22 Long Rifle is not an interchangeable commodity, as it might look to the uninitiated. There are lots of subtle differences between ammo types and manufacturers. But those four years were well spent. Everyone I know who owns a Neos or has shot one is without complaint as to the gun’s reliability.

“J” Stuckey runs a busy gun shop, Southern Sportsman in Live Oak, Florida. He says, “The Beretta Neos is by far my best selling .22 handgun. I order them half a dozen at a time, and they sell right out. And, you know, I’ve never had one of them come back.”

To find a Neos that “came back,” I had to “surf the net.” This particular customer didn’t post to beef Beretta, but to compliment them. He had found something wrong with his Neos, and Beretta had instantly made it right. He now had a Neos that worked perfectly.

Priced similarly to the Bobcat pocket pistol, itself an extraordinary good value, the Neos is an amazingly good buy. It’s in the price range of other polymer-frame plinkers, such as the Walther P22 and the Ruger 22/45.

I have friends who use the U22 Neos as entry-level bulls-eye target pistols in local league competition. They do OK with them. They tell me the guns never miss a lick, unlike some of the finicky target autos the heavy hitters use, which jam more frequently. When I was at Camp Perry this year, I saw flyers from one entrepreneurial individual who is apparently doing trigger jobs on Neos pistols and attempting to turn them into full-fledged bull’s-eye guns. I wish him the best.

I didn’t see any Neos pistols on the firing line at Camp Perry. One reason is that the heavy hitters there want handguns that can shoot 1.1-inch to 1.6-inch groups at 50 yards, their standard slow fire distance. Never mind the 25-yard line they use for timed and rapid fire, and gun writers use for bench rest testing most handguns. A primary reason you won’t see an out-of-the-box Neos in the hand of a High Master bull’s-eye shooter in competition is the trigger pull. It is in the 4-pound plus range. While this is not a bad thing by itself, it is a chore to manipulate when the gun itself weighs only 2 pounds with the 4.2-inch barrel, and 36 ounces with the 6-inch barrel.

Clapp found the Neos’ trigger “OK except for a small amount of creep.” Trigger creep, for those new to the term, means a trigger movement that starts and stops, giving the sensation of parts grating against each other. It’s an uneven pull that impairs good shooting in a lot of ways. A smooth but heavy trigger pull is far more manageable than a light trigger pull that has creep in it.

I’ve also found the Neos to have a creepy trigger in every one of the several specimens I’ve tried. Some are worse than others. Some are downright spongy. This is not conducive to doing your best shooting. On the other hand, having some felt movement before the pistol discharges can be a safety feature that lets you know under stress that the gun is about to go off. As there is “good” cholesterol and “bad” cholesterol and there is “good” creep and “bad” creep. For a gun that will be used for training new shooters, palpable movement in the trigger before discharge may actually be a good thing, in that it might prevent some premature discharges.

Where do you draw the line on that trigger pull? When the neophyte shooter becomes sufficiently experienced to want to shoot bull’s-eye, an unforgiving game where only one hand may grasp and stabilize the pistol. It is there that a crisp, easy trigger pull goes past “want” and becomes “need” if it’s important to you to shoot the best possible score.

Most shooters like the way the U22 feels despite the steep grip angle. The trigger finger of average size adult male can reach to the distal joint, which assures that short fingers can reach it with fingertip contact.

From this perspective we can see the Neos’ radical grip angle. Thumb safety is on-safe. Note that it extends downward slightly from frame, where it can contact the flesh of shooter’s hand. Ayoob doesn’t like this element of the design.

A shooter named Beth found that out. In the “BULLSEYESHOOTERS” SECTION of Yahoo. com’s Sports Groups, she wrote, “Hi all, I have only been shooting bull’s-eye for about a year and a half but I felt I should reply about the Neos … before I started BE (bull’s-eye shooting), after only a very basic pistol class, I knew I wanted to give BE a try. So w/ a .22 league getting ready to start here at our local range, I went out and bought a Neo (sic) – because it was kind of ‘cute.’ Well it was a mistake. It was very frustrating and discouraging for me as a new shooter … I could hardly keep my shots on the paper let alone score … I was then taken under the wings of some experienced shooters – one, after trying my gun, told me ‘This is the worst trigger I have ever shot!!’ I soon tried a few of their guns, shot much better, and bought myself an IZH. In my last .22 league I finished as high lady and reached the Expert level and am not too far from my DE (Distinguished Expert rating). I have since bought an accurized Ruger 22/45 w/ a Volquartsen trigger from a fellow shooter … I plan on using that to teach my daughter … it is much better than the Neo (sic) ever was and I only paid a small amount more for it … so I would say to new shooters considering the Neos – unless of course they have changed the triggers – try a Russian or a Ruger.”

Thus, we see that some like the Neos as an entry-level gun for match shooting, and some do not. Remember, however, that Beretta designed the gun as a plinker. Most casual shooters these days fire with a two-hand hold.

With a strong man holding it two-handed in a firm grip with a bench for support, the trigger on the Neos will not be an impediment to tight groups, as evidenced by those turned in by Paco Kelly and Wiley Clapp. However, when the gun is held one-handed at arm’s length with no artificial support and aimed at a bull’s-eye target 50 yards distant, it’s going to be a different story. The Neos simply isn’t made for that kind of shooting.

There are things I like about the Neos and things I don’t. As noted above, I think the sighting system is excellent. So is the fit in the hand. So is the trigger reach dimension. The all-metal magazines are extremely easy to load, manipulate and clean, thanks to their open-sided design. The takedown is very efficient, using a wheel at the front of the frame to secure the barrel in place and harkening back to the old High Standard Duramatic in that respect.

Some features are less likeable. The magazine release is a push-button in an unusual place: directly in front of the trigger guard and above it on the right side of the frame. With my average size male hands, and being right-handed, I found it easy and quick to hit the mag release with my trigger finger. This is a good thing, as far as it goes, because it gets the trigger finger out of the trigger guard at a time when it shouldn’t be in there. However, I don’t think left-handed shooters will find it nearly as convenient as we righties do. The drop of the magazine was clean and efficient.

The Beretta 87 works with a broad range of .22 LR ammo, unlike some Berettas that aren’t meant for less than high-velocity loads.

The manual safety is ambidextrous, a pleasant surprise and one too rarely seen on .22 caliber pistols. Unfortunately, the design of the safety catch is not ergonomic at all. When on safe, two sharp little pointy “ears” project downward toward the web of the hand. The camper who has picked up the gun when something in the woods went bump in the night may be tempted to off-safe the gun prematurely to relieve this sharp-edged discomfort. A cocked, off-safe pistol is now in hand. Not a great thing. Moreover, the angle at which the safety moves to put it in fire position is quite awkward.

The slide stop lever, safety lever, and magazine release lever are all ergonomically placed on the Beretta 87. The extended magazine holds 10 shots.

The trigger guard is very large and roomy, which is a good thing for a gloved hand. All recreational shooting is not done in balmy weather. However, the shape of the inside front of the guard disturbs me a little. It’s deeply niched out. This, apparently, is to allow the finger to slide quickly into the guard. This it does … all too quickly. One thing that will be hammered into you in any competent pistol-handling program is, “Keep your finger out of the trigger guard.” Most of us prefer to keep that finger up on the frame. Unfortunately, some like to rest their trigger finger at the front edge of the guard. As the hand tightens in a stress situation, this tends to hold the finger taut, and if muscles are convulsed by a startle response or postural disturbance, the finger tends to snap back onto the surface of the trigger, often with enough force to inadvertently fire the pistol. The shape of the trigger guard on the Neos will, unfortunately, be conducive to that, I think. I’m not sure a redesign is necessary, but anyone using one of these pistols needs to be reminded that unless one is in the act of intentionally firing, one’s trigger finger should be up on the frame of this or any pistol, and not poised on the forward edge of the trigger guard!

Now, here, on the back of one of the author’s 81-series Beretta .380s, is a functional trigger stop! He thinks Beretta should put one of these on the Model 87.

All things considered, though, the Neos is a cool little gun. I like it better than any of the other Guigiaro-designed Beretta handguns. It’s built for fun, and in a safe, responsible recreational shooting environment, it will consistently deliver that fun. Its price, reliability and inherent accuracy, make it a splendid value, and that low price makes it a very affordable portal through which to enter the world of high-quality Beretta firearms.

The Model 87 Series

Beretta introduced the Cheetah Model 87 in 1988. It was a companion gun to the Model 84 and Model 85 series .380 caliber pistols and was functionally identical except for being chambered for the .22 Long Rifle cartridge. The same year, the firm offered the Model 89 Gold Standard, an aptly named target pistol that was built on the same frame but in single-action-only mode, with a skeletonized slide running under a high sight-ribbed barrel. The Gold Standard came with an exquisite target-grade trigger pull.

Along about 2000, the Model 89 Gold Standard seemed to disappear from the line, replaced by the Model 87 Target. Where the Gold Standard had resembled a cross between a Cheetah .380 and a Hammerli match pistol, the Model 87 appeared to be a Cheetah frame with the trigger squared a little in front. It also had a barrel/slide assembly that was in essence the one from the Gold Standard, but trimmed down a bit from the top and with a Weaver-style scope rail that also acted as a low-profile sight rail. The Model 87 Target pistol has its own 10-shot .22 LR magazine and will not accept the seven-round magazine of the .22 caliber Model 87 Cheetah.

This impromptu “trigger stop” made a world of difference in the shootability of the Model 87.

At a solid 41 ounces, this gun still is not as heavy as most of the dedicated .22 caliber target pistols that find their way to the national championships at Camp Perry. It can be described as “target pistol lite.” However, its compact grip frame fits exquisitely in smaller hands. Remember, it has evolved upward from a frame size that many categorize as a “pocket pistol.” Trigger reach is excellent for shorter fingers.

The backlash problem is diagnosed and solved. Out of the box trigger resistance begins at this point …

… and sear releases at about this point, at which time …

… the trigger lashes this far back to the frame, which can move the gun just as it’s firing, ruining accuracy. The solution …

… is a trigger stop, here quickly rigged with a bit of floor protector. Pull starts here with the trigger at rest …

… and breaks at the same point …

… but now immediately comes to a soft, cushioned stop. Backlash cured!

The muzzle weight has grooves to allow additional weights to be added. Matte finish is evenly applied to this businesslike pistol.

Taking a sight picture, it’s as if you were looking down a long pier going out toward the water; a pier with a handrail on each side. This slim pistol’s balance is excellent, and there are attachment points provided to hang weights from the front if the shooter wants a more muzzle-heavy feel. Overall, this blue steel pistol, despite its matte finish, just reeks of quality. The skeletonized slide runs smoothly under a rugged sight rib that sits above the action like a bridge, keeping the sights solidly oriented to the barrel. In this, it reminds the shooter of two of the most proven American match target .22 pistols, the High Standard Victor and the Smith & Wesson Model 41. Its frame composition has been described as “zirconium-aluminum alloy.” The slide has extensions running on either side toward the muzzle, with finger grooves. This is one pistol that you pretty much have to operate by reaching up underneath the front, with thumb on one side and fingertips on the other, and push back to activate the gun. The good news is that these grooves are a safe distance back from the muzzle, making this a much safer handling protocol than doing the same with, say, a Beretta 92 or a 1911 pistol with trendy forward slide grooves.

The barrel weight and sight rib enhance the monolithic muzzle of the Model 87. The barrel weight is removable.

The trigger pull is smooth, with an easy roll, reminding the shooter of the old Model 34 .380 or Beretta’s middle period pocket pistol in .22 LR, the Model 70. However, it had horrendous backlash, perhaps the worst I’ve ever encountered on a .22 caliber single-action auto. When the sear released, the trigger and finger took a long plunge straight back until they stopped against the frame. This unfortunate circumstance, called backlash or overtravel, is ruinous to accuracy.

The Model 89 Gold Standard, as I recall, had an adjustable trigger that was hugely better. It is sad that this attribute did not survive in the Model 87 Target incarnation.

My friend and fellow gun writer David Fortier recently wrote up the Model 87 Target in the 2005 Shooting Times Handgun Buyers’ Guide. He tested a dozen different match-grade .22 loads at 50 yards. This is twice the distance at which most handguns are accuracy tested, and is the yardage at which precision slow fire takes place in classic American bull’s-eye matches. All 12 loads grouped well under 2 inches at 50 yards. Two grouped under an inch: Eley 40-grain Tenex delivered 0.87 inches, and Wolf 40-grain Match Gold did 0.67 inches. David wrote that he was firing off sandbags with a Burris 2x to 7x variable telescopic sight attached to the Weaver rails.

That, my friends, is match-winning accuracy. It’s built in at the plant in Italy. The trick is getting that accuracy out of the pistol.

David explained that he shot his at a seminar that Beretta held for the writers at the company he works for, Primedia. He described his test pistol’s trigger pull as follows: “The trigger was a bit heavier, 4.5 pounds, than I like. Don’t get me wrong. It was crisp with zero creep, no overtravel, and only took 3/16 inch of forward travel to reset.” ⁽¹⁾

I re-read that. “Huh? No over-travel? How come David and his buddies at Primedia rate? Where do I get an 87 like that?”

Apparently, the test gun provided had been specially tuned at the factory. Much more overtravel, resulting in backlash, is present in every out-of-the-box Model 87 Target I’ve run across.

Now, by the time I read David’s article, I had been shooting a test sample Model 87 Target provided by Beretta for this book. It was certainly a sweet-shooting little gun, but I wasn’t getting nearly the five-shot groups David was. I was using the iron sights, not a 7X scope, and that could have been part of it. I’ve seen David Fortier shoot, and I can tell you he’s a superb marksman, and that could have been a part of it. But after fighting with the trigger group after group, while the “best three shot” clusters were indicating tremendous accuracy potential, the fact that his pistol had no overtravel and mine had enough overtravel to qualify for frequent flyer miles probably also had something to do with the less than stellar performance.

The side of the conversion unit’s slide is distinctly marked.

This is Beretta’s own .22 conversion unit for full-length Model 92 and 96 traditional double-action pistols. It includes a magazine.

Earlier, a friend and fellow firearms instructor in Michigan, Jeff Brooks, had bought a Model 87 Target for his young son. He was not any happier with the backlash than I was, or with the heavy (for a bull’s-eye pistol) trigger pull weight that left Fortier dissatisfied. Jeff told me of his specimen, “Trigger overtravel is absolutely horrible and very excessive.” He asked me to recommend a pistolsmith.

I told him to try Ernest Langdon, who specializes in Berettas, and that if Langdon didn’t handle that model, to try Teddy Jacobson at Actions by T in Sugarland, Texas. It turned out that Langdon preferred to do major work only on Model 92 and 96 pistols, and light action hones on Cougars, and didn’t work on 80-Series Berettas at all. Jacobson, on the other hand, took on the job. Jeff reported after he got the gun back from the masterful Texas pistolsmith, “We love the 87 Target. Teddy Jacobson did an outstanding job on trigger pull weight, smoothness, and travel.” He sent me some pictures of young Jonathan and some of his targets, and it’s clear, both shooter and pistol are doing fine.

The test gun I had belonged to Beretta, not to me. I’m used to heavy triggers, generally specifying around 4.5 pounds single-action in my pistols, so that didn’t bother me. My test Model 87 Target’s trigger was also quite smooth out of the box. It was the backlash I wanted to fix, and I wasn’t about to drill a hole through the frame of a pistol that belonged to Beretta, to install a set screw to act as a trigger stop. I joked with my buddy Jon Strayer, “I oughta take a piece of pencil eraser and duct tape it to the inside back of the trigger guard.”

The conversion unit, in place, duplicates all functions of the M9 barrel/slide assembly it has just replaced.

The rear sight of the Beretta .22 conversion unit appears to be the Italian LPA. It works extremely well.

Jon said, “I can do better. Be right back.” A short time later he returned with the test gun. He had taken a small piece of floor protector – the heavy fiber pads that adhere to the bottoms of things like table legs to keep them from scarring the floors they stand on – and applied it to the inside rear of the trigger guard.

What a difference! The makeshift trigger stop worked. All of a sudden, the sights did not move off target when the hammer fell. Groups shrank immediately. My first five shots with CCI Pistol Match with the trigger stop installed, off an MTM pistol rest at 25 yards, landed in a group measuring just 0.95 inches. The best three shots, probably the best indicator of the gun’s mechanical accuracy potential without putting it in a machine rest, were all touching and center-to-center measured 0.35 inches. And this was still with iron sights.

I’ve had better luck in terms of reliability than Fortier, who wrote, “Reliability during testing was very good but not flawless. Occasionally (perhaps eight times total during testing) the pistol failed to eject. Habitually, though, it would fail to chamber a round from slide lock. Simply hitting the slide release would cause the bullet nose to stop on the feedramp. Pulling the slide to the rear and releasing it, though, and I was good to go. No other problems of any kind were experienced.” ⁽²⁾

Now, I oughta be jealous of David because he got to test a primo Model 87 Target with no backlash, and I got stuck with one that seemed to backlash from Terni to Brescia. I should grind my teeth because my 0.35 inches group was only the best three shots, and his 0.35 inches group was for all five. However, I’m about 20 years older than David and can forgive him his sharper eyes and steadier hand. Moreover, that old thing about nature compensating seemed to be in play here … because my test Model 87 Target did not malfunction once. My friends and I all liked the way this little pistol was set up, and a bunch of us have put a bunch of ammo through it. Not enough bricks to build a house, but enough bricks of .22 ammo to know that Beretta Model 87 Target serial number C403120 is an extraordinarily reliable little pistol.

There is no reason this otherwise excellent little sporting .22 should not be coming out of the factory with a better trigger. There was even a very tiny contact point where the toe of the trigger touched the bottom edge of the trigger guard. Not enough to palpably drag, but enough to have left a tiny drag line on the finish inside the guard. Maybe my trigger finger is just getting numb. That minor drag point didn’t get in the way of shooting, but it shouldn’t have been there.

The conversion unit gave this good five-shot group at 25 yards with inexpensive Blazer ammo.

The first shot went out of the group, but the next four CCI Pistol Match rounds landed in a pleasingly tight cluster at 25 yards.

These Federal .22 LR rounds exhibited good grouping potential, but fell victim to the unit’s “4+1 syndrome.”

The gun comes with a vestigial little stop on the back of the trigger that does absolutely nothing. I know that Beretta can do these triggers better. I know it because I own a Beretta .380 of this series with an excellent trigger stop attached at the factory. You see the same neat little trigger stop on the picture of the Beretta 85 that appears in the owner’s manual. It belongs, properly adjusted, on this neat little single-action .22 pistol.

In summary, the Model 87 is an endearing little gun. I like its feel. I like its balance, and I love its splendid inherent accuracy in a slim and compact package. It is a little more than twice the price of a U22 Neos, but in my eyes (and in my hands) it seems like more than twice the gun. I don’t think it’s overpriced. I would like to see Beretta bring back the Model 89 Gold Match, but in the meantime, this will do.

I intend to buy this sample pistol from Beretta. And as soon as I do, I’m going to install a proper trigger stop in it.

Beretta 92/96 Conversion Unit

There are multiple .22 LR conversion units out there for the full-size Beretta service pistol. Some of them are quite good. But, from what I’ve seen, the very best is made by a little known source, and is a very well kept secret. That maker of the best .22 conversion unit for the Beretta is … Beretta.

For the military man or woman whose MOS may include the need for a pistol … for the cop who carries a Model 92 or a Model 96 on duty … or for the armed citizen who has chosen one of those models, the Beretta .22 is a hugely practical adjunct to the system.

Surprising accuracy and full functionality make it a perfect practice companion!

The Beretta 92 series pistol is a modern classic. Bill Wilson has called it the most reliable out-ofthe-box double-action auto on the market, and he has frequently made a point of shooting one in the competition he started, IDPA, the International Defensive Pistol Association. IDPA’s national championship has been won more than once with a Beretta 92, with the double-action 9mm outshooting supposedly more “shootable” single-action autos like the ones Wilson himself is famous for building and customizing. The Beretta is the preferred DA auto of former World Champion Ray Chapman.

More to the point, it is the national military pistol of numerous countries both inside and outside of NATO, including the United States of America, which adopted it as the M9 in the mid-1980s. It remains extremely popular among civilians, too. Even with 10-round magazines that are altogether too stingy for its ample size, the Beretta 92 continues to sell to private citizens on the strength of its accuracy, reliability, and smoothness of action. In the Chicago area, where there is no concealed carry option and, suburbanites buy handguns for sport and home protection only, a veteran gun dealer with a huge stock told me recently that the Beretta 92 is his single best-selling handgun model.

And then, there are the cops. The Beretta 92 9mm remains standard issue at this writing for both LAPD and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, two of the nation’s largest law enforcement agencies, though both give their members a short list of other optional guns they can buy on their own. These days, even more departments purchase the Beretta 96, the 92’s twin that is chambered for the .40 S&W cartridge. The state troopers of Rhode Island, Indiana, and Florida are among those who adopted the Beretta 96.

The Beretta conversion seamlessly duplicates the functions of the standard 92 and 96 series pistols.

When a gun is that popular, a market develops for conversion kits that will allow training with inexpensive .22 Long Rifle rimfire ammunition. It happened long ago with the 1911. It happened with such exotic auto pistols as the SIG P-210, and HK’s M4 and P7 .380 pistols. It’s happening right now with the GLOCK and Beretta, courtesy of Jonathan Arthur Ciener.

And Beretta is finally on board with a .22 conversion unit of their own.

While it appears on their website, Beretta does not actively advertise their neat little .22 conversion unit. This is a shame. It may be true that if you invent a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door, but first the world needs to know that you have a better mousetrap.

I first learned of this unit from a National Guard pistol team that I’ve had some small input in training. They asked me what I thought of it compared to Jonathan Arthur Ciener’s unit. I told them I was familiar with the Ciener conversion kit and thought very highly of it. My only criticism was that it was a “slick-side.” To keep manufacturing costs down and make the unit affordable. Ciener did not fit it with a safety/decock lever. This required lowering the hammer by hand, as on the very first Beretta 92 and its early Taurus clone way back when.

The unit leader replied that they also had tested the Ciener unit and liked it, but really wanted something with a decocker/safety device as on their issue weapons. They weren’t just looking at something for cheap bulls-eye target practice, he explained. They wanted a unit that would help them fulfill their training commitment to military police, security personnel, and others for whom the M9 pistol would be a primary duty and combat tool. Since the Army and National Guard mandate on-safe carry of the holstered 9mm service pistol, this had to include a system that would allow the troops to drill on releasing the safety and on decocking the pistol during a lull in the firing action.

The unit leader told me that the Beretta conversion apparently had this feature, and asked what I could find out about it. I immediately ordered one, tested it, and got it to one of his people for testing.

Gun Details

We picked up the Beretta conversion unit at the Manchester Indoor Firing Line in Manchester, New Hampshire. We were eager to, in a common figure of speech, “see what it was made of.”

The barrel is steel, and the slide is aluminum. Aluminum slide plus aluminum frame makes for a very light pistol indeed. The action is simple blowback. The ten-round magazine (one only provided with the unit) is polymer. The finish appears to be Beretta’s familiar Bruniton.

A neat little adjustable sight is provided, always a big help when you’re shooting for precision. My boss got to it first and sighted it in for himself, which puts it a little low-right for my eyes. Clicks seemed to be positive and replicable. Sight picture was excellent with a little white dot inset for iffy light conditions.

The slide locks back on the empty magazine, and can be manually locked back via the slide lock lever. Some conversion units don’t have these features.

The slide runs smoothly and effortlessly. The safety/decock lever is that of the F-series pistol, but it also works with the G-series, the designation for a spring-loaded lever, which functions as a one-stroke decocker, but not as a manual safety. However, the Beretta website does not list it as being compatible with the D-series, the double-action-only (self-decocking) variation, which makes mechanical sense.

Clearly marked “22 L.R.” on the barrel, the conversion unit features a very functional ramp and an efficient magazine that delivers the cartridges on a good feed angle.

According to Beretta, the unit is compatible with any Model 92 from the S- and SB-series on up. These are the ones with the slide-mounted safety-decock levers. The very first 92, with frame-mounted manual safety and no dedicated decocking mechanism, is not compatible with this conversion unit. Neither is the Billenium, Beretta’s limited run single-action steel-frame target auto with the frame-mounted manual safety. Nor are the short frame compacts, the 92FC and the 92M. However, the unit is compatible with the Centurion (short barrel/slide assembly on full-size frame) and the Brigadier (full-size frame with reinforced heavy slide).

What is true of the 92 is true of the 96. The conversion unit will work on all .40 caliber Beretta 96 pistols of the F- and G-series, according to Beretta, including the Brigadier and the Centurion but not the compacts. Nor, of course, will it work on the more recent designs, the 8000 series or the polymer-frame 9000 series, which are different pistols entirely.

Endurance

Beretta recently made a series of special Model 92 pistols to commemorate Operation Enduring Freedom. The epoch of the Beretta 92 itself could be called Operation Enduring Reliability. Despite rumors spread by Internet commandoes to the contrary, the military armorers I’ve talked to have been virtually unanimous in their opinion that the Model 92/M9 is an extremely reliable pistol. Its endurance, in terms of breakage, seems no worse than that of the other mainstream high-capacity 9mm service pistols. It has merely gotten a lot more negative publicity for its miniscule number of failures. This is due in at least some part to competitors who were jealous that their gun didn’t win the huge U.S. government contract.

The .22 conversion unit lives up to this reputation. Before it went to the military pistol team, I lent it to my chief of police, who is a big Beretta fan. He put it on his own commercial M92 frame, and proceeded to hammer about 1,000 rounds of Remington .22LR through it. “Love the accuracy,” he reported enthusiastically, “and it didn’t jam once.” I then ran a few hundred rounds of assorted ammo through it myself.

The .22 conversion unit is less picky about ammo than many other .22s, including some other Beretta options in the caliber.

Bear in mind that at this time, approaching 1,500 rounds, the conversion unit had not yet been cleaned. Carbon and lead buildup were visibly present, but the pistol kept chugging along. I say “chugging” advisedly. At least half of the ammo my boss put through it was standard-velocity, lead-bullet target stuff. This ammo has a very mild recoil impulse that will not operate a number of .22LR pistols and even some .22 auto-loading rifles. About half of what I put through it was less than high-velocity too, mostly the inexpensive Blazer.

As crudded up as it was, the converted pistol would very occasionally go “chug, chug.” By that I mean the slide would come back, it would start forward, seem to stall, then finish its forward movement and go into battery. This happened only with the low-velocity ammo. With plated-bullet high-velocity ammo, the standby of plinkers, cycling was crisp and perfect with every shot.

One malfunction finally occurred when I handed it to a friend to try. He held it very casually, wrist and elbow both bent, and obviously with a very light grasp. A few rounds of Blazer into the magazine, the slide went only part of the way back and remained back. “I limp-wristed it,” he said immediately. I told him to go ahead and clear it. He jacked the slide back smartly, the pistol went back into battery; and he continued without further problem.

Twice, again with light loads, the slide came back just enough to clear the spent casing but not far enough to pick up a fresh round. In both cases, oddly enough, the pistol decocked itself when the slide came forward, though the safety/decock lever was still firmly up in the “fire” position. Each time, the slide was racked again, and firing continued normally.

With any .22 auto pistol, it’s a good idea to clean the gun every 500 rounds or so. By the time these few problems occurred, the gun was approaching three times longer than normal between cleanings. With conversion units I’ve found it’s better to clean them every 50 to 100 rounds. It’s hard for me to blame the gun.

Now it was time to put it through its accuracy paces. Remember, the pistol still had not been cleaned after almost 1,500 rounds. We were trying to find out how many rounds it would take to make it stop running without being cleaned and lubed.

How Accurate

Accuracy testing was done with ammo at three different price levels, sort of like the old Sears, Roebuck thing of “good, better, best.” The shooting was done outdoors with two hands braced on the bench at 25 yards. Each five-shot group was measured overall, and also for the best three shots. I discovered several years ago that if five shots were fired from the bench and all felt perfect, measuring the best three factored out unnoticed human error and came remarkably close to what the same gun/ammo combo would do for five shots out of a machine rest.

For a low-priced generic round I chose the CCI Blazer with a lead bullet at what felt like standard velocity. The five-shot group measured 3.25 inches. The first shot had gone wide. The next four went into a cluster measuring 1.63 inches. The best three shots were in 0.75 of an inch. Federal’s standard line Classic round-nose, plated, high-velocity load put five shots into 3.88 inches. Not counting the first shot, the group would have measured 0.94 of an inch, and the best three were in 0.88 of an inch. CCI’s elite Pistol Match, with lead bullet at standard velocity was the priciest load tested. The five-shot group measured a disappointing 3.75 inches, but that was once again due to the first hand-chambered shot. The subsequent four shots went into a diamond pattern that measured an inch on the nose, with the best three clustering into a group of 0.75 of an inch.

The Blazer, which I bought over the counter for $9.95 per brick, had actually given the best accuracy, beating even the Pistol Match by a very slight margin. The cheapest load coming out on top for precision isn’t something that happens every day, particularly in .22LR.

The first shot always going somewhere other than where the subsequent shots went was disappointing, but hardly a surprise. This is called “4+1 syndrome” and is widely documented. It occurs with semiautomatic pistols (and to a lesser degree with semiautomatic rifles) when the first hand-chambered round puts the parts in a very slightly different firing alignment, or “battery,” than what they go into during firing when the mechanism cycles automatically and auto-loads each subsequent cartridge. Interestingly, the standard Beretta 92 in 9mm does not seem to be particularly prone to this, certainly not to the degree I saw in the test sample of Beretta’s .22 conversion unit.

Does this make it useless? Not at all. Whether you’re shooting bull’s-eye, IDPA, or IPSC, you go to the firing line cold each time and then load for the string of fire. Thus, competition with a gun that suffers from 4+1 syndrome can be a problem. Remember, though, that Beretta does not market this accessory as a match gun, they market it as a practice gun. Since practice is less formal, it should be no problem to load the gun with one round extra (.22 ammo is cheap, after all) and fire the first shot into the backstop, then simply keep the magazine topped off. By running the range “hot,” every subsequent practice shot can be fired with a round automatically cycled into the firing chamber by the gun’s mechanism, allowing the shooter to take advantage of what is obviously an otherwise “match-grade” level of inherent accuracy in this unit.

For bull’s-eye practice, I would load each magazine with six and would have two targets up. I would take my time and put one slow-fire practice shot into the first target prior to each string, then set the timer and fire the next five in whatever Slow-, Timed-, or Rapid-Fire sequence I had chosen. The conversion unit tested was reasonably consistent, putting the first hand chambered shot high, and usually left, of point-of-aim in roughly the same spot.

I loaded six Blazers and gave that a try. Sure enough, the first bullet flew to 12 o’clock, landing about 3 inches away from where the rest of the group followed. But those next five automatically cycled shots landed in a group that measured 1.44 inches, with the best three in 1 inch even.

Verdict

I like the Beretta 92 conversion unit. I like it a lot. It is more reliable and less maintenance-intensive than any other .22 caliber handgun conversion unit I’ve ever worked with. The fact that it duplicates the manual safety and decocker function of the service-caliber F-series guns is, to my way of thinking, a big plus. Even if you chose to carry your Beretta off-safe, if your gun is the F-series you need drawing, firing, and malfunction-clearing techniques, which verify that it’s off-safe. Working with a slick-slide practice gun that can’t accidentally be put on safe, it’s easy to get sloppy about those important subtleties of technique. This conversion unit’s design will keep us sharp with those things.

I’m not sure how much of that errant first shot problem will clear up with scrupulous cleaning. We couldn’t find out because the gun was earmarked to go to a military firearms training unit after we were done with it, and the one thing being studied was how many rounds it could handle before it choked on the dirt.

The accuracy for all but that hand-chambered first shot was a pleasant surprise. We took this gun out to the NRA Hunter Pistol range, where we tried it on steel silhouettes cut for small-bore shooting. They happened to be set up only at 40 meters (chickens) and 50 meters (pigs). However, they proved to be easy work for the Beretta conversion unit, even from the standing position. Given that NRA Hunter Silhouette uses half-size animals in comparison to the International Handgun Metallic Silhouette Association, this was good accuracy indeed. The “chickens” are about as big as pigeons, and I’ve owned housecats bigger than the “pigs.”

Final Notes

How good is the conversion unit? I bought the test sample. What’s more, I’m gonna have to buy another. My chief has dibs on the first one. Is Beretta gonna make a million bucks on this neat little setup? Well, there are over seven figures worth of guns out there to which they can be fitted. If every gunowner purchases a unit for it, and if Beretta makes a profit of a dollar per unit …

For more information contact: Beretta, 17601 Beretta Dr., Dept CH, Accokeek, MD 20607;

301-283-2191; www.berettausa.com

Endnotes

(1)“Beretta’s Model 87 Target Is A Rimfire Masterpiece,” by David M. Fortier, 2005 Shooting Times Handgun Buyers’ Guide, Peoria, IL: Primedia.

(2)Ibid., P. 49.