The Beretta M9 in service

[Slater]

Now that the M17/M18 are the new-ish kids on the block, how will the M9 be remembered during it's time in service? Going back almost thirty years, the remarks I've heard include the following:

The M9 is "just too damn big" for a 9mm. People with small hands can't grip it comfortably.

The M9 is too sensitive to adverse environments.

The M9's open top slide design can potentially let in too much foreign material.

The M9's slide-mounted decocker is awkwardly located.

Don't recall hearing a lot of complaints about overall accuracy. IIRC, there were issues with mags from one particular vendor that collected sand and grit internally, making the mags liable to jamming up. This was quite some time ago, though.

In total, were there more cons than pros to this design?

[SteyrAUG]

The right gun for the wrong environment.

Had we taken it to war in Europe somewhere like we imagined things were gonna happen in the 80s, it would have ran 100% so long as checkmate mags weren't used. Instead we fought a war in two deserts and it's actually impressive our M4s all didn't lock up hard.

The only other problem was female service members found it to be too big, everyone who came in from 1911s was just fine.

I also thing that SIG with the modular trigger group and accessory size frames will fail hard the first time we fight with it. The insides of those frames are gonna wear and sooner or later that trigger group is not going to seat correctly and it's gonna malf harder than a Chauchat in the rain.

[sinister]

The M17 and M18 have a few really small and tiny springs that will fail if they get rusty and corroded, otherwise I think it will do fine.

[SteyrAUG]

The M17 and M18 have a few really small and tiny springs that will fail if they get rusty and corroded, otherwise I think it will do fine.

You have more faith than I. I think that self contained plug and play system is gonna get people shot up.

[Todd.K]

Pistols are mainly carried by people who don’t often go where they can be shot up.

I served when the wrong finish checkmate mags were fielded. Nobody got killed because of them.

On the largeness of the M9. I’ve seen plenty of smaller people who never shot a pistol before do fine with them.

[prdubi]

I was fine with my issued M9. Being I was a REMF and fair haired fobbit, it was fine for what it was.

What I wasn't happy with was being issued one with a near cracked locking block and also the recoil spring was worn out.

It wasn't properly maintained and it was embarrassing that I had to order my own locking blocks and recoil springs and find my own magazines when I was deployed with it.

I have two m9s. One is an officer issued G0 which I purchased from the retired army guy.

The other is a commercial one that I sent to get the NM package done to it.

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[mark5pt56]

I think most of it's issues were maintenance related, especially magazines used well beyond service life. Heck, I recall in my day with a 1911, I had my girlfriends dad send me magazines while overseas. I gave my son a new load out of Pmags for his deployments once I saw his issued ones. It's a common problem even with private entities, squeezing blood from a turnip. Detmongo can attest to this, we stomped on a few mags to get the armory to stop reissuing bad mags, meanwhile there's boxes full looking pretty.

I agree also on the 320-hope they keep up with those small parts!

[prdubi]

I think most of it's issues were maintenance related, especially magazines used well beyond service life. Heck, I recall in my day with a 1911, I had my girlfriends dad send me magazines while overseas. I gave my son a new load out of Pmags for his deployments once I saw his issued ones. It's a common problem even with private entities, squeezing blood from a turnip. Detmongo can attest to this, we stomped on a few mags to get the armory to stop reissuing bad mags, meanwhile there's boxes full looking pretty.

I agree also on the 320-hope they keep up with those small parts!

Your thinking is correct but it was ALL of it, and it was a sabotage job.

It was done because Beretta doesn't offer a cushy job for some ****en retired General.

Look how loaded Sig is now with retired generals and officers within its ranks.

Small wonders why the M9 was poorly maintained,they wanted it gone.
And you don't need some funny weed to tell me that.


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[SteyrAUG]

I was fine with my issued M9. Being I was a REMF and fair haired fobbit, it was fine for what it was.

What I wasn't happy with was being issued one with a near cracked locking block and also the recoil spring was worn out.

It wasn't properly maintained and it was embarrassing that I had to order my own locking blocks and recoil springs and find my own magazines when I was deployed with it.

I have two m9s. One is an officer issued G0 which I purchased from the retired army guy.

The other is a commercial one that I sent to get the NM package done to it.

Sent from my SM-G988U1 using Tapatalk

I did so many private purchase orders for factory and Mecgar mags shipped to APOs that year it wasn't funny. For some reason nobody even had access to Mecs through official channels and when they found out they could get OEM 17 (might have been 18) round mags for like $12 it was a full on feeding frenzy.

[Slater]

It's interesting that Oman- a country that is largely arid desert- adopted the Beretta 92 as it's new service handgun around five years ago.