M9 Catastrophic Failure at range

[smurfyc84]

My friend sent me this picture he took today at the qual range at Ft. Benning. He said the soldier it was issued to was firing issued ammo as normal, and the slide just flew off as he fired a round. I know the kind of abuse training weapons take from my own personal experience, but how does a slide break like this? it looks like a clean break at the front of the ejection port. Anybody else seen anything like this?

[Redhat]

Hope nobody was hurt.

Ask your friend if he or anyone accomplished a pre-fire inspection of the weapon before firing.

[Cagemonkey]

Very rare, but it happens. Before the M9's received the slide catch modification, Armorers in the USMC had to maintain round counts. Guns that fired 1000 rounds had to have their slides replaced. Supposedly this is not so much a design flaw as it was bad metallurgy in the slide steel of earlier American made M9's. I'm glad my M92FS is an Italian made gun.

[QuietShootr]

My friend sent me this picture he took today at the qual range at Ft. Benning. He said the soldier it was issued to was firing issued ammo as normal, and the slide just flew off as he fired a round. I know the kind of abuse training weapons take from my own personal experience, but how does a slide break like this? it looks like a clean break at the front of the ejection port. Anybody else seen anything like this?

yup. looks like the safety pin worked, or he'd be at the dentist now.

[shittercrewchief]

This is a known problem with high round count M9's. do a web search for "M9 slide failure". Some interesting stuff to say the least.

[smurfyc84]

I shot him an email asking if they had done a pre-range inspection and if they knew the round count, but he hasn't gotten back to me yet. I imagine that it will be a 'no' on both accounts. It is fortunate that nobody was hurt. Thanks for the info, I didn't know this was a known issue for early production M9s.

[TOrrock]

Well known issue on Beretta 92 series weapons that don't get preventive maintenance, such as replacing the recoil spring, locking block, etc. every 5K rounds or so.

No telling how many thousands of rounds that piece had seen without any maintenance.

[TOrrock]

The M92FS and M9 have an emergency slide stop built into the frame that prevents the slide from leaving the frame from the rear to prevent someone from catching half the slide in the face.

[Magic_Salad0892]

The M92FS and M9 have an emergency slide stop built into the frame that prevents the slide from leaving the frame from the rear to prevent someone from catching half the slide in the face.

Do all open barrel Beretta models have this feature or is that only on the M9 series?

[opmike]

The enlarged hammer pin was introduced with the 92FS

All open topped models post-92FS should have it.