An “Unpopular” Opinion, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the M9

I have a kinda-sorta confession to make: I actually really like the Beretta M9, as well as it’s civilian counterpart, the 92FS.

Some of you doubtlessly don’t understand why that can even be called a confession and let me explain a little bit. The Beretta 92FS 9x19mm won the infamous trials to replace the .45 ACP 1911A1 pistol that started in 1979. Prior to these trials, all of the branches of the United States Military, except the Air Force, were using variations of the 1911A1, which had been in service since 1911. After the Beretta design won the trials in the early 1980’s, it was intended to standardize the sidearm for all branches of the military. The Army, however, challenged the results, and several more trials were held, with Beretta ultimately coming out the victor in the late 1980’s. The Beretta 92FS entered official service as the M9 in 1990, and has been hanging on ever since.

There has been plenty of controversy surrounding the pistol. It is rumored that a Naval Special Warfare team member was injured when the slide of the pistol shot off the back and struck the man. Additionally, many service members who have used their M9 in duty have expressed distaste for the M9, the 9x19mm round, or both. Often stating issues with the magazines and with the operating system of the handgun, there have been many failures observed while using the M9. I personally have observed many myself. So why do I like the gun? Why even bother with a pistol that apparently cannot even perform the basic functions that are required for it?

I was first exposed to the heavy handed criticism of the 9mm round very early in life. I believe I was watching the History channel (back when it was about history and not Ice Pawn Aliens or whatever drivel they specialize in now). The show was probably Modern Marvels or Tales of the Gun, and they had two Army veterans discussing the M9 vs 1911 debate. Both of them agreed, the 9mm was awful and the .45 ACP was the only caliber a man would ever consider, and the 1911 was the only .45 that a True Man would even hold. Being a young, impressionable boy with just forming dreams of joining the military, I naturally wanted to be a True Man.

It was several years later, when I had started teaching Combat Arms Training and Maintenance as a Cadet Instructor and Range Safety Officer at the Air Force Academy, that I started to really experience the M9 for myself. My first day of training, we had to qualify with the M9 in order to be considered for a RSO spot. I had never really shot a pistol before. Maybe a couple rounds here and there for plinking, so I was sort of nervous about qualifying. I became even more nervous when some of the older cadets who had been Range Safety Officers before started complaining about how bad the trigger, grip, sights, magazines, safety, and really everything, was on the M9.

Despite the negative perception I had of the pistol, I actually shot pretty well, managing to get all 45 of my rounds on the green, vaguely humanoid target I shot at. I was pleasantly surprised, but confused. Granted, I had a lot of practice shooting rifles and shotguns, and the fundamentals aren’t too different from shooting a pistol, but pistol shooting does have a lot of nuances that make them much harder to shoot. But if I was able to do pretty well on my first try, what was so bad about the pistol?

After a couple years observing nearly every cadet at the Air Force Academy shoot the M9, I did observe several malfunctions, I did understand why people weren’t the biggest fans of the pistol, although I thought much of that criticism was misplaced. Most of the criticism that was directed towards the pistol itself should have been directed towards the care and maintenance the pistols received during their service.

The biggest complaint I personally saw aimed at the pistol was the round it fired. Compared to it’s predecessor, the 9mm is a tiny round, but you can get 15 of them in the standard M9 magazine. The increased capacity is supposed to offset the loss in stopping power, but many would rather have the fabled “One-shot-stop” capability the .45 ACP supposedly offered (not necessarily true). As far as the M9 goes, it’s chambered in 9mm. It can’t shoot .45 rounds. Nothing I can do about that. Besides, shot placement is much more important that caliber, especially when it comes to handgun calibers, and with the M9, you got twice as many chances to make a better shot than you got with the 7 round 1911 (there are 8 round and higher capacity magazines for 1911 pistols, but mostly US military were issued 7 round magazines).

The next complaint directed towards the M9 is the reliability. While many private owners and police officers who have used the M9 or 92FS may have never experienced a malfunction with their pistols, for the military it seems like the pistols fell apart the minute someone loaded the magazines. The reason for the issues in reliability experienced by the military does not lie in the design of the pistol itself, but in some shoddily built contract magazines and the maintenance provided to this weapon. One thing to understand is that the sidearm is a secondary weapon at best for most military members. Often it is viewed more as a tertiary or lower weapon (some career fields, like mine, consider the ballpoint pen to be of higher importance). Due to this lower level of perceived importance, the training on the weapon is sketchy at best. Many are given just “familiarization training” which consists of nothing more than “here’s the trigger, here’s a magazine, point it that way, don’t shoot me, take the safety off, dumbass.”

The pistol is then given only cursory maintenance by the user, as they don’t feel it is even worth the time to scrub the rails off, or shake the dust out of the action. But those who own an M9 or 92FS that has been cared for (not one owned by the Army, and especially not one owned by the Air Force after the Army got sick of them) have very few issues.

But what about the action? Well it’s a double action/single action pistol, meaning that the first trigger pull draws the hammer to the rear and makes it fall forward onto the firing pin. This makes the trigger long and pretty heavy, but it’s smooth and predictable. After a few sessions of dry-fire practice (wait! Isn’t that awful for your pistol? Yes, if it is a hundred years old. Be quiet and read), you should be able to overcome that training barrier. The single action trigger is pretty nice, a bit squishy but still predictable, and vastly lighter than the first double action pull.

A lot of people who criticize the pistol itself think that the military should have adopted some other gun, usually their personal favorite. Glock pistols weren’t around yet, and as such weren’t entered into the original trials. Others think that the Sig-Sauer P226 9mm pistol should have won the trials, but were ultimately ruled out not for performance, but for price. Some say Beretta cheated or dropped their prices, but look at the prices of an M9 vs a P226. Granted, the differential could be attributed to Beretta being able to drop their prices a bit lower due to the high-volume military contract, but Sig-Sauer does a lot of business with governments around the world, and even with the US military.

To make a long story short, based on my own experiences, the Beretta M9/92FS is a an excellent firearm that gets a lot more hate than it deserves. Given proper care and training, it is an effective firearm for even the newest shooter. There are so many complaints directed at the M9, I could probably write an entire book about them. The gun is too heavy compared to it’s more modern counterparts (get stronger), it doesn’t hold as many rounds as a Glock/Smith and Wesson/CZ (aim better), the grip is too big (get bigger hands). But I like the gun. For me everything is proportioned well. I guess I have awkward sized hands. I even shoot the gun better than I shoot most other pistols (especially Glocks). I purchased an M9 last weekend, and intend to make it my Production gun for my IPSC/USPSA matches. I also have put 300 rounds through the pistol, after its initial cleaning, and promise I won’t clean it at all until I have a stoppage or malfunction of some type. I got a deal on a 1000 round case of 9mm, so I have the stock pile to push the gun quite a bit. I won’t be doing the whole “throw your gun in the mud and shoot it like they do in those torture test videos” because, I like the gun, I like how it looks. I’m not going to intentionally make it ugly for your amusement.

Shoot safe. I hope to see you out on the range.