Another post in which I wax poetic about a .mil small arm. In this case, my duty and competition sidearm of choice over the past decade, the Beretta M9. If you enjoy this content, give the newest video on the YouTube channel a peek. Or give the back articles in the blog a look, as there are a lot of old posts about guns and militaria you might find interesting. Also, check out the shop for books and merch to support the blog. The Scratch & Dent Section just had a bunch of good stuff put up for sale. I’ll keep it exclusive to Norseman Creative for a bit, then anything not sold goes up on eBay.
About ten years ago, with money that I recaptured in my Federal and State tax returns, I bought a brand new, civilian model Beretta M9. At the time, the Beretta was the U.S. Military’s standard service pistol, and it had a very polarizing reputation among service members and gun pundits. Despite its poor reputation, I supposed I might as well buy a copy to practice with. The way I figured it, if I ever had to use a government-issued M9 in a life-or-death situation, it was probably better to be overly proficient with the pistol instead of overly proficient in complaining about the pistol.
When it was time to deploy for a third time, I had the option of qualifying on the new SIG-Sauer M18/P320 or old reliable, the Beretta M9. Most of the people in the small qualifying class had the M18 foisted on them without discussion. Upon seeing that I reported to my sidearm qualification with my own duty holster and magazine pouches, the instructor immediately handed me an M9. I shot one last deployment qualification on the Beretta before the option was taken away for good.
Shortly after I returned from my third deployment, Jenny and I made our way from Boston to New York City. Jenny had a whole weekend planned, full of sight seeing, the Chinese New Year Parade, Broadway shows, and good food. Jenny had planned out this trip meticulously, but there was one thing I wanted to see while we were in New York: the Beretta Gallery.
The Beretta Gallery is the only gun store in Manhattan, situated on Madison Avenue in an unassuming storefront. We made our way past the bellman, which was our first hint that we might be out of our financial depth, and into the store. The narrow shop consisted of three floors, the first filled with high-end hunting jackets marketed towards the high-end upland bird hunting crowd. On the second floor, the clothing was more “technical,” targeted at the serious, Beretta-toting waterfowler. Finally, the third floor contained shotguns and rifles from Beretta’s thick catalog, everything from $1,000 camo-dipped waterfowl shotguns to $1,000,000+, beautifully crafted side-by-sides carried by Ernest Hemmingway.
Even though we were way out of our price depth, the sales clerk at the gun counter let us handle just about anything we wanted to touch, except the Hemmingway shotgun. On our way back out, Jenny and I hit the clearance rack, where I got a new pair of gloves that fit my weird-sized hands, and a jacket. We walked back outside onto Madison Avenue as “Beretta Aficionados.”
Even though I would describe myself as an M9 aficionado, I still shoot “new” pistol designs. In most cases I shoot them quite well. My Smith and Wesson M&P40, the pistol that started my hand gunning journey, is one of the only pistols I took to Hawai’i and still sees regular range sessions. Back on “the Mainland,” my usual carry pistol is my Glock 19, and a Glock 19 (or “similar”) is what I normally recommend to new shooters looking to buy their first handgun. I have even handled and shot the USAF’s new M18 pistols, and they were okay, but I really have never been a big fan of the way SIG-Sauer pistols fit in my hand.
In addition to the proliferation of polymer-framed, striker fired pistols, there have been incremental upgrades to pistols and pistol shooting over the past fifteen years. These changes make it a little hard to justify why I would stick with the outdated Beretta. In some ways, the M9 was outdated as soon as the first Glock pistols hit the market. Now, with the proliferation of slide-mounted red dots, compensators, and other shooting aides being made more accessible than ever, the Beretta feels even more outdated than it ever has.
Perhaps that is the point. Maybe the obsolescent nature of the old, all-metal “wonder-nine” is why I can’t quite give up on it. I know it isn’t because I am too cheap to buy a new gun. I’ve bought quite a few in the past several years, but none of them have gotten the use that my Beretta has. In my mind, using something “old” draws a certain respect, a symbol that this particular marksman isn’t easily swayed by ever-changing trends. This is a marksman that knows their weapon and how to employ it, not because they read it in a manual or watched a video, but because they went to the range and put in the hours and rounds to make it that way.
I think another factor with being an M9 hold-out is that I simply vibe with the pistol. The grip angle, controls, and sights all make sense to me. This heavy pistol feels good in my hand, the recoil impulse and shot tracking work for me. To some people, it sounds dumb, but I have always felt that you can tell if you are going to shoot a gun well by the way it feels when you pick it up and shoulder it. If it feels good, if you vibe with the firearm, you’re going to shoot it just fine. I believe this is true of shotguns as well as with pistols.
My Beretta has served as my primary gun for shooting Production Division in United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA) matches for the past decade. When I first started shooting USPSA, Production Division shooters were limited to ten rounds in each magazine, with an eleventh “+1” loaded at the beginning of the stage. In the course of Spring and Summer 2015, I shot in each of the monthly matches at the local gun club, using the Beretta for all but two of them.
In 2017, I went overseas for a full year, then returned to the United States to California to attend graduate school. My M9 was one of the only pistols I brought with me, along with five capacity-restricted magazines to comply with California’s laws. I did get to buy several standard-capacity magazines during that feverish week when the magazine capacity restriction was struck down in court. The only range nearby was the Monterey County range which didn’t host matches and didn’t allow drawing from a holster. Jenny and I frequented the range from time to time, taking advantage of their steel target range.
When we moved across the country to Boston, I used my M9 in a shooting class as a student, then in two as an instructor and demonstrator. I had the opportunity to use the pistol in competition again, but not in USPSA. Even though the matches weren’t as rigorous as I had hoped, the rise of telework and a more understanding range allowed me to keep my skills pretty sharp.
These ranges were both far cries from the San Angelo Gun Club, which was open 24/7 to members. It was not uncommon for me to speed home from work, change clothes, grab the dog, and head straight to the range. Practice sessions consisted of at least 100 rounds, but often surpassed 500 rounds in a day. USPSA matches typically require about 150 rounds to get through, so I went through ammunition quick. Luckily, during my deployment in 2016, I bought a case of ammo (1,000 rounds) every month, so I was good and stocked up when I returned.
Over the past decade, I have put at least 6,000 rounds through this pistol. I believe this to be a conservative estimate, and I think the number is likely 8,000-9,000. To be sure, this is no incredible amount of ammunition, especially over the course of ten years. At most, that is less than a case of ammo (1,000 rounds) a year. However, the vast majority of those rounds were fired in the very beginning of ownership and then in the past three years. In between 2017 and 2024, my active participation in USPSA was minimal due to duty locations and COVID restrictions. I was thankfully able to pick back up in USPSA out here in Hawai’i when the public range opened for matches.
I have never had an issue with my Beretta M9 that was not ammunition or magazine related. This flies in the face of the assertions many service men and women might make about the M9. In truth, the M9s that circulated military arsenals were subjected to incredible levels of neglect, often missing preventative maintenance milestones. Shooting a Beretta M9 means you have to do the maintenance when the manual says, otherwise you have an expensive paperweight in your hands. To be fair to those .mil M9s, a lot of their stoppages were caused by magazines that had been beat to hell and kept long past their expiration date.
The only modification I have made to the pistol is to change the standard, black grip panels to some brownish-red ones to make it stand out slightly. Back then, there were a fair number of Berettas in holsters at USPSA matches, and I wanted to make sure there was no confusion about which one was mine. At certain points in the past, I resolved to send my pistol off to a custom gunsmith, or make modifications myself, but over the years I decided to just shoot the gun and replace parts as necessary.
Over the past couple years, Beretta has experienced a bit of a resurgence with the 92 family of pistols, the civilian version of the M9. Now, unhampered by Department of Defense contractual obligations, the oldest gunmaker in the world is able to build Model 92 pistols that civilian shooters find more appealing. Red-dot capable slides, different styles of frames, different color schemes, and different sizes of pistol are all readily available. They still look incredible, and some of the country’s most creative gunsmiths have pushed the envelope of what is possible with this old warhorse. I have to admit that I want a brand new M92GTS Launch Edition, but only because the stainless steel frame and barrel show up better on camera for range videos.
Since buying my M9 a decade ago, I have expanded my collection of pistols quite a bit. I have even purchased handguns that were intended to replace my M9, but all of them ended up spending more time in the safe as I grabbed my M9 time and time again. Its really hard to explain why, but I think the simple answer is: I just vibe with this pistol, and good vibes are enough.
If this article isn’t enough proof, you can pick up my books, Frozen Reaction and Retrograde Absolution where Beretta firearms make many appearances in the hands of good guys and bad guys alike. Any support you can lend the blog is appreciated, whether it is through books and merch purchases, or simply liking, subscribing, and sharing the blog with your friends!