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Beretta 92

Pistol

The Beretta 92 is one of the most popular pistols in the world. It was designed in 1972 in Italy by Carlo Beretta, Giuseppe Mazzetti, and Vittorio Valle. It evolved from the earlier Beretta designs. Initial production commenced in 1975. Until 1976 a total of 5 000 pistols have been produced. Full-scale production began in 1976. It has been exported to a number of countries. Some countries produce this pistol under license. The other countries produce its copies. Currently the Beretta 92 and its variants is in service with 40 countries. It is used by military and law enforcement forces. A variant of the Beretta 92 is a standard issue sidearm in service with the whole US military. Also despite its age it is still very popular among civilian customers. Currently this pistol is becoming increasingly out dated. Recently Beretta released a number of new pistols that are more advanced. The Beretta 92 is chambered for 9x19 mm Parabellum ammunition. It has a short-recoil action. It is more powerful than the earlier Italian pistols that have blowback action. Also the Beretta 92 is accurate, even at long range. Also some people find design of this pistol elegant. The Beretta 92 has a double-action trigger. However it can be also fired in single-action mode. This pistol has manual safety. Light alloys were used in the construction of this pistol in order to decrease weight. However it reduced the service life of the pistol. There have been some issues when after 4 000-6 000 shots the slide was breaking and injuring the shooter. The Beretta company was constantly improving design of the Model 92 and most reliability issues have been fixed on later models. Overall this pistol proved to be reliable. Data from Beretta shows, that average reliability of this improved Model 92 pistol is 17 500 rounds without a stoppage. One of the drawbacks of this pistol that it is bulky and heavy. Some people find it uncomfortable to hold, fire and handle. Also it is difficult to carry this pistol concealed. This pistol is fed from a double stack magazine, that holds 15 rounds. At the time of its introduction most other pistols had a much smaller single-stack magazines. Pistol has fixed iron sights. Effective range of fire is about 50 meters. Numerous modifications and variants of this pistol appeared since its introduction in the mid 1970s. Its production in many variants, chambered for different calibers continues to this day. There are some copies of the Beretta 92, such as Brazilian Taurus PT92, Turkish Yavuz 16. Also this pistol is license-produced in some countries. These are the Egyptian Helwan 920, French PAMAS G1 and M92, or South African Vector Z88.