Selected Handgun Detail

Manufacturer
	Fabbrica D' Armi Pietro Beretta SpA More Info

About the Gun

Large alloy-frame DA/SA service pistol with an open-top steel slide, rounded trigger guard, and checkered black plastic grips. Early slides use a stepped profile; later original guns use a straight slide. The manual safety is frame-mounted, and the magazine release sits in the lower left grip panel. Double-stack magazine. Blued slide over an anodized alloy frame.

Production

Production ran from 1976 through 1981.

Market value

MSRP at production was around $400. Current used market value for examples in good to very good condition ranges $800–$1,600.

Cartridge Specifications
Cartridge:	9 mm Luger
Alias:	9 mm Parabellum
More Info

Analysis

Beretta introduced the Model 92 in 1975 as a high-capacity successor to the Model 1951. Carlo Beretta, Giuseppe Mazzetti, and Vittorio Valle kept the 1951 open slide and alloy frame, added a falling locking block and DA/SA trigger in the Walther P38 pattern, and fitted a double-column magazine. Series production began at Gardone in May 1976. Brazil placed an early service order and Beretta opened a São Paulo plant to fill it. Italian police agencies testing the first guns wanted a way to drop the hammer on a loaded chamber; that request produced the 92S, which moved the safety to the slide and added a decocker. The unsuffixed 92 remained in production only a few years before the 92SB and, later, the 92F took over the line. U.S. examples arrived in modest numbers and now trade as the first guns in the series that became the M9. Early stepped-slide pistols are the scarcest; later straight-slide originals are more often seen but still sit well above ordinary later 92-series shooters.