Quoted: You have to pull the trigger on an m-4/m,-16 to rack-safe it too.  Problem solved by looking into the chamber before pulling trigger (much easier to do on a glock than an m-4/m-16 imho

Why the military requires hammers down for storage is beyond me.

Quoted: Quoted: My only question is this: Why not Glock?  More capacity, more reliable, cheaper to maintain, easy to disassemble..... Rant off The beretta is a nice gun and all, but it's just not a good military arm.  It's complex (compaired to glocks, etc),  It's tolerances are too tight (makes it easy to cause a malfunction when dirty), and weighs more then a glock 17.   IMHO, the G17 is about as perfect of a military handgun as you can get. The one time Glock had a chance at competing, they refused to grant the US Military access to the Tenifer specs and details, thus placing themselves out of the testing / bidding. I suspect they will do the same this time as well with the worldwide Police market at their fingertips. Any handgun that is accepted will have to grant the US Military full permission to have it produced by multiple manufacturers, (think WWII) and Glock has not been receptive to such thinking. Despite all the whining and bitching, the M9 has proven to be a very good sidearm overall, and a change in ammo and new, GOOD, mags would make it even better.

This is true, and my arguement was from the fundamental standpoint of the weapon, not the underlying reasons that have nothing to do with the product and everything to do with the company (which is a valid point).  The old saying here is "military intelligence."  They don't do things wrong, they just don't do everything right.  You got me on that one though, good thought.

Quoted: Quoted: You have to pull the trigger on an m-4/m,-16 to rack-safe it too.  Problem solved by looking into the chamber before pulling trigger (much easier to do on a glock than an m-4/m-16 imho Why the military requires hammers down for storage is beyond me.

Less stress on the hammer spring, and the hammer can't accidentally fall if the weapon is dropped, as the hammer is already down (and when the trigger was pulled, the muzzle was inside of a clearing barrel).  It's also easy to check, as all the selector switches are on fire.

Quoted: M-9s are much handier than M-4s in a tank... Pistols are a badge of rank, the M-4 is what you depend on. Why Beretta? Because only two companies provided pistols that passed all the tests, and Beretta's bid was $3,000,000 lower than the SIG one. The difference was in post-sales support (incl spare parts). The actual unit price before support was $176.33 per SIG P226 and $178.50 per 92SB-F If only I had such an economy of scale. NTM

WHAATTT?!?!?!....$178.50....damn, the cheapest  NIB one I've seen at a gun show was $550 ( and the "special edition" ones were going for $600+).  Man those sellers were making some serious net profit.

One of my biggest questions/pet peeves is why we hamstring our military with ball ammo but if 9mm is going to be what is used, then S & W did have a dependable design for that sidearm...
...the Model 39 (7rd mag)
...Model 59   (15 rd mag)

And both of the above models look like a 1911, plus they have DA triggers and an idiot-proof safety.

I have the model 39; very dependable, eats any type of ammo I feed it, and is very accurate.
Some folks have a problem with the mod 59, but I would think whatever flaws are there could be easily fixed. The grip on the 59 isn't that large, and the trigger pull weight is fine unless you are an anorexic, carpal-tunneled, vegetarian weenie.

Quoted: I would not be terribly surprised to see this all end with several issue handguns in both 9mm and .45. 9mm for the grunts, pilots and investigators and .45 for Specops.

Isn't that what we have now?

It would have been a waste to go with the Glock 17 over the beretta or the Sig - We allready have several types of grenades in service.  

Quoted: You have to pull the trigger on an m-4/m,-16 to rack-safe it too.  Problem solved by looking into the chamber before pulling trigger (much easier to do on a glock than an m-4/m-16 imho

You have to pull the trigger on an M4/M16 to disassemble it for cleaning?  That's a new one on me.

Quoted: Quoted: You have to pull the trigger on an m-4/m,-16 to rack-safe it too.  Problem solved by looking into the chamber before pulling trigger (much easier to do on a glock than an m-4/m-16 imho You have to pull the trigger on an M4/M16 to disassemble it for cleaning?  That's a new one on me.

No, when you turn your weapon in, at least in the USAF, to the armory, they "rack-safe" it.  They pull and lock bolt to the rear, inspect chamber for a round, let bolt lock foward, place selector on fire, and pull trigger.  They store the m-16/m-4 in this condition (hammer foward, selector on fire---as it won't go back on safe with the hammer foward).  The reason I say this is:  we turned in our weapons far more often than we cleaned them).

The Joint Combat Pistol is the name for a US progam for a new military sidearm to replace the M9 Pistol. The program is being run by USSOCOM as of 2005. It is the result of a merger of two earlier programs, the Army's Future Handgun System and the Special Operations Forces Combat Pistol. Among the current requirments for the JCP, include being chambered for .45 ACP, having an integrated rail, Day/Night sights, and capable of accepting a suppressor. A new cross-service US military sidearm is a notable event in that there have been only two major adoption programs over a 100 year span of military history. While new sidearms were adopted at fairly steady pace in the late 1800s, the 1900s yielded only the 1911 (the result of a 1900 program) and the M9 Pistol (the result of a 1980s program). The previous adoption took over a decade, involved several acts of congress, lawsuits, and stirred up great controversy. The current program may simply be cancelled (such as with XM8 rifle) or result in little problems, though there is a great deal of potential for controversy.

Things haven't changed much in the past 90 years... Have they?  Didn't this same political crap happen when the 1911 was chosen over the .45 P-08 in test trials?

Just imagine... if the political climate was different back then, this could have been our militarys standard issue side arm.

"Why the Beretta 92F?"  

Because someone wrote the specs for the trials, and the Beretta kicked the crap out of all the other pistols in those trials.  It was lightyears ahead of the 1911 for no stoppages.  Go on, argue all you want, but those are the facts.

Quoted: WHAATTT?!?!?!....$178.50....damn, the cheapest  NIB one I've seen at a gun show was $550 ( and the "special edition" ones were going for $600+).  Man those sellers were making some serious net profit.

We're talking about mid 80's $$$ here.

Quoted: What was the military's rationale behind replacing the 1911 as the standard sidearm? Was it just because they felt that it was an old design?

Political whores bent over and spread 'em for NATO.

Quoted: Smith and Wesson makes good pistols revolvers.

and their 1911A1 isn't too bad either

Nothing else they make particularly appeals to me.

IMHO

I had a 39 and now have a 59.  They are a good police pistol, but I don't think they would stand up to military requirements  I also have a 92.  The only advantage a 59 has is it is more concealable.

Even if we see a return to the new and improved Colt 2011A1 in 45 acp, the Berettas will be around for a long time.  Back in the 70s and 80s there was an ungodly combination of S&W, Ruger 38s, crummy 45s.

Plus we were FINALLY running out of 45 ammo, the last from late in the Vietnam era.    There was also a push to come up with a more shooter friendly pistol, and frankly the 45 is a bit of a handful for many smaller handed shooters.

The competition may or may not have been rigged, I doubt it, but the Beretta won.  I think Colt had a DA Commander, Browning a High Power and S&W a 59.

I still like the 45, but they didn't ask me.

There has  been some rugers purchased by some tank unit

ruger crowed about it on their sight awhile back


link

Im betting on FN's .45 versoin of the FNP-9 to win the JCP

the mil loves FN (M16, M249,M240,SCAR, some M2/M3s)

And the FNP's arnt' hard on the wallet at all espciealy compaired to HK and SIG along with Glock

Quoted: "Why the Beretta 92F?"   Because someone wrote the specs for the trials, and the Beretta kicked the crap out of all the other pistols in those trials.  It was lightyears ahead of the 1911 for no stoppages.  Go on, argue all you want, but those are the facts.

The original 1911 went 6,000 rounds with no stoppages....

Quoted: There has  been some rugers purchased by some tank unit ruger crowed about it on their sight awhile back link

Five thousand units purchased by Rock Island isn't exactly going to outfit the tank corps. The consensus on the 'Net appears to be that the pistols are going to Iraq, not to US tank crews.

NTM

The M9 didn't just replace the M1911A1.  It replaced over 100,000 .38 special 4" revovlers as well.  You have to remember that at the time, nearly one third of the sidearms issued by the US military were .38 special 4" revovlers.  The Army was actually the biggest user.  It had bought lots of S&W and Ruger .38's over the years because as M1911A1's wore out, it was far cheaper to replace them with .38's.  So you really have to understand just how bad the pistol situation was at that time.   Frankly, I was pretty happy to trade in my well worn Model 10 for a NIB M9 when we did the transition.

GAO stated that their preferred method of handgun aquisition was to continue to purchase .38's to replace all the .45's as they wore out and simply go to .38 revovlers for all military.  Truly a bean counting perspective.

The number of ND's with M1911A1's was indeed high.  Mainly due to inadequate training.  It was like M151 1/4 ton rollovers.  Every month it seemed someone rolled a 1/4 ton, and someone shot themsleves or a buddy with a .45.  You constantly read about them both in "Countermeasures" which is an Army ground safety monthly news letter.  At the time the Army spent 15 mintues teaching you how to shoot the .45, and 50 rounds a year to qualify.  That was the total training.  MP's got more, but that was about it.  It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that 15 minutes of bad training and one box of ammo a year will not make a safe pistol packer.  People had no clue how to even carry them safely, and you had predictable results.  Just as the Army "engineered" the rollover problem out by replacing the 1/4 ton with a vehicle that was wide as all get out (Humvee), it tried to "engineer out" the ND's by buying a pistol that would have a DA, and safe hammer drop capabiltiy.  

So you had two different caliber pistols in service, three actual completely different end items (M1911, Model 10 and Speed-Six) in use, and no training.  It's pretty easy to see the mess we were in.

That's pretty much the "why" of the M9.

As for the JCP .45, it's now the CP and will probably only be for SOCOM.  It's been cut back drastically to only 50,000 from the several hundred thousand from before.  Iraq is getting costly it seems.  

JCP info from Uncle Sam.

The M9 will be around for qutie some time.

Quoted: Quoted: There has  been some rugers purchased by some tank unit ruger crowed about it on their sight awhile back link Five thousand units purchased by Rock Island isn't exactly going to outfit the tank corps. The consensus on the 'Net appears to be that the pistols are going to Iraq, not to US tank crews. NTM

The Rugers went to arm contract security  gate guards.  Ft Hood got a bunch of them.

Quoted: Quoted: M-9s are much handier than M-4s in a tank... Pistols are a badge of rank, the M-4 is what you depend on. Why Beretta? Because only two companies provided pistols that passed all the tests, and Beretta's bid was $3,000,000 lower than the SIG one. The difference was in post-sales support (incl spare parts). The actual unit price before support was $176.33 per SIG P226 and $178.50 per 92SB-F If only I had such an economy of scale. NTM WHAATTT?!?!?!....$178.50....damn, the cheapest  NIB one I've seen at a gun show was $550 ( and the "special edition" ones were going for $600+).  Man those sellers were making some serious net profit.

The guys selling them at gunshows didn't buy 600,000 pistols, so they didn't get them that cheap.

Quoted: It would have been a waste to go with the Glock 17 over the beretta or the Sig - We allready have several types of grenades in service.

LOL!!!  Awesome!!!  You made my day!  

I think any number of 9mm semi-auto handguns would make fine side arms.  The Berretta is doing fine, the Sig228 is doing fine.  The main thing is maintenance and ease of use and ease of repair.  

If by chance the US military goes back to a .45ACP caliber handgun, I think they would be fools to go to anything other than a 1911A1 type pistol (Colt, Springfield, Kimber, etc).  If they HAD to go DA, then I'd vote for the Sig220.

I think it is obvious that with the handgun-hardball ammo combo, the .45ACP wins over the 9mmNATO.  Out of a sub-gun... the jury is still out.  

Quoted: Quoted: It would have been a waste to go with the Glock 17 over the beretta or the Sig - We allready have several types of grenades in service.   LOL!!!  Awesome!!!  You made my day!   I think any number of 9mm semi-auto handguns would make fine side arms.  The Berretta is doing fine, the Sig228 is doing fine.  The main thing is maintenance and ease of use and ease of repair.   If by chance the US military goes back to a .45ACP caliber handgun, I think they would be fools to go to anything other than a 1911A1 type pistol (Colt, Springfield, Kimber, etc).  If they HAD to go DA, then I'd vote for the Sig220. I think it is obvious that with the handgun-hardball ammo combo, the .45ACP wins over the 9mmNATO.  Out of a sub-gun... the jury is still out.

Acutally, the hardball ammo puts both calibers very close.  The non-expanding nature of both rounds means that the penetration advantage is retained by the faster, more tapered profile of the 9mm.  Only when you introduce expanding ammuntion into the equation does the .45ACP start to move forward, albeit marginally.

Again, it's the shooter not the caliber (as long as standards for penetration are adhered).
Give any shooter a reliable handgun within a specific range, and it's the shooter that makes the weapon.

But, I agree on your other points.  I've owned the 92FS/M9, the P226, the Glock 19, et al and all of them are very good.  Much better than the worn M1911s that were in service at the time.

The P90 is easier to handle in a tank than the M4.

Wasn't there a brief period where the M9 was withdrawn, and M1911 reissued, due to the M9 having a problem with cracking slides/frames?

Quoted: What was the military's rationale behind replacing the 1911 as the standard sidearm? Was it just because they felt that it was an old design?

www.sightm1911.com/lib/history/true_story_m9.htm

An excellent article that sums it up pretty nicely.

Quoted: Wasn't there a brief period where the M9 was withdrawn, and M1911 reissued, due to the M9 having a problem with cracking slides/frames?

No.

Quoted: WHAATTT?!?!?!....$178.50....damn, the cheapest  NIB one I've seen at a gun show was $550 ( and the "special edition" ones were going for $600+).  Man those sellers were making some serious net profit.

Not necessarily.

See, if Beretta makes 350,000 pistols all the exact same, it is cheaper to produce each individual unit.

It is called economy of scale: Basically the more units you produce of a certain configuration, the per unit cost is lower.

Now if you want to talk profit margin, talk Glocks. Their guns cost about 70 bucks per unit....

One of my biggest questions/pet peeves is why we hamstring our military with ball ammo but if 9mm is going to be what is used, then S & W did have a dependable design for that sidearm... ...the Model 39 (7rd mag) ...Model 59   (15 rd mag) And both of the above models look like a 1911, plus they have DA triggers and an idiot-proof safety.

S&W did submit some weapons for testing, but their guns washed out of the testing. They didn't hold up like the Beretta and Sig pistols did.

holy jeebus, i'm glad Ross showed up to raise the collective IQ of this thread. he is exactly right. and despite what combat jacks says his friends say...the M9 is not a piece of shit. it did EXACTLY what it was intended to to. it replaced the 1911 and the SW .38 and the GP-101's with a NATO standard pistol that was accurate, reliable, and SAFE.

i dont even want to imagine how many NDs youd have with 19yr old MPs re-holstering glocks. the 1911 was a safety nightmare and the .38 left pilots twisting in the wind should TSHTF for them. My dad was XO of an attack helicopter unit back when they bought the beretta. he said pistol qual scores went up by 25% and instead of carrying 18rds in their survival vest they carried 45rds.

ive carried the M9 in some pretty shitty places and sure i might have preferred something else but i never felt under-equipped because i know how to maintain it and i know how to use it. theres a big difference between saying "its not the best" and saying "its a piece of shit".  no piece of shit could have passed the military trials.

Quoted: "Why the Beretta 92F?"   Because someone wrote the specs for the trials, and the Beretta kicked the crap out of all the other pistols in those trials.  It was lightyears ahead of the 1911 for no stoppages.  Go on, argue all you want, but those are the facts.

The brand new 92s were light years ahead of the sometimes SEVENTY year old 1911 pistols that were in the inventory at the time, who had been through DECADES of service and several wars....

In other words, the 1911s were beat to hell. Over 100,000 of them were non-serviceable when the M9 trials began simply because they were just worn out.

Quoted: The M9 didn't just replace the M1911A1.  It replaced over 100,000 .38 special 4" revovlers as well.

Auditor General reports list 25 seperate sidearms in use at the time of the M9 program, with 100 seperate types of ammunition for those 25 sidearms.

A bunch of those 25 were revolvers.

Quoted: Who cares? Pistols are a badge of rank, the M-4 is what you depend on. Why not a S&W 1911 in 9mm? Think you could get 10 rounds in the .45 frame?

Uhhh....

There's PV2s that have pistols in Iraq.

Quoted: Wasn't there a brief period where the M9 was withdrawn, and M1911 reissued, due to the M9 having a problem with cracking slides/frames?

No. Again, check here: www.sightm1911.com/lib/history/true_story_m9.htm

There were a handful of M9 pistols that had cracked slides, and all of those happened inside test labs.

There was a production run of M9s with a frame that cracked under stress, but the Army determined that the cracks were "cosmetic in nature" and didn't effect pistol function. Still, the frames were rejected and Beretta retrofitted ALL the effected weapons in the run with improved frames.

Quoted: Uhhh.... There's PV2s that have pistols in Iraq.

Shh!!

Don't argue with the history channel refugees! We all know that pistols aren't practical weapons in combat, wink wink, nudge nudge....

Soldiers want pistols because they all want to play Patton, remember??

Quoted: ive carried the M9 in some pretty shitty places and sure i might have preferred something else but i never felt under-equipped because i know how to maintain it and i know how to use it. theres a big difference between saying "its not the best" and saying "its a piece of shit".  no piece of shit could have passed the military trials.

Indeed.

Most military folks who gripe about the M9 gripe about:

Size
Weight
DA trigger pull
9mm chambering

All criticisms the Sig would have suffered too.

Aside from some crappy Checkmate magazines, I have heard no complaints that the M9 wouldn't function when needed.

Quoted: the m9 sucks, it has a very fat grip and long first trigger pull making it a tough gun for females.

Strangely enough that isn't entirely true.      It's the only gun I can get my wife to shoot, and she is pretty deadly with it.   Cousin is a cop, and she has no problem with her issue DAO Berretta.  I think they like the contollability of the relativily heavy frame and soft recoil.  

Also, they can work the slide on it because of the soft recoil spring, and the rear mounted safety lever.

fwiw, I was in the Army when they transitioned from the .45 to the 9mm.  The scores went up about 50% right away I assume because the soldiers were not flinching.  There were very few who could shoot the .45 well.  (Me, and the company armorer )     Not really the guns fault, however.  We had crappy WWII vintage .45's and very little training.  (Tanker unit)  

One funny thing about the .45 though, often the "shooters" would flinch and fire into the berm, throwing up a great clod of mud, and getting a "kill" on the reactive targets.

The army transitioned because of a percieved need to standardize with Nato, and the belief that 15rds was better then 7 or 8.

Quoted: Quoted: Uhhh.... There's PV2s that have pistols in Iraq. Shh!! Don't argue with the history channel refugees! We all know that pistols aren't practical weapons in combat, wink wink, nudge nudge.... Soldiers want pistols because they all want to play Patton, remember??

Why the M9 and not the Glock? Because everyone loves the pretty and beautiful Beretta design. There's no room for ugly utilitarian and reliable weapons in the military

Quoted: Quoted: Because it holds 15 in the clip and one up the pipe. That's some serious shit. img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-3/963911/lethal-weapon-1-4.jpg CLIP????? GLock 17 holds 17 rnds and one in the pipe.

And also works as a grenade?  

Quoted: Why the M9 and not the Glock? Because everyone loves the pretty and beautiful Beretta design. There's no room for ugly utilitarian and reliable weapons in the military

Or perhaps because the techincal requirements for the M9 project required a DA trigger and double strike capability.......

That might have had SOMETHING to do with it.

The Corps and Army PEO Soldier solicited "After-Action" reports from the Grunts after our invasion of Iraq.  A common complaint was that the M9 was/is a complete POS and not worth carrying into battle.  Some of the info is still posted on the web.

The Boyz in the Five-Sided Wind Tunnel listened and our Grunts will be receiving new pistols soon.  They will be .45ACP caliber and as described in the solicitation, some will be with external safeties and rigged for a suppressor, some will not.

The 9mm decision was unfortunately driven by our desire to achieve commonality with our NATO neighbors.  That decision and time resulted in the old Berettas being the wrong pistol for our guys in this war.

PC pistol size for girls is no longer a driver.  Commonality is no longer a driver.  Killing and stopping are...as is firepower.  Common sense has finally prevailed.

This is a good time to sell off my 92F!  

Quoted: Quoted: Wasn't there a brief period where the M9 was withdrawn, and M1911 reissued, due to the M9 having a problem with cracking slides/frames? No. Again, check here: www.sightm1911.com/lib/history/true_story_m9.htm There were a handful of M9 pistols that had cracked slides, and all of those happened inside test labs. There was a production run of M9s with a frame that cracked under stress, but the Army determined that the cracks were "cosmetic in nature" and didn't effect pistol function. Still, the frames were rejected and Beretta retrofitted ALL the effected weapons in the run with improved frames.

Strange-on my first permanent party assignment in Germany to an MI CO (1990-1992), the whole post was still issued M1911s-only the base commander had an M9.  The scuttlebutt going around was that the M9s were being held back due to the cracking issues.  I kind of believe this, because otherwise our post was pretty up to date for the time on equipment-M16A2, M1A1, KY encryption, etc.

Of course, running shitbird escort as a corporal down to the Mannheim jail, I sure liked having the extra authority that only the M1911 has...

Quoted: holy jeebus, i'm glad Ross showed up to raise the collective IQ of this thread. he is exactly right. and despite what combat jacks says his friends say...the M9 is not a piece of shit. it did EXACTLY what it was intended to to. it replaced the 1911 and the SW .38 and the GP-101's with a NATO standard pistol that was accurate, reliable, and SAFE. i dont even want to imagine how many NDs youd have with 19yr old MPs re-holstering glocks. the 1911 was a safety nightmare and the .38 left pilots twisting in the wind should TSHTF for them. My dad was XO of an attack helicopter unit back when they bought the beretta. he said pistol qual scores went up by 25% and instead of carrying 18rds in their survival vest they carried 45rds. ive carried the M9 in some pretty shitty places and sure i might have preferred something else but i never felt under-equipped because i know how to maintain it and i know how to use it. theres a big difference between saying "its not the best" and saying "its a piece of shit".  no piece of shit could have passed the military trials.

Just remember to push the trigger forward after each shot when the return spring breaks, okay?

Quoted: Why the M9 and not the Glock? Because everyone loves the pretty and beautiful Beretta design. There's no room for ugly utilitarian and reliable weapons in the military

Actually, because of the double strike capability. If the round FTFs, the M9  shooter can try another double action trigger pull to fire the round.  The glock shooter will half to cycle the slide manually.

NATO caliber.