Hickok45 "Beretta 92 FS Revisited"

Boss94 said:

Love me some 92fs !! And there is more to the cracked slide and locking block issue ( I worked there from 85 to 95) but he is correct that the parts that failed were made in Italy. It was actually a metal issue not a manufacturing issue. I know there are die hard Italian made 92fs owners out there that will argue that it was the American made units that failed. But the truth is certain parts up until the early 90s were produced in Italy not the US. And Beretta kept very good records on what was on what SN gun.

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Cold Steel said:

At the time I worked for NAVSEA in the 90s, the parts I was aware of were American. There was quite a bit of fury on the parts of the pistol testers. At the time, I had a Beretta made in Italy. (I'd had a couple of Taurus PT92s, but though they were every bit as reliable as Berettas, the accuracy was still clearly on the side of the Beretta.) If it was a design problem, the Taurus pistols would have similar problems, I thought. But I never heard of Taurus pistols with frame cracking. What was really aggravating was that in the Navy tests, there were never any warnings. There were no microfractures, no indications of any type; just bang! I still don't know if the problem has been completely solved, but now that Taurus has finally improved the accuracy of its PT92s, I'm sold on their stainless steel PT92s.

I don't know how often it's necessary to replace the recoil springs or whether changing them affects breakage or not.



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Cold Steel said:

At the time I worked for NAVSEA in the 90s, the parts I was aware of were American. There was quite a bit of fury on the parts of the pistol testers. At the time, I had a Beretta made in Italy. (I'd had a couple of Taurus PT92s, but though they were every bit as reliable as Berettas, the accuracy was still clearly on the side of the Beretta.) If it was a design problem, the Taurus pistols would have similar problems, I thought. But I never heard of Taurus pistols with frame cracking. What was really aggravating was that in the Navy tests, there were never any warnings. There were no microfractures, no indications of any type; just bang! I still don't know if the problem has been completely solved, but now that Taurus has finally improved the accuracy of its PT92s, I'm sold on their stainless steel PT92s.

I don't know how often it's necessary to replace the recoil springs or whether changing them affects breakage or not.



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Bede5man said:

My understanding was that the parts that broke were of steel slide blanks supplied from France, originally intended for that government's particular version of the 92.

When that deal didn't work out, those slides were worked into finished 92F units for the US military.

The slides in question were of inferior metallurgy, and some broke. After that Beretta did the mod for the larger head on the pin, and a corresponding milling on the slide, etc., even though no design defect existed, and it became the 92FS we all know and love...

It was something like 4000+ slides, as I recall reading. But the steel was not from Italy or the US



the steel was from Europe. It had a trace metal called Beryllium carbide alloy in it to help harden the steel. Fuel is very expensive in Europe. So heat treating is also. Many Steel makers add harding agents such as Beryllium carbide alloy to help cut the costs in heat treatment . In this case when the blanks were poured the Hardener cooled at a very different rate then the other material and also separated in the cooling process . This caused stress cracks in the steel. You can read all you want. But I was there for 10 years and was in the mix. As to answer I believe something brought up earlier The early frames Had a very small strap in the 1 side that was so small it would crack from harmonics. The fix was simply mill the strap as to not allow both side to stay attached to each other . That ended that piece cracking and they had no more issues with the frame. I could write a book of my time there. Perhaps someday I shall?

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