Unknown Facts About 9mm Firearms Made Known

Accurizing the Beretta M9 (or 92FS, which will be the model number given to the version which is available to the civilian population in general) is one area that competitive shooters are already doing for a while essentially, but how to do it's a relatively unknown art.

Basically a simple little survey of sorts. We currently possess the M9 (Beretta 92FS 9mm Pistols) as the conventional issue side arm for many military MOS's.

Luckily, it's not that much different from what you should need to do to make just about any gun accurate. There are actually some options that can also make the gun last a lot longer in the event that you are a competitive shooter and need the frame (made of aluminum) to last for 10,000 rounds or maybe more.

The most difficult a component of the whole process is the trigger job itself, that permits the shooter to fire the gun accurately without disturbing the sight alignment. Most military-grade guns "out of the box" have a relatively heavy "single action" trigger pull of between 5 and 8 pounds for safety reasons (i.e. to avoid accidentally discharging the gun). For many marksmanship competitions, trigger pull has to be at least 2.5 to 3 pounds. For "Service Pistol" competitions, the rule is 4 pounds minimum. In the event that you are not just a professional gunsmith: take the gun to a gunsmith, let him/her handle that a part of the work. You will be happier with the result for a number of reasons, not the very least of which is the proven fact that doing a trigger job on a Beretta is a serious pain. It entails several iterations of taking the sear out of the frame and re-installing it to test pull weight, and getting the sear in and out of the gun is difficult even if you've done it a hundred times. So do yourself a big favor and just tell your gunsmith what your minimum trigger pull must be.

Sear and hammer surfaces. The sear has a return spring which must be carefully removed and re-installed correctly whenever work is performed on the sear. Take pictures prior to removal to ensure you may replace it the way it's supposed to be. The sear surface must be polished (buffing wheel or rotary tool) and a relief angle cut (similar to what you should do when doing sear work on a 1911) but do not modify the sear angle itself, or perhaps the gun may very well be unsafe. The hammer hooks need to be polished with a stone. Apply pressure-sensitive marking material (Dykem or any other layout fluid), re-assemble everything and test everything. Disassemble and observe the bearing surfaces of the sear and hammer hooks to ensure there is consistent sear contact across the entire width of both the hammer hooks.

If you're a professional, qualified and insured: the trigger pull weight on a Beretta results from a mix of the condition of the sear surface and hammer hook surface, plus spring condition.