Beretta M9 failures

[RJflyer]

My time in the .mil has convinced me the M9 never had a reasonable chance in mass issued service. My current deployment to AFG is only further convincing me. When I initially inspected my own issued M9, I was pleasantly surprised to see it hadn't been fired much. But of course, the ban era mags are on original springs/followers and had likely never been cleaned.

I see people walking around base with M9s caked in dust. I've seen multiple pistols with grips retained by duct tape. And I've heard a concerning number of people laugh about never having cleaned their pistol in six months. I can't imagine how many of those guns have been allowed to go on with pitted locking blocks or worn recoil springs.

Will a new fleet of striker-fired, polymer guns fix this problem? Maybe, but the skeptic in me thinks we'll come full circle after the next generation of service members inevitably abuses and neglects the pistols they're given.

[JonInWA]

I view weapons maintenance and operation as a leadership issue/challenge. Sunffy (regardless of actual rank held) is generally/usually/most of the time simply gonna choose the route with the least effort involved, unless compelled by either a dose of reality or leadership, or both.

It can also be a result of lack of education and/or training-but that's also a leadership issue too.

Best, Jon

[LockedBreech]

Will a new fleet of striker-fired, polymer guns fix this problem? Maybe, but the skeptic in me thinks we'll come full circle after the next generation of service members inevitably abuses and neglects the pistols they're given.

My prediction is that the failure point of the 320 in general issue, based on treatment of issued M9s, is going to be the removable fire control unit.

[JonInWA]

I view weapons maintenance and operation as a leadership issue/challenge. Sunffy (regardless of actual rank held) is generally/usually/most of the time simply gonna choose the route with the least effort involved, unless compelled by either a dose of reality or leadership, or both.

It can also be a result of lack of education and/or training-but that's also a leadership issue too.

Best, Jon

LOL...make that "Snuffy" not "Sunffy"...Ahhh, y'all got the idea...!

Best, Jon

[TOTS]

Again, I can only speak to units I have knowledge of, but generally speaking the AF has qual mules that are assigned to the CATM shop and used for qualifying base populace. When that user goes on a deployment or mission that requires them to be armed, they take their own personally assigned weapon. This is why some of Berettas have basically never been fired and others rattle when you look at them hard.

Absolutely concur. This has been my experience throughout several units on several bases throughout 15 years of carrying an M9 in the USMC.

[Jeep]

I view weapons maintenance and operation as a leadership issue/challenge. Sunffy (regardless of actual rank held) is generally/usually/most of the time simply gonna choose the route with the least effort involved, unless compelled by either a dose of reality or leadership, or both.

It can also be a result of lack of education and/or training-but that's also a leadership issue too.

Best, Jon

And it is a leadership issue that is hard to fix. Our .45's were treated the same way M9's are now and M17's will be treated. We never replaced recoil springs or magazines or basically anything. Those were all expendable items and no one had the budget to deal with even such minor expenses. (Paper for copiers was an expendable item also, but it was an important one so copier paper was bought in bulk.

Besides, "back in the day" probably a majority of unit armorers were both incompetent and lazy--they wanted the weapons to never be touched--and the zero defects military culture strongly supported that attitude. Leaving weapons in the arms racks until they were cleaned (and most definitely not lubed--oil picked up carbon and so looked dirty)before the annual IG inspection was the preferred way for dealing with them.

M9 problems are easy to fix by lubing the weapon, changing recoil springs and assigning one operator to the weapon and training him to look for cracks developing on the locking block. I recently replaced a block that started cracking at 14,000 rounds, but I inspected it every time I cleaned it. I don't doubt that SF units 20 years ago had all sorts of problems with them, but what can one do when the Army refuses to update specs so they still had Gen 1 locking blocks?

In other words, the problem here isn't the weapon any more than were the problems with our .45's. It is a combination of historically dysfunctional systems and procedures that create such problems and are beyond any easy ability to fix.

The only good thing is that bad-guy militaries tend to have even more dysfunctional systems.

[LangdonTactical]

Did the military get the new locking blocks or where they stuck with what was originally spec'd out. Also, I've heard horror stories about non Beretta replacement parts by third party vendors. One example is a shipment of replacement grips that were one sided.

The Army has bought lots of locking bocks, most of which did not come from Beretta.

[Jeep]

The Army has bought lots of locking bocks, most of which did not come from Beretta.

Because buying stuff at the lowest conceivable price saves money even if it doesn't work--and even if you actually don't get the lowest conceivable price.

Here is a true Big Army procurement tale. It is a dated but it tells a continuing procurement tale. As we know the DOD is committed to getting the best possible quality at the lowest possible price. Except, of course, it may not buy from non-qualified contractors. And sometimes it must buy from politically connected contractors. Like when the Little Bird was pushed aside for the Kiowa because the Little Bird was made by Hughes and the Kiowa by Bell, and Bell (and its parent, Textron) was friendly to highly placed politicians.

And, of course, sometimes the politically favored contractor is only politically favored because it meets some "set aside" reserved for favored groups. And sometimes, DOD organizations like Big Army are desperate to buy from a favored group in order to meet a politically required set-aside non-quota (it's a non-quota because quotas would, of course, be illegal). That often tends to happen with commodity-type products such as food and PO, and more than occasionally is the favored-group contractor is little more than a front for a larger contractor run by a non-favored group.

So, back in the day, a crack mechanized division needed diesel fuel. It needed a lot of diesel fuel. It was a perfect, relatively high-dollar contract to provide to a favored-group contractor and would help DOD meet its required non-quota. This contractor was essentially one man and a telephone. On getting the contract, he immediate passed along the requirements to the larger contractor--who had a problem. It could not buy enough diesel from the small refineries it did business with, but was able to buy extra aviation fuel extremely cheaply because of a production overrun or something. So some of the diesel was blended with aviation fuel. And some of the aviation fuel was simply marked diesel. Aviation fuel and diesel are very similar.

Not similar enough for tank engines of the time (that would soon change) and so a certain tank battalion in said mechanized division got 10,000 gallons of aviation fuel to feed its tanks. That did not work well--the injectors on every single engine melted and 54 or so main battle tanks had to have their engines replaced and those engines had to be fixed at Anniston.

But the good news is that the politically required non-quota was met, and that is what mattered.

Anyway, I 'm pretty sure Big Army went out-of-pocket more on this (and a hundred other similar tales) than it did with all the money wasted on bad locking blocks and prematurely battered-to-death guns. Because in the end of the day, Big Defense isn't really about fighting capability except in times of existential war--its about keeping Washington happy through keeping contract dollars going to politically favored directions and engaging in various social and economic and other experiments to please powerful Senators and the like.