Fellow gun collectors,
For the better parts of the past 3 years I've been working on brining the locking blocks for the Beretta 1951 and Helwan variants back to life.
It has been a long journy but I'm very proud of the results.
It all started 3 years ago with sourcing two locking blocks, this proved to be an impossible task on its own because the locking blocks are very scarce.
Luckily for me I found an auction in Germany which listed one, I believe the seller did not know what he had because the listing said looks like an Beretta 92 block but does not fit.
Because of the typical hole that was in the block for centering I knew this was what I was looking for.
The second one came to be by a collector from the United States which supported my project and helped me out in many ways ( still very thankful for that )
By now the first step has been taken, now that two locking blocks were available I could get them scanned by a professional and determine maximum dimensions and minimum.
Me and the scanning technician discovered that the locking block was a nightmare the CNC. All the lines were on even and canted in places were this was not necessary
We updated the design and made it parallel, besides better CNC time this will also ensure longer service life.
Think of it like your car, when you have a flat tire and one is full which one will give in first..
When the design was finished prototypes were made, and I discovered that the locking which I had did not fit in an original Beretta 1951 but did fit in a Helwan variant.
What papered to be the case is that the Egyptians tried to beef up the locking blocks by adding light to wings on the side of the block.
So two variants had to be made..
Additionally I was bothered that that were no radius cuts under the wings, This is not surprising because the radius cuts came later in the Beretta design and are the standard today.
Whit the exception of Turkish copies which for some reason still use the old pattern.
By adding radius cuts the overal stress is relieved from the fracture points. As most of you know the locking wings tend to shear off because of varius reasons.
So adding radius cuts makes all the difference.
The last obstacle to overcome was metallurgy, of which material do I want to get the new locking blocks made. Some of you may know that the Egyptian locking blocks are made out of poor quality steel as is most of the rest of the commercial pistols. (The military and early ones are good )
So I've ordered a modern 92FS block with the help of a friend in The States and got it disected this resulted in a laberetory extermination of steel to determine the structure to a microscope, level of hardness at the surface and core, Surface finish measured in RA and most important chemical composition.
This yielded very surprising results, the modern 92FS locking blocks is made out of a low carbon steel, which has very present levels of hardening.
This leds me to believe that the modern 92 FS blocks are cold forged and then finished in a 5 AXIS.
But this is speculation because I do not work at Beretta..
From this report I was able to work out the best material which will exceed the properties of 92FS block in machinability, corrosion resistance, impact resistance, and sheer strength.
As a result of all this work my project was finally born.. And I'm very proud of the result.
Hopefully you're all as impressed as my self and if anyone of you need more info don't hesitate to contact me.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Wess13
