I want a D (DAO) Beretta 92 Centurion. How do I make it happen?

[Greg Bell]

I hit up Langdon but haven’t heard back. I wish someone made plugs for the safety holes.

[AdioSS]

If you want to make a 96 into DAO then all you need to do is take the grips off & knock out the sear pin. Personally, whenever I mess with a 92 sear I try to just push the pin out toward the spring side enough to get the sear loose while keeping the spring captured. It is easier for me to wiggle the sear in under the spring than to get the spring in.

If you want you can switch to a bobbed hammer. I have those on my 96G Centurion & my PX4 compact. But without the sear to catch the SA & half-cock notches it is just going to be a smooth DA pull.

If you want to go further then you can find a D slide. That DAO LTT above looks to have a 96D Vertec slide. You don’t see too many of those out in the wild!

Or if your slide has safety levers then you just made a DS model. DAO with a safety.

If your slide has decocker only levers then I guess you just made a new model, a DG

[OlongJohnson]

NIB example just sold on GB for $605. That's a bit higher than the next cleanest one I've seen go, which was a year and a half or so ago.

https://www.gunbroker.com/item/856405012

I thought about it, but for that plus a Wilson trigger bar kit, I can get a pair of P250s that are lighter and not so big.

[Joe in PNG]

I hit up Langdon but haven’t heard back. I wish someone made plugs for the safety holes.

A D conversion would be pretty sweet.

[Shorikid]

I have seen a couple of D Centurions on gun broker for sale at reasonable prices. I think you could have one for under $400 before shipping etc.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[OlongJohnson]

Another one clean enough that I'd buy it if I was going down this road:

https://www.gunbroker.com/item/856796197

[SeriousStudent]

Another one clean enough that I'd buy it if I was going down this road:

https://www.gunbroker.com/item/856796197

Is that being bid on by someone here? If it is, I will not bid against them.

[Bergeron]

I had a D-Cent that I picked up to use for dry fire training and as defensive gun for newbies. It's since been passed on to close friends who are not gun people, but who did recognize their need for armed personal defense.

Great guns at an inexpensive price, handily improved with thin G-10 grips and LTT's magnificent TJIAB.

[OlongJohnson]

Another one clean enough that I'd buy it if I was going down this road:

https://www.gunbroker.com/item/856796197

Well, only had to bump it $5. Wasn't going to chase it, but when the price stayed where it is, I kinda had to go for it. Picked it up today. Don't remember how many years I've had that search active, but it's been a few. They don't come around often, and all the ones before this have been either pristine and gone for more than I wanted to pay or totally beat to heck and not something I wanted to own. This is just right: slightly used, but not abused, not worn out. Just enough to keep the price right. Should be a good shooter. I do indeed like the balance of the Centurion better than the full size model. It's basically the same proportions as the USP and P226, so the "standard" model is kind of the outlier in 9mm service pistols. Looking forward to getting it cleaned up and shot.

[JonInWA]

Nice pick-up. It's a Police Special, which at that point in production meant that the upper slide texturing might exhibit some chatter marks from the final cutter passes-on the Police Specials, the cutters were allowed to remain used for a longer period of use than the ones used for the commercial (i.e., non Police Special) production pieces. As the cutters became more worn in use, the top slide metalwork aft of thew breach grew progressively rougher in appearance (somewhat like WWII Spreewerk 1945 production P.38 slides).

Operationally, it's a complete non-issue, and how "textured" a Police Special slide top is simply depends on where the cutter life was when it came to that particular slide's manufacture.

Other than that, the Police specials were distinguished by a simpler font "PB" logo, and a simple font "PS" shield slide rollmarkings. Police Specials were available with both standard or tritium sights.

Essentially, they provided price-conscious organizations a slightly less expensive 92FS and 92D (including Centurion) options. Eventually, the designation became meaningless and just went away-Beretta simply went with the limited cutter use standard inherent to the commercial pistols.

Your pistol's photos show that it apparently has a Check-Mate hardened steel basepad magazine, but as far as I know the Police Specials all came with standard Beretta 92 magazines as the OEM magazines.

Definitely know how it shoots. While the balance probably is a tad bit better with the abbreviated slide/barrel, it not really all that much shorter-but let us know. In my experience, it's the combination of long DAO triggerpull (with the necessary finger movement/transitions inherent to the pull process) and then the relatively long slide/barrel which make for a challenging single-handed shooting experience-particularly regarding support-hand only shooting....but it's the triggerpull distance and movement that's the predominating factor, with slide length/weight secondary in terms of contributory difficulty.

Best, Jon