Bought brand new beretta 92. Cleaned and lubricated. Fully loaded magazines will not drop upon release. They need to be physically removed and they stick pretty tight. Even feel almost pressurized when they’re being inserted. Empty magazines drop freely.
Solutions?
Thank you for your time and answers.
Sounds like a magazine issue. What kind of mags? Manufacturer?
Are they factory Berettas, or surplus Checkmates, or..?
I wax the inside of the magwell / grip and also wax the outsides of mags for competition type stuff.Originally Posted by AR-Biffteen
Regular car wax. Repels dirt too.
Check your grip screws to see if they're protruding too far into the magwell and are rubbing against the magazine tube's sides; if so, you'll likely see some scrape marks on the magazine tubes.
A good solution is to use rubber O-rings (I prefer Challis, either individually or stacked to address the need) to give you the screw stand-off distance needed. They'll also prevent the screws from backing out.
Also check, particularly if they're OEM Beretta grips, if the grip screw bushings are between the grip and the screw for each screw. Some after-market grips need the bushings, some don't.
Alternatively, you can grind the ends of the screws down, but I much prefer the O-ring solution.
Another potential cause is slightly miss-sized tubes; that happened to me with one of my Check-Mate dry film magazines (I'm on the Check-Mate factory team), and it needed to be resent through the sizing machine; then it was fine.
Check-Mate magazines have a lifetime guarantee, and they'll stand behind it.
Best, Jon
Sponsored by Check-Mate Industries and BH Spring Solutions
Certified Glock Armorer
I agree on checking grip screw. Have you changed anything on the gun? Grips, mags, etc?
-Seconds Count. Misses Don't-
As noted above ive first check the grip screws and the magwell for any irregularity causing binding with magazine. That being said my experience with factory 17 and the mecgar 18 rd mags is they aren’t suitable for seating full against a closed action. In other words I do not use those mags for a +1 load. They are too tight for my liking, so I run them technically downloaded a round. The factory 15 rd mags have no issue loading as a +1. However we don’t yet know what mags you are using so this may not apply.
An interesting question. I have been using MecGar 18rnd mags for 5 years or so in idpa. I use them because we do a lot of 'first mag will be loaded w/ X rounds' so their one witness hole for every round is really helpful. Mine pretty much shoot out of the gun when I push the release button. My wife started having some trouble w/ them dropping and we looked at it carefully. Turned out she was doing a 'quick press' of the button. She pushed it but released it before the mag came loose. If you look at the mag, the notch that the mag hold fits into is about 2 inches from the very top and about one inch from where the mag tapers thinner toward the top. So the release needs to be held long enough for the mag to drop somewhere more than the one inch distance. Otherwise the release rubs against the full width side of the mag, the mag stops dropping, and you have to pull it out.
Good info in the above posts. Do you have access to another Beretta 92? If you do, insert a fully loaded magazine into that pistol and see if a fully loaded magazine ejects cleanly. If you don't have access, download the offending mag a round or two and see what happens. Can't remember which, but I've had new magazines when fully loaded, would bulge just enough to prevent insertion. After a week or two fully loaded, the magazine worked fine. You could also check the magazine and see if there is more than just finish wear. Look for gouges or top to bottom lines in the mag body which may indicate a burr or mal-formed part.
I have an M9 commercial and I just stick with the 15 round Beretta OEM magazines. And my thinking has changed over the years pertaining to a fully loaded magazine. I use to insert a mag, send a round home, remove mag and top it off to fully loaded. Now, I just leave the mag one round down. My hope is this reduces drag on the slide when loading the next round. Also, I hope this will help spring reliability as well. I know on AR's, it is a well-known practice to download a magazine by 2 or 3 rounds to aid in reloading with the bolt forward.
Hope you can figure what's going on with your pistol. I really like my M9, essentially a 92.
I noticed you said “fully loaded”.
I have an LTT Centurion frame that does this with certain fully loaded 17 rd mags (I think they were the gray sand-resistant ones).
I didn’t realize that Beretta mags could “swell” slightly with loaded (like Glock mags), but apparently they do.
My best guess was that the magwell was just a little tighter that normal.
My solution was just to segregate those mags for use with other guns (where they work fine). But I have plenty of magazines.
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