The Achilles' heel of the Beretta (Broken locking block)

[David B.]

I was shooting my 92A1 that I purchased almost a year ago. The gun has approx., 15k rounds through it. It was functioning fine until I went to load another mag and chamber a round. I felt a distinct "hitch" as I retracted the slide.

I knew it didn't feel right and further examination showed the broken block. Left wing sheered right off.

Take a look.




I've had locking blocks go double the amount of rounds that this one went without any failures. This is definitely a premature failure.

Thankfully I had a spare locking block and after swapping the broken one out with the spare the gun functioned fine for another couple hundred rounds allowing me to finish my practice today.

Time to order another spare.

God Bless,
David

[JV_]

Are you fitting the spare, or just dropping them in?

IIRC, one leg can wear more than the other, which makes the one side that's making contact take almost all of the force. If you don't fit it for even contact, you'll get an early failure.

[Clyde from Carolina]

Are you fitting the spare, or just dropping them in?

IIRC, one leg can wear more than the other, which makes the one side that's making contact take almost all of the force. If you don't fit it for even contact, you'll get an early failure.

Good info. JV, I didn't know that.

[David B.]

Are you fitting the spare, or just dropping them in?

IIRC, one leg can wear more than the other, which makes the one side that's making contact take almost all of the force. If you don't fit it for even contact, you'll get an early failure.

Yeah, the wings need to sit flush with the slide cuts. No fitting was necessary (IMO) with the spare I put in.

Of course the block that broke was the original one that came in the gun. I never examined the fit closely, however, since they are just drop in parts, maybe there was a fitment/tolerance issue from the factory. I don't know.

15k is a little premature. Beretta states on their website that "The average durability of M9 locking blocks is 22,000 rounds." http://www.berettausa.com/products/model-92a1/

God bless,
David

[ToddG]

15k is a little premature. Beretta states on their website that "The average durability of M9 locking blocks is 22,000 rounds." http://www.berettausa.com/products/model-92a1/

The key word in that statement is average.

In all my time shooting Berettas both before and while I was working there, I only broke a single locking block. But it wasn't uncommon to see guns that had less than 10k break a block. We had a few confirmed cases where they broke at less than 2k. It's just the nature of the part. Most are great, some are ok, and a few are flawed.

[David B.]

In all my time shooting Berettas both before and while I was working there, I only broke a single locking block.

Do you remember how many rounds you had through the gun?

It's just the nature of the part. Most are great, some are ok, and a few are flawed.

I think that's a good assessment.

God Bless,
David

[ToddG]

Do you remember how many rounds you had through the gun?

I don't. And all my Beretta data is gone.

[Sal Picante]

I've got a lot of rounds through my Elite... I know Ben has triple the amount through his E2... So far, so good!

Curious, what were you feeding the gun? (I've been shooting mostly 133 PF 124 gr loads... Mild stuff. )

[ToddG]

I'm not clear on what equals triple of "a lot" ...

The majority of the ammo I was shooting was standard pressure Blazer and AmEag.

The Beretta Academy armorer program used to tell a tale about a celebrity with a 92FS that went 100,000 rounds on a single locking block. I've never personally seen one that used or known someone I trusted who got that far but just as there are plenty that will fail before the 22k average, plenty will go well past it.

[DocGKR]

My circa 1986 Italian made 92F that I went though Police Academy with fired over 25,000 malfunction free shots on the original locking block...