Pistol: Beretta APX Full Size
Caliber: 9mm
Ammunition: 115gr Fiocchi 9mm
Dates of testing: May 9th, 2018
Total rounds fired: 2,000 SHO
Stoppages: 0
Malfunctions: 0
Breakages: 0
Photos After the Challenge: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AvaVLzoc2_8Mi6QfH1FdEX4HpgG1yA
Video Documentation: https://youtu.be/C7a5cRuELKU
Accuracy Group Pre-test: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AvaVLzoc2_8Mi6QiG7EFS5tE9jPfyw
Accuracy Group Post-test: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AvaVLzoc2_8Mi6QhCH-8SNtPmzQAEQ
Ammo for Group Test: Handloaded 115gr Hornady HAP, Mixed Brass, CCI primers, 6.3gr Power Pistol
Temperature: 70 - 85 degrees F
Timing: Shot from approx. 1/2 PM until 7 PM
Total Time "firing": Approx. 30 - 40 minutes, about 1.1 rounds / second
Introduction:
I can't bring myself to leave a dirty gun lying around, so I committed to doing a 2000 round challenge with the Beretta APX in a single day. Needless to say, this was a lot of work.
The reason for doing this test in the first place was to address the limited number of instances of 2000-round challenges available on the Beretta APX, and also to provide some data points for exploring issues that have been variously reported with the design. I previously tested the APX slide serrations under wet and oily conditions. I wanted to also have some documentation for discussing the following concerns that have been mentioned here or there:
1. Generous chamber area and feed ramp leading to too little support for the cases.
2. Reported Kabooms with PPU Nato and Fiocchi Ammunition.
3. Chassis opening up inside of the frame.
4. Slow or sluggish slide action, possibly leading to failures to return to battery. Any other reduced slide movements due to grime, dirt, insufficient recoil spring force, or deformation.
5. Signs of pitting on the breech face
6. Signs of OOB detonation risks, bulged casings (Glock Smiley), unusual primer strikes, &c.
7. Light strikes, reduced striker force, &c.
8. Viability of Beretta's Lubrication recommendations for extended firing sequences.
9. Dirtiness of the gun/ammo combination, barrel wear, condition of the barrel, and any reductions in accuracy, &c.
10. Finger wear/ergonomics relating to any blisters, bruising, or fatigue caused by the design.
11. Ability to deal with normal amounts of heat; explicitely, I was not interested in a torture test of extreme levels of heat, but I did want to get the gun reasonably hot (indeed, this was unavoidable in order to make the goal of shooting 2,000 rounds in a single range session).
The gun itself has been shot a reasonable amount, and has been dry fired extensively, often without snap caps. I wanted to see how well the gun held up to that sort of use, as I have had other guns that routinely require regular return spring replacements and the like because of heavy dry firing schedules. In particular, the gun has been "fired" (dry or wet) with enough frequency to be able to highlight any potential issues with light primer strikes if they are likely to be widespread with respect to ammo type, rather than particular to a specific primer, for instance.
It was purchased early when the gun was first released. It has all stock, original parts, with the exception of a grey frame/grip installed on it.
Preparation:
This is the same gun that was previously used in my "wet and oily" slide serrations test. After that, the gun was cleaned in a solution of detergent and then re-cleaned again using the Roger's Advanced Gun Cleaning Solution/Squeeg-E kits.
The gun was freshly lubricated in strict accordance with Beretta's manual, which specifies the barrel to be lightly oiled, the slide rails to have a light oiling, the rail guides in the slide, and the recoil spring to receive a light oiling. The manual explicitly discourages oiling any of the rest of the action of the gun, and I followed this instruction. Roger's Premium Lubricant was used to lubricate the gun. This is a lightweight gun oil that comes with the Advanced Gun Cleaning Solution.
All magazines were cleaned using the Advanced Gun Cleaning Solution at the same time that the gun was cleaned. No oil was applied to the magazines, but the "Rinse Agent" was used in accordance with the Roger's kit instructions.
A total of 3 magazines were used throughout the test.
Process:
A 10-round test group was shot at 25 yards from a sandbag style rest at an 8" black on white bullseye target using my handloaded ammunition. I used what I call a "10 and 2" sight picture, which means that I align the front and rear posts of the sight, and then use that line to horizontally bisect the bullseye such that the lines intersect on the circumference of the bullseye at the 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock positions.
After this group, 50-round cycles were shot until all 2,000 rounds were fired. This means that 3 magazines were loaded with 50 rounds (1 box of ammo) and then fired. The magazines were then reloaded and the cycle repeated. If the gun was judged to be "too hot" at any given point, it would be placed in the shade and allowed to cool until it was just comfortable to touch, but still significantly warm. As shooting went on, the gun was allowed to remain hotter than was comfortable to touch throughout much of the last 500 rounds.
One round was lost during the normal process and then recovered at the end and fired, to conclude the test.
At the end of the challenge, another 10 round group was shot using the same ammunition and set up as the initial group. However, this was taken at a point where the sun was around 30 - 45 degrees in the sky facing towards the shooter, changing the sight contrast slightly, and was not ideal light for shooting accurate groups. However, the conditions were judged "good enough".
All rounds were documented with video and were shot strong-hand only with the exception of a small number shot by a friend during the test.
Comments:
There were two incidences of the slide auto-forwarding during magazine insertion, and a round was picked up each time.
Towards the last few boxes, the magazine with the black follower was noted to be a slightly bit more resistant and sluggish than the other two magazines. While this did not appear to affect the function at all, it did mean that it was a little more difficult to load the last round on that magazine than with the other two. This is likely due to the other magazines being more "worn in".
I was very surprised by a few things. Firstly, the Fiocchi ammunition was remarkably clean (outside of the barrel), and the internal components of the gun did not appear to get particularly dirty (judge for yourself). Secondly, I was surprised that the gun handled and shot basically the same from the first shot to the last, without any indication of reduced slide velocity or the like. Thirdly, the barrel was shockingly fouled by the end, with very significant copper fouling in evidence.
The copper fouling was to such a point that one could see was seemed like gold dust misting out of the gun on each shot, glistening in the sunlight. This began to happen within the first 1000 rounds. While this does not appear to have affected the accuracy or function of the gun in any way, it was a rather interesting effect to see.
This the first time I have pushed the lubricant used to such a heavy degree. While I was not attempting to burn off the oil, it is a lightweight oil, and such oils have a reputation for disappearing. However, this oil appears to not only have stuck around, but done an excellent job, with the gun feeling exceptionally smooth throughout the whole challenge. There was plenty of visible evidence of the lubricant still being on the barrel, rails, and recoil spring by the end of the shooting.
When I say that the ammunition shot very clean, I mean, really clean. I am astounded at the brass that I collected. I included a number of photos of the brass, but it looks positively pristine. There is little to no evidence of carbon or other debris on the cases after they have been fired, and they look cleaner and shinier than most of my tumbled and washed brass that I use for reloading. One would easily mistake this brass for being once-fired, cleaned and polished brass, not brass that was picked up from the range as is.
Addressing the specific issues I wanted to examine:
1. I examined and collected nearly all of the brass that was shot, and none of it shows any signs of bulging or even stressed brass. All the brass seems to be in excellent condition, and so if there is an issues with the chambers of these guns, I'm not seeing any of it. Maybe I need to shoot faster?
2. I chose Fiocchi brand ammmunition because it was explicitely mentioned in the Kabooms. The exact kind wasn't mentioned, but I went with what I usually would have used. The ammo is rated to be a little hotter than some 115gr loads, but not the hottest I've seen. It has a reasonable recoil impulse, and doesn't feel like a light loading. I assume the brass used is at least similar or shares similar specifications, since it is from the same company. That's the best I can do. I was unable to duplicate a Kaboom in the test. :-)
3. I let the gun shoot while it was hot and steamy, and I examined the frame and chassis afterwards while cleaning for any signs of separation, warping, or the like. I was unable to discover any signs that the heat even began to have any sort of meaningful effect, and the chassis and frame continued to be mated tightly and showed no signs of warping or issues with the chassis not being held fast. Additionally, there were no signs of the slide velocity slowing down at any point, which would have been expected under cases of the chassis expanding/separating.
4. Because of the surprisingly clean ammo, I don't know how much of a test this is for the slide sluggishness. I do know that with this ammo, the slide felt as slick and ready to move after the 2,000th round as it did from the first. There were no issues with slide movement or recoil spring force.
5. I was unable to confirm any signs of pitting on the breech face. The breech face seems to be slick and as well formed as ever.
6. With regards to pressure signs, OOB detonations, &c. I was unable to determine any significant evidence of OOB possibilities with my own gun. The primers were noted by myself and others to have a more "liquid" look to them than I might normally expect, but I have seen this elsewhere. The one possible case I have seen is that the primer strikes do not all appear to be as fully centered as in some of my other guns. I have included pictures of some of the primer strikes so that others can judge the degree to which that off-centeredness is of any concern.
7. My APX trigger comes in closer to 4 - 5 lbs. than the rated 6 lbs.. This gave me some concern that the striker might have been compressed and worn out, or that there might be some concern over light strikes. The striker itself is slightly compressed in the gun from it's original state, but I saw no evidence of light strikes, and the gun performed without incident. The trigger remained tactile and distinct during the whole session.
8. Beretta's lubrication policies seem to be working just fine. :-) It seems reasonable that if there is a problem with oil burning off or sluggishness of the slide, one may consider changing lubes, rather than dousing the gun.
9. The ammo was very clean, but the barrel got very copper fouled, shockingly so, to me, who is relatively OCD about cleaning guns. None of my pistol barrels have ever been that dirty before. Despite this, I do not believe there was an appreciable difference in accuracy. Given the less ideal shooting conditions for the second accuracy group, as well as the fact that I had just shot 2,000 rounds, I think the second group shot for accuracy indicates that the gun was continuing to shoot about as well as it did when the test started. As noted above, the gun was spewing a golden mist on each shot. However, the trigger continued to feel good, and the rest of the gun felt slick and easy to work with. So, the gun wasn't that dirty.
10. The gun was very comfortable to shoot, and there was no significant fatigue introduced because of the gun. I can't say this for other designs. However, I did notice that my finger got pinched a little bit over time and by the end, about a 1mm x 3mm blister had formed on the inside pad portion of my trigger finger between my index finger and the middle finger. A more judicious placement of my trigger finger under firing eliminated the pinch, but it is possible to do it. The pinch was not the result of the trigger safety blade, and the blade proved to be comfortable to use even after extended use and with it's slide protrusion.
11. When the gun gets hot, the takedown lever also gets very hot. This means that a thumbs forward index on the gun can result in your thumbs getting pretty toasty, and potentially burned if you fire too fast for too long. The front of the slide also became very hot, and was not usable for gripping. However, the rear of the slide never exceeded a temperature beyond mildly above ambient tempuratures. Additionally, the slide release/stop continued to be very usable even when the gun was very hot. The frame and the rest of the gun showed no ill-effects from the heat. The carbon on the front of the polymer frame was hard to remove, and required a good deal of work. The trigger never became hot.
After shooting it, I had to clean it. I used the Roger's kit again for this. The action of the gun and all of the rest of the parts showed normal carbon build-up and were easy to clean, though the polymer frame required a bit more scrubbing to get the carbon off of various parts.
The barrel was another story. The Roger's Bore cleaning compound is an aggressive cleaner and I have never needed to do more than a single cycle of cleaning with the nylon bore brush (6 - 8 times brushed through the bore), a small wait time, and then a rinse and pull through of the Squeeg-E. On this barrel, I was seeing progress after three such cycles, but it was becoming abundantly clear the amount of gunk that was needing to be removed. I began introducing a bronze brush into the mixture to speed the process a bit, but this still required at least four or five more cycles that included more bronze brush work to get the barrel back to a mirror shine finish.
Conclusion:
I really like my Beretta APX, and I am now significantly more confident in it and my own "processes" than before. I have been unable to replicate or even find much evidence for me to worry much about some of the reported potential issues with the design or production of the APX, and I feel that I can now highly recommend it with little reservation.