New Beretta 92X Performance

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Mar 30, 2015
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Location
Lake Havasu City, Arizona
I just picked it up yesterday, so not a lot to report yet, except initial observations. Overall the gun looks really nice. Beretta did a nice job. Minimal to non existent tooling marks. Slide to frame fit is excellent, and the gun feels good in the hand. It's HEAVY with the steel frame. Empty around 47 ounces. With a full 20 round magazine it's close to 56 ounces.

I have no idea why Beretta ships a non carry target pistol with 15 round mags? I already had ordered 3, 20 round Mec-Gar mags for it from Greg Cote. They arrived before the gun. They fit and lock up every bit as well as the 2, 15 rounders the gun ships with.

It has nice deep "sawtooth" serrations at both the front and rear of the slide. And the slide can be easily manipulated with either. It comes with a steel guide rod. Sights look good. A red fiber optic front with a fully adjustable serrated rear. The rear sight extends rearward to achieve a bit longer sight radius. Both front and rear sights are dovetailed.

They modified the standard Beretta takedown lever, to extend out a bit as a type of a "gas pedal" thumb rest, that you're starting to see more of on some of these modified race guns.

It has a nice machined beveled mag well. The frame is not Stainless, but carbon steel with Beretta's proprietary Nistan finish. It looks and feels a lot like Armoloy, or the Nickel Boron Nitride finish you see on AR bolt carrier groups. And it has the same nice slick lubricity to it.

The trigger let off, along with the short reset is really nice. Better than I expected, and the best yet that I've come across on any Beretta. I'm guessing it's at around 3.5 to 4 pounds. The gun has a frame mounted ambidextrous safety with no decock. If you really wanted to carry this thing, you can do it cocked and locked.

It comes in a nice lockable case, that I believe is made for Beretta by Negrini. (Not 100% sure about this). However, they could have done a little better than the cheap "egg crate" foam rubber. Especially for a gun in this price range. It comes with 2 sets of synthetic grips.

Because this is strictly a range gun, I have a set of these wood grips on order. (I have just as hard of a time getting away from wood grips, as I do bacon). They look just jazzy enough, without making the thing look like a Mexican cartel special. I was surprised to find them. The 92X Performance is not a high volume production gun, and grip makers are sometimes reluctant to make grips for a gun that isn't going to have a big market.

https://www.tacticalmakgrips.com/co...gun-grips/products/beretta-92x-wood-gun-grips

These are a few quick and dirty phone pics. (You can see the difference between the 15 and 20 round mags when inserted in the gun. The middle photo shows the 20 rounder).

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Solid combo. Still an icon.
 

Solid combo. Still an icon.

These are the Mec-Gar 20 rounders I went with from Greg Cote. They're priced A LOT more reasonably. (Less than half). The only difference is the bumper pad / extension is Polymer instead of anodized Aluminum. Which is better anyway if you dump them on concrete or gravel, if you play run and gun.

 
This is a 92F which was made for the bank of Italy, Inox. I added the stainless guide rod, and went with the ultra thin grips from Wilson Combat.
I'd really like to have the rail under the frame, but this one shoots great as is. The two mods helped a bit.
On yours, what is the purpose for that hump in the middle of the slide opening, notice mine is straight.

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..... On yours, what is the purpose for that hump in the middle of the slide opening, notice mine is straight.
It's not really a "hump". The 92X Performance has the thicker, heavier Brigadier slide. Except for the finish and the slide mounted safety, it's the same as the slide on my Wilson Combat Brigadier Tactical 92.

What you're seeing is the added material that is left by not machining the contour all the way across. This is done to leave as much material in the locking block area. My standard 92 FS is similar to yours, (lower photo), and has the thinner slide.

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I have an m9a1 and absolutely love the thing. I have a #13 spring going into it soon and going to polish up the internals. It’s the smoothest shooting 9 ive had other than an sp01, although I prefer the ergos and grip of the beretta so that’s what I stuck with. This is really making me debate getting an rdo model
 
The new grips finally arrived yesterday all the way from Turkey, via DHL and the Post Office. It was a bit of a job getting them on. I had to hand fit all 3 areas around the mag release, safety, and the slide release. As well as slightly enlarge the holes for the grip bushings.

Both grip panels were CNC machined to fit around these areas, but they were both cut a bit on the small side. While it made installing them more of a job, I was glad they left a bit of fitting stock. The flip side would have been to have cut them oversize, then have a sloppy fit. I used riffler files, took my time, and finally achieved a perfect fit on both sides.

So while it was a PITA, and took a couple of hours of fitting and checking, I ended up with a nice perfect fit on both panels. The Stainless Steel, gold TIN coated, Torx Head grip screws were something else I added. They turned out to be a perfect length, and the ends didn't protrude into the mag well. They fit the counterbores in the grips perfectly. They accent the gold Beretta crest and lettering nicely.

So overall I'm happy with them. They look a lot nicer than the cheap, stock black plastic panels. Hopefully after the holiday is over with next week, I'll get this thing out to the range, and see how well it runs. I'm going to take a bunch of different 9 MM ammo with. This will be the first time I'll use the local indoor range here. (It's too hot this time of year to shoot outside for any length of time).


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