So I’ve been a Beretta kick for the past year or so. I’ve had a little 25 Beretta for a number of years then picked up a police special 92FS about two years. Starting early last year I picked up a 92FS Vertec and a 96D Centurion that I’ve converted into a 92FS. I shoot the Berettas quite well and have started carrying the Centurion more and more often. In a quest to continue expanding my Betetta collection I’ve been toying around with the idea of picking up a 92FS Compact. Does anyone have experience with these? If so; is there anything I need to be aware of?
The older Italian guns were beautifully made.
No real issues that aren’t shared with the full size, which you’re aware of, so no worries.
They’re about the same width as the single stack 92F-M, which really didn’t make any sense, so definitely go with the double stack.
Thanks. I initially looked at the single stack Compacts but the rarity and expense of magazines along with gun width caused me to stick with the double stack variant. If I want with a single stack 9mm I’ll just go with a 3913/3953.
Speaking of mags; full size 92 mags will work in it, correct?
Standard M9 mags will fit and function just fine in the Compact, they just stick out a little.
Standard capacity on the Compact is 13 vs. 15 of the full size.
I had one, liked it a lot, sold it, shouldn’t have.
Live and learn lol
I had a feeling that would be the case. I’m a big fan of the 18 and 20 round MacGar mags and wanted to make sure they will run in the Compact (should I get one)
they are very nice guns. I looked high and low when I was on my beretta kick a few years ago. Never did start to find them until after I had moved on. Every state patrol investigator I talked to in my state says they wish they would have bought theirs when they moved to HKs.
Check the classifieds over at berettaforum.net, there were a couple that popped up over the last week.
Could you Post a Picture I didn’t Know they Had a compact 92F .I had A 380 Beretta Cheetah I think it was Called, It held 13 rds and was a great Little 380 ,But Just like the 92F .I sold It and went with a Sig
Random image:
Judging from some of the detailed discussions over in the www.berettaforum.net over the past few years (including an extremely detailed recapitulation of a group BUSA factory visit), there really isn’t any signiificant difference in quality between Italian and US production Berettas; in fact, at the time of the factory visit, the BUSA plant’s parts rejection rate was lower that that of the Italian plant.
I consider the 92 series to be a modern, fully usable classic; my personal 92D with Trijicons does continuous nightstand duty, and is also occassionally used for carry, IDPA, and steel plate competitions. It’s a great gun/platform, and has literally been 100% reliable, although I’ve probably only put 1K-2K rounds through it since I got it brand new several years ago.
Best, Jon
I am not trolling when I say I’m glad somebody likes them. I see zero value in the Beretta as a military pistol. Fortunately I was never issued one even after the Marine Corps was finally forced to take them. Too many parts, too big for a 9, goofy controls, DA/SA makes no sense for the military, I don’t like the entire locking block concept…I don’t even understand why people think such a “busy” pistol is nice looking. Oh well…
I have one, though I haven’t put many rounds through it. I bought the gun because I’ve been a big Beretta fan for years. My daily carry gun is an old Ernest Langdon-tuned 92G Elite that’s got thousands of rounds through it in both IDPA and classes. The gun just runs like a scalded-ass ape, and has a single-action reset that rivals my 1911s. But it’s a bit beefy for a daily IWB carry gun in Arizona summers, and I wanted something smaller that felt and shot similar to my full-size gun.
One thing I noticed was that the finger rest base pads cramped my gorilla hands something fierce. I solved it by putting normal 92FS base pads on the mags. I also found that the thick ‘Elite’ basepads act like a grip extender, making the grip as comfortable as my full-size gun. My eventual plan, once I get the action cleaned up, is to carry it with the standard 92FS basepad in the gun, and a spare mag or two with the Elite basepad.
My only real gripe is that CT doesn’t make lasergrips for the compact gun. Other than that, it works just like my full-size gun, but is a little more concealable due to the shorter butt. I tried putting a full-size slide on the compact frame so I could benefit from the longer sight radius, but there’s about a 1/2" gap in front of the dust cover, so that’s a no-go.
I bought one of the first 3,000 or so 92Fs in the country…circa 1984 (if memory serves)…it was my first handgun…the first one that I sold…and the one I probably regret selling the most…
-Rainman
Jon, I’m not doubting that both the US and Italian guns run well, they do, but my time selling them, I could definitely tell a difference between the Italian guns (silver box) and the US guns (blue box) in terms of overall execution of finish and machining.
I’ve owned both Italian and Maryland built M92F’s and FS’s and they will both run well with upkeep.
what!?! You don’t know how to see! Its beautiful 
The rest I agree on lol.
I remember the full size I had being very accurate though.
I’ve had the same observations at Templar. My first LE duty weapon was an early Italian manufactured 92F I purchased in the mid-80’s. Although it was large, and the sights were not ideal, the finish was beautiful, with no rust occurring during the Academy and over several years of patrol use. The action was very slick, and the mediocre trigger pull was improved by an LAPD gunsmith. The most impressive characteristic of this pistol was that it was EXTREMELY reliable–there were NO malfunctions with approximately 25,000 rounds of Winchester and Federal 147 gr JHP’s over the 5 years or so I owned it. I had a second, lower round count Italian made 92FS that was quite similar in its fit and function. On the other hand, I had an entirely different experience with Berettas when I went TAD to a Marine unit which had M9’s. Unlike my Italian pistol, even brand new, right out of the box U.S. made USMC Berettas had a horrible finish, trigger pulls that were agonizing and L O N G, poor accuracy and a rapid accumulation of significant amounts of broken parts and rust in just a small amount of time/low round counts–in short those particular U.S. made Berettas were garbage.
The 92G Compact was probably my favorite Beretta before the Vertec came along. It’s a great size – though oddly proportioned by today’s standards – and shoots exactly like a full size gun. It’s one of the guns I’m genuinely sorry I gave up.
Doesn’t combining Beretta 92 and Compact together in the same pistol description create an oxymoron?
Templar and DocGKR-We actually may not be on different sides of the planet here. When I’m discussing comparable quality, I was concerned primarily with internal component/material quality, not so much the degree of fineness of the exterior finish.
Regarding M9 and earlier generation BUSA Police Special guns; BUSA was allowed a different standard of acceptability regarding finish of these guns. What was allowable was a longer slide contouring cutter tool/tooling use period before replacement (the slide contouring tool is involved in the metal shaping/finishing of the slides), so that as the slide contouring cutters involved on M9/Police Special production became older, more tooling marks appeared on the exterior of the slide contours; the exterior Bruniton finish was actually applied to the same standards as on the commercial guns, but the marring on the metal made it look as if the finish application was suspect.
The broken parts and rust issues on NIB (or “new in crate”) USMC M9s is interesting. I would be curious to ascertain if they were indeed a manufacturing QC issue/problem, or a post-manufacture shipping and/or inappropriate storage problem, or unit armorer (or operator) problem (in the Army we referred to this as the “PFC with a crowbar” syndrome). Military TMs make it clear that there are specific pre-issue weapon preparation protocols to be performed on weapons by unit armorers prior to operator issue/use, so were you present with the armorer(s) when the crates were opened and the problems discovered, or were the problems encountered later at the unit issue level?
I believe that there were also different levels of acceptable accuracy standards for commercial/LEO and military M9/M10 contract 92s, apparantly by DoD contract specifications. According to ToddG’s 1998 Beretta Factory Armorer Class notes, “Each gun is then put in a Ransom rest, settled (3-5 shots fired) and accuracy tested. M9 military guns must meet a standard of 8” 10-shot groups at 50m, while law enforcement and commercial guns are tested with 10 shots at 25 yards." As a Group XO in the early 1990 timeframe, I don’t recall there being an epidemic of accuracy impared M9s-but I do remember needing to adjust the rear sight of my personally issued M9 to achieve POA = POI.
Best, Jon