My friend sent me this picture he took today at the qual range at Ft. Benning. He said the soldier it was issued to was firing issued ammo as normal, and the slide just flew off as he fired a round. I know the kind of abuse training weapons take from my own personal experience, but how does a slide break like this? it looks like a clean break at the front of the ejection port. Anybody else seen anything like this?
Hope nobody was hurt.
Ask your friend if he or anyone accomplished a pre-fire inspection of the weapon before firing.
Very rare, but it happens. Before the M9’s received the slide catch modification, Armorers in the USMC had to maintain round counts. Guns that fired 1000 rounds had to have their slides replaced. Supposedly this is not so much a design flaw as it was bad metallurgy in the slide steel of earlier American made M9’s. I’m glad my M92FS is an Italian made gun.
yup. looks like the safety pin worked, or he’d be at the dentist now.
This is a known problem with high round count M9’s. do a web search for “M9 slide failure”. Some interesting stuff to say the least.
I shot him an email asking if they had done a pre-range inspection and if they knew the round count, but he hasn’t gotten back to me yet. I imagine that it will be a ‘no’ on both accounts. It is fortunate that nobody was hurt. Thanks for the info, I didn’t know this was a known issue for early production M9s.
Well known issue on Beretta 92 series weapons that don’t get preventive maintenance, such as replacing the recoil spring, locking block, etc. every 5K rounds or so.
No telling how many thousands of rounds that piece had seen without any maintenance.
The M92FS and M9 have an emergency slide stop built into the frame that prevents the slide from leaving the frame from the rear to prevent someone from catching half the slide in the face.
Do all open barrel Beretta models have this feature or is that only on the M9 series?
The enlarged hammer pin was introduced with the 92FS
All open topped models post-92FS should have it.
As opmike stated, the M92F series and older models do not have the stop.
I’ve also never, ever heard of this happening to anything other than military M9’s that have outlived their service lives or were not given preventive maintenance.
I had this exact thing happen to me in Army basic back in '95. Front half of the slide flew forward about five yards, the barrel about half that distance and there I was holding the frame and half the slide. I was new to pistols back then so I thought I did something wrong. The drill sergeants didn’t do much to make me think otherwise.
Seen several times. This failure should be expected, especially in high round count pool guns that don’t get required PM.
The 90-series is generally reliable, but not durable.
Damn, and here I’m due to qaulify in a month or so. Now I’m think ing I may need to go to sick call that day 
Doesn’t surprise me though. Those things go a good twenty minutes between maintenance or inspections. Hell, if it’s clean when it’s turned in, I doubt any of them get a real thourough inspection, much less a round count or part replacements.
Wasn’t this one of the reasons that the seals went with the sig 226 as the standard sidearm?
gosh thats a little scary never seen this myself only heard of it back in the day. Hope no one was hurt.
It is sad to say But our armorer Did nothing But unlock the Cage and Roll out racks.Once at the range I was stuck in the Box with him to help 
I got to listen to him bitch about his wife for two Hours!!!
I did see a 92F On the Wall as we was putting Our M4s In for the weekend (I got to be the one to call serial Numbers On all 150 of them:suicide2:)
But I did not realize It was a CF .
we did Qualify On the 92FS and Only had One go down .which i think was a Firing pin problem .
The Sgt took it tossed it in a box and grabbed another from the rack .
When I was in the USCG I rebuilt completely from the frame up something in the neighborhood of 50 Berettas. I have only seen one Beretta do what is pictured here.
However, I have seen a number where the frames and slides were cracked. The slides were cracked probably because recoil springs and locking blocks weren’t being replaced, which beat up the guns.
The frames cracked from overtightening the grip screws and leaving the star washer out.
Common denominator to all of this was shitty inspections being performed by those responsible because we were in a “war zone” and there wasn’t time for it.
That’s an pretty impressive failure.
All of our M9’s are beat all to hell, and probably should have been taken out of service years ago.
The M9/92/92FS platform really, really needs several things throughout it’s forecasted lifespan: Recoil spring, trigger return spring, slide release spring, and triggerbar spring replaced every 5K rounds, sufficient lubrication (and by sufficient I’m referring to the amount of lube, the location of lube placement, and a lube of sufficient viscosity for a given environment), and locking block inspection and periodic replacement (with a quality OEM locking block) as preventive maintenance (the replacement interval varies depending on generation of locking block).
Give the accomplishment of all of the above, a 92 platform gun can be both reliable and durable.
Pre-92FS guns lacked the enlarged hammer axis pin which retained the slide in the event of a catastrophic breakage/slide seperation as seen. Additionally, some early M9 contract guns had their slides made with trace elements of tellurium in their alloy, which weakened them rendering them susceptible to cracking/breaking as shown. Another thing to keeep in mind is that NATO-strength 9mm is reportedly the equivalent of 9mm +P+ in accordance with SAAMI specs-and while the guns are designed for it, preventive maintenance/parts replacement (especially recoil spring replacement) is essential.
Best, Jon