After all the bureaucratic bullshit that I had to endure to purchase a second sports pistol… finally the great state of Queensland in their infinite wisdom did bestow upon me the much coveted unicorn-like PTA that I’ve been waiting for. And ta-da!
I finally have my flash new pistol – a Beretta FS Inox 9mm – so that I can compete in centrefire competitions… and after only a mere 13 month wait too. It is this – excessive waiting periods and ridiculous delays due to bureaucratic bullshit and administrative red tape to acquire a firearm – and ONLY this, that has EVER made me wish that I lived in the US. Oh, and sometimes shopping/shipping shit is cheaper if you live in the continental US. 🙂
I was actually quite surprised to see the ‘Made In Italy’ marks on the boxes and stamped on the slide seeing that Beretta have been mass manufacturing this model in the US for the US military for some time now. The general consensus is that there is no appreciable difference in the make quality. metallurgy, manufacture, feel, reliability and performance of either the Italian or American made versions of the pistol… and yet, from a lot of what I have read, the Italian made models seem to be selling at a bit of a premium compared to their American made counterparts. I imagine this has something to do with people’s preference for the Italian heritage when they purchase in what was/is essentially an Italian designed pistol (I know I prefer the ‘Made In Italy’ version, *shrug*). Though there are plenty of US servicemen out there of the forums saying they wouldn’t want an Italian one if you paid them! I guess they got used to seeing the USA stamped on the slide and wouldn’t want to it any other way.
I took it out to the range today to get a feel for it and see how I was handle it with my very little hands… and other than it being a bit stiff and new, I absolutely love it! A few times I was a bit tricked up because I’m not used to the DA/SA (double action/single action) trigger nonsense as the only centrefire I’m really familiar with is the 1911 STI Trojan and it of course is a rather different beastie. I’m sure I’ll get used to it in time and won’t find myself standing there like a noompty pulling the trigger only to find I’ve left the safety on! (The safety? What on earth is that? We never use them on our rimfire pistols!) The jury is still out on the rubber grips, but time will tell on that one. I’ve also had a bit of a chance to play around with it this afternoon and love how easy it is to take down. No wonder they chose it for a EDC military/law enforcement sidearm. It’s not ammo fussy, it’s beautiful and easy to shoot, and you can pull it apart in seconds just like they do in the movies! 😉 I’ll be stripping and assembling it blindfolded before you know it…. actually I can’t back that up.
One of my first lot of groupings… not too bad for a straight out of the box, never shot it before. It was shooting a little low and you can see I’ve tried to correct for it, but not bad. And the photo (below) is a later grouping after messing around with it for about half an hour… where I didn’t bother trying to correct that they were landing low. Still not sure how many shots went through that big hole, but gotta be pretty happy with that for a grouping.
All up, I am extremely happy with my wash and can’t wait to go out and play with it again! 🙂