The contract is expected to ultimately deliver about 200,000 pistols to the Army, with an additional 400,000 pistols for the other service branches.īoth pistols are based on SIG’s P320 pistol platform, and offer advantages in magazine capacity as well as weight and accuracy. Air Force competition, awarded a 10-year, $580 million contract to SIG Sauer for their M17 and M18 pistols. The XM17 Modular Handgun System competition, a joint U.S. Secondary complaints relate to reliability and durability, with feeding failures being prominently featured.ĭespite the M9’s excellent construction, overall reputation for reliability, and positive track record with the United States military, it is slowly being phased out as America’s standard-issue sidearm. Perhaps the M9’s biggest critique is the limited stopping power of the 9x19mm cartridge it is chambered in, especially when compared to the larger and more powerful. Though the M9 has been in service for over a quarter of a century, it is not without its detractors. Beretta’s engineering experience and the quality of the steels used enable this kind of reliability, on which America’s servicemen and women depend every day.The M9 also took full advantage of a smaller 9x19mm cartridge, offering a 15 round magazine that gave the M9 double the magazine capacity when compared to the M1911. It will keep functioning reliably even after being buried in the sand or snow, or being repeatedly dropped on hard surfaces like asphalt or concrete. For instance, it will keep functioning in temperatures as low as -40 F and as high as +140 F, and it consistently fires over 35,000 rounds of commercial ammunition before a failure.

The M9 has been put through impossibly-rigorous durability and reliability tests that greatly exceed any kind of real-life situation–and it has passed them all with flying colors. When we talk US military standards, we talk hard numbers, not opinions.

Simply put, there is no pistol today that is as durable, reliable, dependable, easy to use, safe and accurate as the Beretta M9, the handgun that has rightfully earned the nickname of “World Defender.” A contract renewal after this kind of use and abuse means a product that has kept its promises–and then some. This legendary semiauto handgun has not only won the historic contract with the US military in 1985, but has achieved a triumphant contract renewal after more than two decades of hard use in the world’s toughest and most extreme conditions, from the scorching deserts of Iraq to the frigid heights of the Afghan mountains.

Beretta m9 weight