Beretta’s New 92XI Squalo Race Gun

1. I quit buying Beretta 92’s when they went to a junk plastic safety, junk plastic trigger, and they switched from a durable forged locking block to a junk cast steel one that goes snap, crackle and pop, its pure trash.

   • I bypassed the above post when I saw the cartoon face and started reading below… pretty sure that I didn’t miss anything of value.

2. “The extended takedown lever makes for better control for faster follow-up shots…”
   Huh?
   I thought takedown levers were for disassembling the gunm.
   Maybe it makes for faster takedown for cleaning, but what does it have to do with “faster follow-up shots”?

   • Im thinking thumb pad maybe.

   • The lever is primarily for take down. That lever is also oversized and angled. That creates a stable ledge for the left thumb to ride. This has the effect of stabilizing the entire gun when firing.

   • It jams, hit the take down, Fire, it jams hit the take down, Fire, it jams hit the take down. 18+4ucking times.

     • “Fire, it jams hit the take down. 18+4ucking times.”

       Heard of a ‘New York Reload’?

       You need to do a Possum reload, just reach in the woman Possum’s pouch and grab another gun… 🙂

       • 😏

     • I had a 1982 92, put 800 rounds (no hollow points) through it and never had a jam. Not One. Gave it to a nephew who was deploying to Iraq so he could practice his pistol skills. He told me that the military 92 was nowhere near as good as the original Beretta. Maybe you have an “improved” model.

   • The takedown lever on the 92 is a thumb rest or gas pedal for some people. Beretta offers a takedown lever with an extended thumb engagement point.

     https://www.beretta.com/en-us/product/competition-self-locking-disassembly-lever-for-90-series-full-size-C5J480

3. Golly I was expecting a higher MSRP with that pitch! Not that I’m gonna race with my gat. Looks quite nice🙄

4. My on-duty experiences with the 92 and the 96 were such that I do not own one for personal use. There are other brands that fit my hands and shooting style much better than a Burrito…YMMV

   • Grip took a lot of getting used to with how the M9 was set up after learning on a friend’s 1911 and Glock 17 but they did make pistol qualification easy and NDs fairly minimal all things considered. Would call it more of a avocado than a burrito but perception can vary in funny ways.

     • @SAFE

       Good evening.

       There were a host of issues my Department and individual officers had with the Beretta’s. I felt that they were large, clunky and, in the case of the 96, held too few rounds for their physical size. The Fact that there is no front barrel bushing (or even a tight fit) was why my Department dropped the longest range Stage from our qualifications. Without a barrel bushing or a good fit at the muzzle, the Beretta’s barrel locks up a tad bit differently for each shot – this inconsistency is amplified the further away you had to engage a target. Our previous .357 revolvers were comfortably man-target capable at 50 yards…the Beretta pistols tended to pattern like a shotgun at 50 yards…their patterns (I can’t honestly claim that they “grouped”) were already opening up quite a bit at 25 yards. The flip side was that our qual was finally authorized a 1.5 yard stage (those of us who were Firearm Instructors begged for years for the shorter – point blank Stage). We had issues with sights falling off the pistols, magazine floorplates springing off the bottoms of loaded magazines, barrels rusting within a couple of weeks, springs breaking…these were the widespread issues. There were a smaller number of problems that appeared randomly for individual officers.

       As I said earlier, your mileage may vary.

       I fully expect to be flamed for desecrating the venerable Burrito.

       • hello Old Guy in Montana, im not flaming at all so please don’t take it that way. I have a real curiosity about the Berettas that your dept used. were they older high round count guns or new? the reason i ask is because i regulary shoot a new m9 that i bought two years ago and can make good hits at 200 yards on a full size ipsc target consistently. that being said, i have four berettas in the safe and all are pickey with what ammo i run through them. i went through a law enforcement training school back in 2012 that had the option to shoot our own glocks or use/ borrow their beretta 92’s. they were loose as a goose and had some of the same accuracy issues that you are describing.

       • I was never very accurate with a 92 either. I thought it was just me.
         It was an older one, 1998ish

       • And Good Morning Montana, all I can guess is there was some variation in build quality across models and the years as the 2010ish M9’s we were issued only had the scattergun effect with shooters who ignored fundamentals.

       • @Jake the snake

         Apologies for the late response.

         All our Beretta’s were new purchases by and for the Department. With the adoption of the Beretta all personally owned firearm carry letters, including any personally owned Beretta’s, were rescinded.

         The M96’s were adopted in the mid-90’s. Fortunately, they were such a logistical nightmare to keep parts for (springs, pins, sights) that the Department replaced them in the early 2000’s. I used to take extra springs, sights, pins, baseplates, grip panels, etc to quals to perform field repairs on firearms suffering minor failures during qual.

       • @SAFE

         Apologies, for not responding earlier.

         I’ve said in other threads that if a firearm fits and works for you…then use it.

         I cannot vouch for current production Berettas. The old adage: once burned – twice shy applies to my perception of Beretta pistols.

       • Montana cannot fault you for that and for what it’s worth don’t own let alone carry a Beretta at the moment so I guess they may have gone from logistical headaches to adequate.

5. A collector friend owns a few Made in Italy Berettas, I’ve never got into the brand. The Squalo/Jaws looks like it runs ok…
   https://youtube.com/watch?v=HJfTr73l5dc&feature=shared

6. I’m a Beretta guy for decades and have “several”. The last I got was a 92x RDO Centurion “G” model. I was expecting it to have the standard 92fs trigger with the D spring but what I got was some form of enhanced trigger. It’s not the Performance trigger but still has a much lighter pull in both SA/DA and a nice short reset. It is just a better shooter out of the box than all the others I’ve had for a while. They all run perfect and feed everything I put through them. I much prefer these, the Sig 226 or CZ75 over all the plastic striker guns (that I have quite a few of). I’m betting this newest model may not run the standard 15/17rd mags due to the base plate (ok I didn’t read all the above article that may mention it) as the Beretta flared magwell that’s available as an add on will not run them. If I didn’t have my current latest pistol this one I would pull the trigger on. Nice.

7. I finally managed to sell my 92x at a loss. The thing was a jam-o-matic. Changed the magazines. Got a new extractor. Took the thing apart and cleaned it so many times. Would not trust my life to it. Thus ends my latest and final flirtation with 9mm, the *****t caliber.

8. Give it a full length dust cover and threaded barrel and I might be interested.

9. I’d like to be able to handle a 92XI. Yet to see one.

   Don’t care about the race gun …….. I do like carrying a 92.

   I also wish they made a 92XI with a smooth dust cover. Needs to fit Bianchi #3.

   Maybe it’s coming. Cmon Beretta.

   • The local Academy Sports has the 92XI. I liked it but having just bought a 92X Centurion and right before that a commercial M9 I’m pistoled out for now. Your closest to a smooth dust cover is the 92X Performance Defensive, big bucks!

     • I’ll have to check at Academy. Thx

10. The idea behind the name is cool, but to me (and, I suspect, most English speakers) it reads much more like “Squalor” than “Shark”.

    I haven’t handled the Squalo, but tried the XI (identical “X-treme S” SAO trigger) this past weekend and found it x-tremely meh. If you’re reading this, Beretta, Expectation Management is a thing. Even though I love (and tune my own) light, crisp SA triggers, I never hated the M9’s SA squeeze. If I picked up the XI anticipating just another non-1911 factory SA trigger, it would have registered as exactly that. Creating the impression that this is some sort of tuned competition “smoother action” can only lead to disappointment when it is gritty and mediocre.

11. A better idea would be this SAO setup on the compact. That should have happened already. Come on Beretta. Langdon has a short reset trigger for it.

    • Or the PX4 compact. Langdon told TFB how much he loves it, so it should be a natural fit.

      • I’d like that even more, but I doubt Beretta would ever do it. The only thing stopping me from getting a PX4 is the DA/SA. I think it was Jon Wayne Taylor on here that mentioned he had faster times on some SAO gun than his P229 Legion. He didn’t say why, but I’m sure it was that first DA pull. That DA pull is slower than thumbing off the safety.

        I’ve heard you can tune the Shadow 2 Compact DA pull to under 6 pounds. It also supposedly has a rolling break instead of a hard break which I like. It’s easier to not anticipate the shot. I’ve heard conflicting views on the drop safety of the Shadow 2 Compact. I wish they’d verify that here. Hello TTAG.

        • To me it’s the slide-mounted safety moving in the anti-ergonomic direction. That’s why I was eager to check out the XI.

          Out of curiosity, if you’re open to CZ (the closest the current market comes IMHO to my ideal of the best features of modern pistols and 1911 ergos in one), why would you want a tuned DA instead of one of their SAO options? Is it for that rolling break?

          I agree with your other comment. Beretta seems content to leave their slice of this market to Langdon. I guess it’s the safe move, if not necessarily financially optimal.

        • “why would you want a tuned DA instead of one of their SAO options?”

          I wouldn’t. I’m only interested in the new compact. They don’t offer it in SAO. I think Cajun Gun Works will convert it to SAO. Have you noticed how much the price has increased since the Shadow 2 Compact came out? At the current price plus converting it, I would just get the DWX compact. I still want to know if the Shadow 2 Compact is drop safe.

          Regarding the Beretta PX4 safety, although is doesn’t look like it, it still sweeps off with the same motion as a traditional safety. The positive thing about it is that once it’s off, it’s out of the way, unlike some other manual safeties that you can’t comfortably rest your thumb on.

        • Ah, thanks for the explanation, and no I hadn’t seen the price increase.

          I don’t think I’ve ever held a PX4, but I’ve heard that many times about the 92 / M9. The problem with that is, the trailing edge of the 92 safety is parallel to the force vector that actuates a 1911 safety, meaning the force component that motion exerts into it is zero. The PX4’s appears to be clockwise (i.e. worse) from that.

      • Umm . . .
        I thought about that some more (PX4 SAO). That could be legitimately better than Staccato at less than half the cost. Beretta seems slow to respond to market demands. Someone should tell them.

12. “…this firearm is designed to make you stand out in a sea of competition.”

    I thought that was up to the shooter being able to put rounds consistently in the center of the target…

    Perception over substance?

13. Better named “Squalid” or even “Smegma”.

    One man’s Barbeque Gun is another man’s Pimp Gun__

14. Never understood the popularity of the 92, at any level of the market.

    I asked a guy who had been switched from 357 wheel to the 9mm shoot-all-week jalopy how he felt about it. There was a long silence. Then he said something about “extra firepower”, and we got down to the business why he pulled me over in the first place – it seems his kid had killed his first deer…

    Better days, in many ways.

    • “Never understood the popularity of the 92”

      Military and movies and therefore widespread availability of parts?

      • It’s a great gun.
        A little different than other DA/SA autos (like the Sig).
        I prefer the Beretta to the Sig 226, but it is also a great pistol.
        I just shoot the Beretta better.
        People buy stuff that works, and works for them.
        There are new 1911s every day.
        And lever actions.

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