Beretta M9

The US military's iconic 9mm service pistol from 1985 to 2017 — a double-action hammer-fired design that defined the NATO sidearm era and remains in wide legacy and allied service.

Overview

The Beretta M9 is a semi-automatic, double-action/single-action (DA/SA) service pistol chambered in 9×19mm NATO. Adopted by the US armed forces in 1985 as the standard sidearm, it is the military variant of the commercial Beretta 92FS. The M9 served through the Gulf War, the interventions in Somalia and the Balkans, and the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, before being formally superseded as the US standard by the modular SIG Sauer M17/M18 from 2017. Although no longer the US front-line issue pistol, the M9 family remains in secondary and reserve service, and the 92FS continues to be produced for commercial and law enforcement markets worldwide. The design’s aluminum-alloy frame, open-top slide, and falling-locking-block action made it a benchmark NATO 9mm DA/SA handgun, with millions of the 92-series produced.

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