Range Day - One Day It May Grow Up To Be A 92

A couple "new" pistols came to the range with us yesterday.

First to come out after the P30SK was done, and Leah had shot her M&P Compact .22, to her heart's content, was the Beretta 81.

You can definitely see the Beretta design of form and function and it does look like a small Beretta 92.

Unfortunately, it is not C&R eligible, so I had to get my friendly local dealer to transfer it for me, so that added a few more bucks, but I'd say its worth it.

Originally an Italian law enforcement pistol, this one was one of the many that just came in as surplus recently. It looked like it had been fired little, and taken out of a holster even less. Darn nice condition with very little visible wear for a $210 surplus pistol.

Disassembly proved very easy, and quite 92-like, and the pistol showed very little to no wear on the inside either. A quick cleaning and light lubrication showed a lack of any build up from firing.
The officer who carried this likely left the gun and took the cannolli on a regular basis, not that there's anything wrong with that, as I got a very gently used pistol out of it.

Reassembly proved somewhat harder, as the take-down level would not rotate back into position with the slide placed back on it. After multiple tries, realigning the recoil spring by micro-millimeters, and some choice vocabulary, it did finally come back together and off to the range we went.

Firing the little .32 ACP, also known as the 7.65 Browning cartridge, here shown beside a 9mm for comparison, it offers 12+1 shots of a very low recoil cartridge in a compact and relatively svelte-looking firearm. .32 is more expensive than 9mm these days, and is pretty universally acknowledged to be far less effective, but it was most certainly a lot of fun to shoot.

There's noticeably less recoil from the little cartridge than the 9mm, and Leah liked the lack of recoil and happily and rapidly blasted down poppers and a chucky with aplomb in fine Italian style:

In short, she pronounced it very good, and liked the looks and feel of it. She shot it well enjoying the negligible recoil and easily put front sight on target, hit target, and moved on. I similarly enjoyed shooting it and it really is just a fun pistol to shoot.

100 rounds of .32 FMJ flew by and no malfunctions or hesitations of any kind were experienced, just a reliable and fast-firing pistol that is fun and very easy to shoot well. Loading the magazine is also very easy, with no sharp edges or massive amounts of force to get the cartridges to load. It's a very easy handling pistol.

If you want a light-recoiling, center-fire pistol that's easy to teach someone to load and shoot without much recoil to help them develop good habits without flinching, it's not a bad option.

Again, it's also just plain fun to shoot and one heckuva bargain for the price.