The Beretta M9 Pistol (Weapon, 11)

Leroy Thompson was the second gun writer I ever became a fan of—right behind Massad Ayoob—back in 1988 when I was a mere 13 years old. His 1986 book “The Rescuers: The World’s Top Antiterrorist Units” first introduced me to the virtues of the Beretta 92F aka the M9 service pistol, which soon thereafter became my sentimental personal favorite pistol once I learned how to shoot. Fast forward to the present day, and I just finished reading Leroy’s excellent 2011 book “The Beretta M9 Pistol.” This book gives a well-balanced assessment of this controversial handgun’s strengths and weaknesses alike as well as a superbly detailed historical background on how the Beretta was selected as the U.S. Armed Forces pistol in the first place. Bravo Zulu, Mr. Thompson!

The tech manuals are available on line so you can geek out on the details, but this provides a nice narrative of the history. Much of the information is available elsewhere as well, but it is well written and provides it all in one place. Worth getting.

This book is product and historically specific! It details the background and production details of the Beretta M9 Pistol. The details are very explicit and therefore helpful. Well researched and written -it is a valuable addition to my 'Firepower" library!

This is an excellent book for any fan of the Beretta M9. The author does an outstanding job detailing the M9's development and use, with a lot of great illustrations and photos to complement the text.

A somewhat variable history of development of his pistol; I thought it would emphasize more specific care and use of this weapon , not significant detail of the acquisition history. This book will not help you increase your ability to use or field strip this pistol. RG

Easy read. If you own a Beretta M9 or 92A1, or carried one in the military you’d enjoy this book.

Considering how small of a book it is, it is well done and has useful information. I've always been a fan of Leroy Thompson, so you know when he puts something to paper it's worth reading. Unfortunately there are not very many good books out there on the Beretta 92 series pistols, so this is one of the best ones even though it's a pretty brief book.

I got this book when I bought a new Beretta 92FS/M9A1. It really gave me the history behind the 92FS series to an unexpected level of detail. Now I can place my pistol in a historical perspective, even though I bought it mostly because it looked nice.