Читать книгу Gun Digest Book of Beretta Pistols. Function | Accuracy | Performance онлайн

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Experts of the time, military and civilian, saw the gun as functional but boring and undistinguished. One of the leading handgun experts during the 951’s heyday was Henry M. Stebbins, who wrote, “The Model 1951 or 951 Brigadier is a business Beretta: 9mm Luger caliber, 4½inch barrel (not bad for this caliber), locked-breech action, exposed hammer. There is a cross-bolt safety at the top rear of the frame, a poor location; but the gun has a hammer, too, which most servicemen in any country, right now, probably would say is a good thing on a pistol. Eight-or ten-shot mags are available, and a butt spur for the shooter’s little finger. After the last shot the slide stays open as we should expect with a military handgun. Perhaps the Brigadier has the ambition to become just that: a military sidearm officially adopted by one, two, or how many countries? A lot of them once used the Luger, but now it costs too much to make Lugers, at least as standard items.” ⁽⁴⁾

Tepid words, but at the time the Beretta 9mm was not seen as a hot gun. Stebbins had a point about the safety catch design, at least as seen by those of us accustomed to more conventional placement of that component. Not all agreed, however. One who took a warmer view of that feature in particular, and of the 1951 Beretta in general, was a later expert, Timothy J. Mullin, author of Training the Gunfighter and The 100 Greatest Combat Pistols. In the latter book, Mullin said of the Model 951, “… this is actually quite a good weapon. The design is similar to that of the Beretta M92 and has shown itself to be quite reliable. Of course, the M1951 Beretta uses a single-column magazine, which features a single-action trigger style, but that configuration has some advantages. It has a straight-line feed, thus increasing its feeding reliability. The single-column magazine avoids grip bulk, and the single-action trigger makes it easy to shoot.