Beretta’s first machine pistol was actually a full-auto variant of the Model 1923, complete with shoulder stock – but that did not sell well. They tried again in the 1950s with an automatic model of the new Beretta Model 51 (aka M951). This was a 9x19mm pistol using a P38 style locking wedge, and it was a fairly successful design for the company. The automatic model was the 951A, and it included a folding wooden front grip for stability, a much heavier slide, a selector switch and auto trip. It weighed 46oz (1.3kg), about 12oz (340g) more than the standard Model 51, in an effort to make it more controllable. The barrel was also longer by .4 inches (10mm) that the standard Model 51. It was only offered with single stack magazines, allegedly 8-, 10- 15-, and 20-round capacities. In this automatic configuration, is was not popular.
In the 1970s, the full auto Model 51 came back by request of the Italian Carabinieri, this time as the 951R. The mechanism was the same as the 951A, but it now had a few changes in an effort to force fire discipline. The front grip did not fold up and the magazines were limited to 10 rounds. This was (shockingly) also not a popular or successful offering. Instead, the Model 51 was set aside and Beretta looked instead to the newer Model 92 as the basis for a machine pistol – and the result of that was the (finally!) successful Model 93R.
Full video on the Beretta 93R:
“(…)951A, and it included a folding wooden front grip for stability, a much heavier slide, a selector switch and auto trip. It weighed 46oz (1.3kg), about 12oz (340g) more than the standard Model 51, in an effort to make it more controllable. The barrel was also longer by .4 inches (10mm) that the standard(…)”
This machine seems to successfully combine downsides of two approaches to get compact full-auto weapon:
– being conversion of existing (non-full auto) weapon does force certain ergonomics
– use of different barrel and slide does force having specific logistic support for this weapon, like would be case for compact sub-machine gun designed from scratch
Also, can it be assembled with normal 951 slide in place of its’ special one?
If yes how it would affect Rate-of-Fire and how much shots normal slide will survive (note that 951 is of exposed-barrel nature and thus make it less resistant against cracks)?
The “normal” slide is highly unlikely to have that trip-ramp for the autosear. Whether that means it would jam, function semiautomatically, or just follow would of course require a detailed inspection of the internals.
Also, if you look at the slide from above, its sidewalls are thicker and lack the elegant Gothic architecture “scallops” at the front that have been the Beretta trademark for over a century. (See “Modello 1915”.)
Other than just looks, those scallops also help lighten the pistol and make it easier to holster, by not “hanging up” on the top edge of the leather.
The whole point of the 951A’s “squared off” slide is of course increased mass to reduce the cyclic rate. But it occurs to me that going with (1) a fixed foregrip and (2) using it to house a spring-plunger type rate reducer acting on a friction “ratchet” on the underside of the slide nose might have been more to the point.
clear ether
eon
I agree. The open-top slide rules out some other options for rate reduction, and the controllability gained by reducing ROF while chunking up recoiling mass is dubious.
It had never been intended to be mass-produced. It was a pistol for security/bodyguards of high-ranking public officers, that couldn’t be seen with a MAB38 or a PM12S in public. More than the differences were the similarities that counted. New slide, ok (Beretta already made longer barrels for the target models) the rest are minor modifications to off-the-shelves frames.
The Beretta 93R was made popular by the movie, Robocop.
I rather doubt that. The Stallone movie Cobra didn’t improve sales of the wonky Jati-Matic SMG noticeably.
Most moviegoers, even fanbois, had no idea that the “Auto-9” was anything but a prop, like a Star Trek hand phaser. Even firearms experts (like, ahem, me) had to look closely at the top rear of the slide to realize that it could only be described as the result of a savage and unnatural miscegenation between an M93R and a .22 short caliber Olympic rapid-fire event automatic.
Hollywood prop men show little or no common sense in their quest for “cool guns”. As in the “Glock switch” discussed here recently.
An early example dates to the first season of the old Man From U.N.C.L.E TV series (1964-1968). The Walther P.38 “UNCLE Special” is the best known, but the original (used in only a few episodes) was based on a Mauser M1934 .32 ACP. It, too, had the long silenced barrel, shoulder stock, and extended magazine. But it was also modified to fire full-automatic.
The one time they attempted it (off camera, on a range, even with blanks), it achieved a rate of fire of roughly 2,300 R/M, emptying its 15-shot magazine before the prop man testing it could let up on the trigger.
It also melted its firing pin.
The idea of the “special UNCLE gun” firing full-auto was hastily dropped. When U.N.C.L.E. agents needed automatic weapons, they usually turned out to be Madsen M1949 9mm SMGs, a rather more sensible choice.
THRUSH preferred M1 Carbines faked to look like M3 sniper versions. The “infra-red” scope on top of each one mostly consisted of a cheap 5 D-cell flashlight, and a baking tin, spray-painted silver.
Other than metallic silver being a silly color for anything intended mainly to be used at night, it was probably the most sensible firearm seen on the show.
clear ether
eon
To tell you the truth, I rather doubt that bit about the Robocop movie prop managing the trick of “popularizing” the M93R.
I’m fairly aware of firearms, and I’ve only rarely run into anything I can’t identify at a glance, in imagery or in person. Watching Robocop, I knew they were using Barrett .50 caliber rifles, but I had to go digging into the movie magazines for the esoterica of what they’d based that pistol they gave Robocop. It’s that buried under the BS… I’d at first taken it for a heavily modified Desert Eagle, and I think they even used some Desert Eagle parts to dress it up.
About the only way you knew that was a 93R was because they told you it was…
Y’know… I was just wondering about something…
Has Ian ever done anything on the Colt SCAMP? Is there even enough out there to where he could? Has the current set of owners at Colt kept the collection the samples were in? What the hell happened to those?