Product review, Beretta Model 86.
Specifications from the owner's manual:
| Caliber: | 9mm short, .380 Auto |
| Operation: | Semi-automatic, blow-back, tip-up barrel |
| Hammer: | Exposed, double action |
| Length: | 185 mm (7.28 in) |
| Height: | 123 mm (4.84 in) |
| Overall width: | 35 mm (1.38 in) |
| Grip width: | 30 mm (1.18 in) |
| Weight empty: | 660 gr (approx) (23.28 oz) |
| Barrel length: | 111 mm (4.37 in) |
| Front sight: | Blade integral with barrel |
| Extractor: | None |
| Safeties: | Manual ambidextrous thumb operated, firing pin block, magazine safety, hammer half-cocked notch |
| Magazine: | Single line, 8 shot |
The slide, barrel, and small action parts are blued steel, and the frame is dark coated aluminum alloy. The grip panels are a dense, reddish wood which looks like walnut. As far as I can tell, they are the standard 80-series grips, so the after market rubber grips should fit as well. The magazines are blued steel, with stainless steel springs and followers. The frame is rather thin, and the trigger bar runs outside the frame (underneath the right grip panel). The slide is cut away in the classic Beretta pattern, except that the front of the barrel is welded into a large, stationary block which includes the front sight, and which hinges on the extreme front of the frame. The magazine well is not beveled.
The odd part of this gun's design is the tipping barrel, and the lockwork which combines a cocked-and-locked safety system like the Browning HiPower with a double-action trigger. The safety levers are mounted on the extreme rear of the frame and project forward, with the "safe" position being up, very similar to the Browning HiPower. When the safety is up, the trigger is disengaged from the hammer (I'm not sure if the sear is blocked as well). There is also a firing pin block which is de-activated by the trigger linkage in the last stage of trigger pull. The slide stop is in the normal place on the left side, and the magazine release is in the American position on the left side at the base of the trigger guard. The barrel release is located on the right side of the frame, above the trigger, and can be operated by the trigger finger in the normal firing grip (push down, forward, and up, for a rotation of 180 degrees). When the barrel is released, it pops up just enough for the chamber to clear the top of the slide (if the gun is very dirty, you may need a little backward pressure on the slide to let the barrel pop up). The barrel release can only be activated when the slide is forward.
So far as I can tell, the underlying design goal of this model was to make an arguably serious self-defense pistol which could be operated without ever manually retracting the slide or needing a long, hard double action trigger pull. Imagine that the pistol is in your right hand with the slide forward. To unload the pistol, you first apply the safety (if you wish), then release the barrel and let it flip up, then point the muzzle upwards so that the chambered round falls out (I've never had one stick in there), then level the pistol and push the magazine release button (the magazine is forcibly ejected by a hidden spring). To load, insert a full magazine, manually put a loose round in the chamber, then push the barrel down with your left hand and close the barrel latch. The hammer may be left down, or cocked manually and the safety applied. If the hammer is cocked and you wish to safely decock it, release the barrel latch and confirm that the barrel is up, then release the safety and pull the trigger, then push the barrel down with your left hand and close the barrel latch.
The oddity of combining a cocked-and-locked system with a double-action system can be excused, since they are obviously trying to get as much market appeal as they can in a single model (demand for tipping barrel guns presumeably not being sufficient to support multiple variants). The two action systems do not interfere with each other, so you can use whichever you prefer.
The tipping barrel system makes the gun significantly easier to manipulate safely than a traditional semi-automatic. When the barrel is tipped up, the pistol absolutely cannot fire - much like a double-action revolver with the cylinder swung out. Tipping up the barrel is the first thing you should do during unloading or other administrative handling, and latching the barrel back down is the last thing you should do before holstering or otherwise storing a loaded pistol.
The one weakness of this design (aside from mechanical durability, which I cannot comment upon yet) is the lack of an extractor. If you have a dud round or a double-feed jam, it will be difficult to reduce because the chambered round cannot be removed by racking the slide. I'm not sure what the best procedure would be in this case, but I think that dud rounds are very rare if you use fresh premium factory ammo, and I've never had a failure to eject or a double-feed with this pistol. I have had a number of failures to feed with Federal HydraShok ammo, because there is a seam in the feed ramp where the barrel meets the frame, and the HydraShok bullet's cavity mouth fits into that seam precisely. I have fired 200 Remington Golden Sabre rounds with no failures to feed, so I think this ammo ideosyncracy is tolerable. Many semi-automatics have peculiar feeding habits, and so long as you can find one hollowpoint design which your pistol likes, you are all right.
Cleaning is accomplished by unloading the pistol, tipping up the barrel, and cleaning the barrel in the usual way, putting the rod in from the rear. Then clean the breach face, chamber area, and magazine well as best you can with the barrel down and the slide locked back. Removal of the slide from the frame is tricky, and the manual suggests leaving this to a gunsmith. To do it yourself, the first step is to get the hinge pin out of the front of the barrel. This requires driving out a tiny roll pin which holds a small ring onto the end of the hinge pin, then driving the hinge pin out of the frame. Don't lose these small parts, as Beretta doesn't stock them in Accokeek, MA, and appearently you must appeal directly to the factory in Gardone. Anyways, once the hinge pin is out, you can release the barrel latch and lift the barrel out upwards. Then you rotate the barrel latch to the half-way position (pointed straight down) and the slide will come off forwards. Further disassembly is discussed in "The Gun Digest Book of Firearms Assembly/Disassembly, vol 1, Semi-Auto Pistols", by J. B. Wood. After doing this once or twice, I've decided to stick with whatever cleaning can be done with the gun assembled, except for a complete disassembly and cleaning every 1,000 rounds or so. One of those ultrasonic oil-bath cleaners would be especially useful with this gun.
My bottom line opinion of the Beretta Model 86 is that it is a lovely hobby object, but I would only recommend it as a self-defense tool for a certain, small class of people. It is about the same size and weight as a Glock-19, but only carries 9 rounds of .380ACP versus the Glock's 11 rounds of 9mmPara (or 16 rounds if you can still find pre-ban magazines). If you can work the slide on the Glock and handle the recoil, then you should have a Glock (or any of the other small 9mm pistols). If you have difficulty working a semi-automatic slide and you have difficulty shooting well with a double-action revolver, or if you want a semi-automatic but don't like the complexity of administrative handling in a traditional design, then you might want to look at this pistol.
Matthew Park Moore
August 1996, Seattle, WA, USA
mpmoore@u.washington.edu