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I love the internet. Someone has done the research and posted it.
I was trying to find what Beretta had changed to keep the slides from cracking and found that...
Beretta's slides cracking and injuring some SEALs wasn't because of a design flaw. It was not because of hot ammo.
It was because the got a bad batch of steel for the slides which was contaminated with tellurium.
The contaminated steel came from France and was sourced there because of a contract offset with France for their Model 92G's.
It's interesting how the myths persist.
While it doesn't actually mention the tellurium contamination, it does mention that all failures occurred with Italian made slides.
That pdf is some interesting reading because it talks about the stupidity of the process in 1981.
The XM9 selection went from, "no formal requirement for a new 9mm pistol" to "a detailed set of joint service operational requirements" to "We should buy Beretta 92's off the shelf" to "the services have created stringent pistol requirements that no off the shelf product can meet" in the course of a year.
No wonder it's so damn hard to buy new pistols.
XM9 is not the first competition since the end of WW2 either.
We tried to replace the M1911A1 with a 9mm handgun, at least, twice before.
The first time in 1954, the second as Vietnam was winding down.
In both cases it was a shrinking military and its attendant shrinking budget that kicked the can down the road and kept the 1911 in service. It's a lot easier to find enough serviceable guns if you have need of fewer guns.
There have been attempts to replace the M9 almost literally since the contract was signed. These attempts did lead to the M11 being adopted as a secondary standard, but not for the M9 to be replaced.
There were so many requests for proposals that by the time the XM17 competition rolled around, some manufacturers didn't bother submitting designs. Lucy.gov had yanked the football out from the kick too many times.
It's also kind of neat to be reading about the reason we did not receive our M9's despite turning in our M1911's and ammo and signing for 9mm ammo. I carried a Glock 17 purchased from the Patch Rod and Gun Club on the Czech-German border because of it.
If I recall, during our selection of the M9, made by Berretta, America wanted to put Cruise missiles in Italy. Of course, that would have no bearing on any awarding of a contract for handguns for our military, which would have been based solely upon the requirements within the bidding constraints.
ReplyDeleteI am not aware of the presences of Tellurium in the slide of the M9, but I do know what it does, in very trace amounts in Super Alloys, used in the aerospace industry, since I worked in that industry, making alloys for jet engines, among many other alloys for the investment cast industry for over 35 years. I can only imagine that it would cause stress fractures at grain boundaries. It would depend on the amount of Tellurium present of course.
I am surprised that the manufacturer didn't check the raw materials or the final product. Testing is expensive and time consuming but the product reputation does matter.
ReplyDeleteTesting is not really that expensive. The lab at the steel factory that I worked at used to run outside samples for other companies all the time. We were a certifying lab, with credentials to do so and that would allow other places to melt their own alloys for aerospace parts, such as jet engines and ground based turbines.
DeleteWe used to call it creeping elegance. A simple request becomes the work of a committee, who spec a system full of vaporware and unubtanium. Look up the NJSP purchase of pistols from S&W and be amazed anyone would have bid on that design. The state of New Jersey sued Smith and Wesson for building a pistol the state police requested.
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