Anyone here with Beretta 92 FS?

[themalicious0ne]

I was about to reply that the only way to find out would be to test it. These situations dont happen to us every day shooters.

Andywest. I believe the hammer would be in the cocked and locked position after firing multiple rounds, so it would have to be bumped forward not back as if the hammer was in rest.

[AndyWest]

Malicious, the 92FS doesn't have a "cocked-and-locked" mode (much as I wish it did) but I get your jist. I was pointing out a possibility if the hammer was fully down before the cop kicked it, if that wasn't clear. I agree it would be great if OP son-of-a-gun could get hold of a 92FS and handle it.

[themalicious0ne]

Another thing the OP may want to look into which could be very helpful in answering the question of, did he shoot himself or did the cops would actually be very very easy if you could get your hands on some of the evidence. In Forensics it is very easy to tell by the type of wound sustained by the "victim" where he shot himself point blank or it was at a distance. I apologize as this may be gruesome to some readers. If the barrel was placed against his forehead, there would be "tears" around the hole typically in diamond form where the pressure from the escaping gases go against the skin and litterally blow it apart. Also from a point blank or close range there would be significant residue and burn marks on the skin. I am not sure though if back then they would take all this evidence. Research on this topic as its been a few years since I went to school for CJ and specialized in forensics. Pictures taken to an expert or analyst could probably conclude if it was point blank or not. Also im not sure what calibre the police were using but by the shards collected in his head you may be able to determine the most likely calibre as well as compare it against the firearms used by the police and in fact find the type of bullet used compared to each partys weapon, may it be fmj, hollowpoint, or try and find the actual weight of the round. For instance if one party was using 124 gr and the other using 115gr and the shrapnel they found inside the head was between 116gr and 124gr. you have your answer. The true answer to your original question may be unsolvable to what happened but, if the person shot themself discovered by the evidence you could conclude one way and if he was shot by the police, possibly the other.

Again im not sure if you can access any of this but I feel if someone could revisit the evidence, providing the gathered enough, or still have it; you could very feasably find the truth

[themalicious0ne]

AndyWest, you are completely right I mispoke, or mistyped Not cocked and "locked" but I guess cocked back.

I also understood what you were saying, I was unsure if the OP would though. I am not sure if he/she is familiar with firearms and wanted to help clarify. I didnt mean to offend. By the way, great job on experimenting on your weapon as I am also curious. I would not recommend what I suggested though. Supposedly the "said" gun was not damaged, I would not risk it with my own.

[Marred]

I tried hitting my 92fs with my hand in all manner of ways and nothing happened except my hand hurting.

[AndyWest]

Marred:

With the safety off, hammer fully down/forward, if you push the muzzle with the base of your palm, the slide should retract a bit with the barrel and the hammer should rest at half-cocked. Same if you smack it hard, like a kick might do. It would be weird if our pistols behaved differently doing this.

[Marred]

Andy, I guess I didn't hit my 92 the way you state and you are absolutely correct that this type of kick would cause a half cocked condition. My hand probably was hurting too much to hit it that hard and I love my Beretta to much to kick it.

[son-of-a-gun]

hi again,

sorry for the delay answering your great and helpful postings.
as I see you`ve been testing the matter and made sucess in getting the hammer from full to half-cocked state by hitting the weapon hard.

Questions on that:

1. were the tested weapons chamber loaded?

2. specially for the pic posted by andywest:

how did you make sure your weapon couldn`t fall off that surface when you hit it?

Were tests being made with the weapon laying freely on a surface? But how then to hit it (in front) without the force driving it away?

In other words: The force you deliver by hitting the weapon right in front of the muzzle must go somewhere: if the weapon is being held by the other hand it`s understandable that the force will do something to the internals.
but: if the weapon just lies freely on the ground or a table and you hit it, it will most probably just being pushed away.

@themalicious0ne:

the wound in the head was said to have the typical morphology of a superimposed shot. The bullet was said to have left the head again on the backside. However, this kind of suicidal shot is no common method of shooting in the head. The victim must have pointed the gun a little above the point between his eyes, gripped by one or both hands, superimposed the barrel onto his forehead and pulled the trigger.
The common method would be to shoot from aside into the temple.
However, the selected method is much to 100% lethal, while the other one could be survived.
The place they supposedly have found the gun after that seems strange:
it had been resting on the chest of the dead with one hand on it.
Shouldn`t it have been tossed away by the blowback the dead mans hand couldn`t hold against anymore?
But please don`t test THAT!

[AndyWest]

son-of-a-gun:

I see you`ve been testing the matter and made sucess in getting the hammer from full to half-cocked state by hitting the weapon hard.

No! The testing I did was from UN-cocked (hammer down) to half-cocked. I was testing the case where someone could kick an uncocked (hammer down) 92FS and cause it to become half-cocked. Is that clear?

[son-of-a-gun]

No! The testing I did was from UN-cocked (hammer down) to half-cocked. I was testing the case where someone could kick an uncocked (hammer down) 92FS and cause it to become half-cocked. Is that clear?

oooops. i'm so sorry to have so misunderstood that. That is clear now.
But what's the idea behind this? Probably I misunderstood that too easily cause I thought the initial situation to be very clear.

The weapon in that criminal case I described should have been (fully) cocked, supposed to have become half-cocked by the kick of an officer.

Thus, if testing something it should be the following:

1. get the beretta chamber loaded to a full-cocked state

2. hit it in every way you can imagine to see if the hammer falls to half-cocked.

3. when doing no.2 make sure the weapon is without a force that antagonizes the force of your hitting, that is: do not hold it in the other hand, do not squeeze it in a bench-vise but leave it alone on an open surface where that lovely little piece of art is free to escape from its torture.

[AndyWest]

son-of-a-gun wrote:

But what's the idea behind this? Probably I misunderstood that too easily cause I thought the initial situation to be very clear.

The initial situation was very clear. My idea was only to test different situations where the pistol could become half-cocked, perhaps as an exercise in the 92FS mechanics. I apologize for the misunderstanding.

I still have found no reasonable situation where the 92FS could go from full to half-cocked with a kick or any other simple force.

[son-of-a-gun]

I still have found no reasonable situation where the 92FS could go from full to half-cocked with a kick or any other simple force.

@andywest:

thank you anyway - you`ve been of great help and I appreciate your input and interest in the matter.

I will point some guys in a gunsmith-board to that question soon - they should know very well about internal mechanics of such weapons.
I'll cross-post the links if allowed here.

But meanwhile some other possibility came to my mind:

The suspected is said to have shot himself right in the forehead, that is, a point about 0.8 inches above root of the nose with a straight and superimposed shot.
This shouldn't be so easy to handle with ONE HAND. Thumb pulling the trigger.
So the suspected could have used both his hands having TWO thumbs on the trigger (do they fit there?).
What could be the outcome in cock-state if the trigger is blocked from returning to its resting position by a pair of thumbs beeing stuck?

[warningshot]

Great questions. Be careful. As much as I love TFL, I would hate to re-learn how to drive a car by Q&A on the internet.

[nimbleVagrant]

What could be the outcome in cock-state if the trigger is blocked from returning to its resting position by a pair of thumbs beeing stuck?

The trigger does not need to be reset for the hammer to recock after discharging a round.

The reason the handgun was found with a chambered live round in a half-cocked condition was because that is what it was designed to do. The beretta 92 model features a hammer drop catch mechanism which is specifically designed to prevent discharge when the handgun is dropped or in this case, kicked. More specifically, in the event that the hammer is disengaged from the sear without the trigger being pulled and remaining pulled through the entire stroke of the hammer, the hammer is caught in the "half-cocked" position by a notch on the sear.

Why the hammer was disengaged from the sear is a matter of physics and other variables ranging from, the condition of the gun, i.e. mechanical wear; type, condition and amount of lubrication; cleanliness and the amount/quality of fouling(which can vary on the type, manufacturer and batch of ammunition); how hard the gun was kicked; how it landed and on what surface, and how hard that surface was, which could be variable based on environmental temperature and humidity.

In other words, it was chance. The officer could have kicked that handgun 99 more times from its initial position and it could have landed fully cocked 99 times.

[KG4ASZ]

In this configuration, first small part of the firing link becomes out of line with the hammer, then the hammer falls to the decocked position. This how each solider is trained to do in combat.

[son-of-a-gun]

sorry for the delay in posting guys,

i've been on vacation.

Meanwhile in another forum (which I won't link here - might be a no-go)
some answers came
I'll post them underneath:

The full cock hammer notch would have to be broken. THat is the short answer. The trigger bar would have to remain intact. I have seen Beretta hammers that do not even have a half cock notch as well. Depending on the variant of Beretta there could be several hammer designs. Modern Berettas have a firing pin block and some believe they do not need a half cock hammer design with that firing pin block. The weapon would not be functional without the full cock notch intact as the hammer could never reach the fully cocked position with out the full cock notch.

It "can" happen if the weapon falls to the ground. Unlikely though. It "can" also happen if the weapon does not fall to the ground or is even sitting on a table undistrubed.

In the real world though this would be a very unlikely scenario. So if the novel is going to be real to life then I would omit it completely because it is just too unlikely. However, there is plenty of entertaining media out there that is niether realistic or likely that still is fine entertainment.

That's a clear word. Does anyone have to add to this or maybe criticize?

My second question now is another:

If no magazine (or an empty one) is inserted - will the functions and sequences remain the same (except no shell being thrown out)?

thanks to everyone's input.

[son-of-a-gun]

Thank you all for your great input.

You`ve been of great help to me.


The best wishes for all of you.


The very thankful
son-of-a-gun

[fun2shoot]

Mabey he had really weak or old ammo that lost its ginger and caused a malfunction when it was rechambering. That said probably due to low pressure or even a cartridge with its case totalled fissure cracked so the bullet would just pop out if you pulled hard on it with your fingers. I honestly have no clue how it got back to half-cock unless somebody tried to safe and clear the gun check the pistol before that evidence photo was taken.

[son-of-a-gun]

hello guys,

once i thought everything was very clear i stumbled upon some beretta pics in the net that make me wonder:

obviously the position of the hammer in safety cock notch is more common than i thought it would be. but why is that? do people like to manually let it slide in there?

just look at these pics:









or is it something to do with wether a mag is inserted or not?

or maybe the above ar all not original but co2? With those the hammer never reaches the original point of "hammer down".

look here:

[ShipWreck]

They are all at half cock in those photos.

[Strafer Gott]

I find myself putting the hammer in the half cock notch, because I have residual training from the previous century. I always ask myself why I did that.

[son-of-a-gun]

thank you @ strafer gott:

how do you manage to do so?

must security-lever be turned "off" therefore or does it work with it "on" also?

must there be a mag inserted or does it work without also?

what is the advantage for the shooter to do so? Is there less force needed for pulling the trigger (first shot) to come to single action?

[Gator Weiss]

Duty carry for the 92 is chambered round and half-cock. When at half-cock safety decock toggle becomes very hard to rotate into decock position (if not mechanicaly impossible) accidentally. In this way when the pistol is rapidly drawn from holster or from concealment you wont accidentally bump or brush that toggle into the 'safe' position. The 92 is a pretty decent pistol but many of it's enthusiasts of yesterday seem to have drifted away from guns with slide-mounted safetys because in a hot situation working the slide will sometimes result in the shooter accidentally pulling the slide mounted safety into the decock position in their haste to operate the slide.

You are going to find that his being shot like he was is not unheard of on a suicide case. I worked a scene with an entry wound in that position amd the weapon had discharged three times instead of once. There are many things that can happen out of the norm when you are dealing with situations that in themselves are out of the norm. There are many factors and many movements in discharging the pistol into a self-inflicted wound. At the least you have reactions in the body and you have a hand and fimgers on the gun and you have gravity factors, impact of everything coming to rest, etc, etc, and in that you will find a myriad of possibles and probables to consider and contend with. After all of that you have the idiot factor in some who cant keep their hands and feet off your scene until the investigator arrives. The idiot factor is further compounded by anyone who moved or handled something before you get there and doesnt want to admit doing that. In the world of the scene investigation the pristene and unaltered scene is not always the case when the scene investigation begins. Reconstructing events is not always easy with these challenges. Dont be too surprised when the little strange events crop up in your suicide case.

[Strafer Gott]

It might not be there, but if you pull the hammer back a skosh, it stays there and doesn't appear to be flat on the firing pin. That's exactly my point. Half cock notch! Oh damn, have we changed centuries again? Never mind. Pardon me, that security lever isn't something I can actually reach. I guess I sort of forgot that it was there.

[Willie D]

I was going to suggest it could be a malfunction due to the deceased's grip. A sort of "limp wristing" malfunction - although I'm not sure the slide could move back enough to chamber a round and NOT cock the hammer.

I don't own a Beretta to test. Might be possible...