What does the "L" in Beretta 92FS Compact L stands for?

[YankeeIronSights]

I recently purchased a Beretta 92FS Compact "L" pistol and would like to know what does the "L" stands for?

I emailed this question to Beretta USA but have not received an answer yet.

Can anyone please shed some light towards this trivia question?


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[nhyrum]

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_5_15/150057_.html

Seems to basically differentiate between the compact type m. L is a double stack, M is a single stack

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[YankeeIronSights]

Thanks for the prompt response.

L = Double Stack makes a lot of sense. Someone told me it may mean "light". Another person said it means "lanyard".


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[carguychris]

Originally Posted by nhyrum

L is a double stack, M is a single stack

This is incorrect. The single-stack pistols are designated Compact L Type M, and are normally marked as such. Generally, the slide will be marked COMPACT L, and there will be a TYPE-M- marking (with the dashes) on the frame above the trigger guard. IOW Beretta considers both to be a Compact L, and adds Type M to denote a single-stack frame.

I don't know what the "L" actually stands for, although I often joke that it stands for "Large," as the pistol remains larger and/or heavier than many pistols competitors classify as full-size.

[EDIT TO ADD] Beretta didn't always apply the "L" to the slide legend on the 92SB Compact, Type M or not, although AFAIK the model was still officially considered to be a Compact L. OTOH I've never seen a 92F or 92FS Compact L that wasn't marked as such. Beretta has also manufactured the 92 Centurion with a Type M frame. You can find a Beretta Forum FAQ chart of 92 Compact variants at THIS LINK.

[T. O'Heir]

I'd put money it doesn't 'stand' for anything and is just a designator. Like the F, D, G, DS and CB.
"...The single-stack pistols are designated Compact L Type M..." Nope. There's an L and an M.
L = Shorter barrel, slide and a more compact frame with a 13-round magazine capacity.
M = Similar to the Compact L, but has a slimmer grip that accepts only a single stacked 8-round magazine.

[carguychris]

Originally Posted by T. O'Heir

"...The single-stack pistols are designated Compact L Type M..." Nope. There's an L and an M.
L = Shorter barrel, slide and a more compact frame with a 13-round magazine capacity.
M = Similar to the Compact L, but has a slimmer grip that accepts only a single stacked 8-round magazine.

I stand by my assertion that the single-stack 8rd Beretta 92 can be both an L and an M.

This is borne out by a simple Google search for "Beretta 92 Type M." Look closely at the starboard-side slide legends. A typical example can be seen at THIS m4carbine.net link; "MOD. 92FS COMPACT L CAL. 9mm Parabellum PATENTED" slide legend, "TYPE-M-" on frame.

Many Beretta fans omit the "L" for brevity when discussing the Type M, but it's usually still found in its usual spot in the slide legend, unless the pistol in question is a 92SB or Centurion.

Lastly, just out of curiosity, are there many Type M's in Canada? This would make sense given the nationwide 10rd limit. They're quite uncommon stateside.

[EDIT TO ADD]

Originally Posted by T. O'Heir

I'd put money it doesn't 'stand' for anything and is just a designator. Like the F, D, G, DS and CB.

No dispute there.

[Chicken-n-Waffles]

I’m resurrecting an old thread here, I know, but since it’s one of the first that comes up on Google related to this topic, I thought it might be forgiven.

The “L” and “M” both refer to design characteristics of the 92 series, but they refer to different aspects.

“L” = Long (or, if you want to be really correct and use the original Italian, “Lungo”) for “long slide travel”. The shorter, lighter slides on the Compact and Centurion models require longer slide travel to function optimally and to avoid battering the frames, so the frames have slightly different internal dimensions, particularly the rail lengths. All 92 series Compacts, including both the double-stack and single-stack, are “L”, though this part of the description is often dropped both in casual usage and on some models markings. Centurions are also technically ”L” too, since their slides are apparently the same except for the name, though they generally aren’t marked as “L”. Confusingly, Beretta did make a very small number of Compact L pistols (possibly only single-stack Type M, but I haven’t been able to confirm this) using Centurion slides, so they are marked as Centurions despite having the shorter grip length of the Compact.

Type M = Type Monofilare (Italian for single-file/single-column). The Compacts with single-stack magazines are thus Type M. This is also how we get the somewhat rare “Centurion Type M”, a single-stack “Centurion” that seems to really be just a Compact L Type M with a Centurion-marked slide. The thinking is that Beretta had the Centurion in current production at the time, while the Type M was officially out of production, so they just used Centurion slides on warehoused Type M frames to fill some contract orders. “So you want the single-stack compact? Sorry, we don’t...uhhh...wait...oh, yeah, sure, we can do that."

Side Note: The entire Compact L Type M field is wildly complicated and non-conformist. For being relatively scarce pistols, they were made in a dizzying range of variations, usually in really small numbers and often uncataloged. This was especially true in the 1990s. Centurion-marked slides, SB type frames with FS type slides, guns dated years after production officially ceased, etc., etc. One theory is that since many (most?) of the later Type Ms were made for different governmental and police agency contracts around the world, small batches of semi-custom configurations became the usual thing.

All of the letter designations that Beretta uses reference the description of some design spec, but they are very confusing in the way they relate them to the pistols. For example (some originally refer to Italian words with similar spellings, but some refer directly to English):

92S is ""Slide-mounted safety" (as opposed to the original frame-mounted safety)
92SB is "Slide-mounted safety, firing pin Block"
92F is "Federal US test submission"
92FS is "Federal US test model, Slide retention device" (the oversized hammer pin that catches the slide if it separates)
92G is "Gendarmerie Nationale", the French national police who first asked Beretta for a decocker-only model.
92D is "Double action only"
92DS is "Double action only, with Safety"
92CB is "Competition model, barrel Bushing"

And that's without getting into the really weird stuff!

[Spats McGee]

Originally Posted by Chicken-n-Waffles

I’m resurrecting an old thread here, I know, but since it’s one of the first that comes up on Google related to this topic, I thought it might be forgiven. . . . .

Welcome to TFL, Chicken-n-Waffles! That's quite the entrance you've made there.

[fourbore]

92CB is "Competition model, barrel Bushing"

Are these still made?

[Chicken-n-Waffles]

Thanks for the welcome! I've been a longtime reader, but never posted before. This was the first time some of my collection of useless knowledge might not be quite so useless.

[Mal H]

This kind of thread resurrection we don't mind. Thanks for the good info.

[Chicken-n-Waffles]

Originally Posted by fourbore

Are these still made?

Unfortunately, no. They were only made in a short run around 1992-1993. There were complaints that the standard profile slide didn't hold up to high-volume shooting in training and competition, and that the overall weight was too light for a competition gun. Beretta moved to the Brigadier profile slide the next year with the 92 Stock Competition and a year or two later with the 92 Combat (which was actually intended to be a competition pistol...Beretta with their curious naming again). The 92 Combat is out of production since the early 2000s, and the 92 Stock is not actively imported into the US (it's also not always cataloged in Europe, but they seem to turn up sometimes anyway).

[lechiffre]

Originally Posted by Chicken-n-Waffles

“L” = Long (or, if you want to be really correct and use the original Italian, “Lungo”) for “long slide travel”.

If "L" stands for Lungo (Long) slide travel, then what about the Cougar "L"? The Cougar has the same slide length for all three sizes. Might "L" stand for Leggero (Light), as in lightweight ?

[Chicken-n-Waffles]

Originally Posted by lechiffre

If "L" stands for Lungo (Long) slide travel, then what about the Cougar "L"? The Cougar has the same slide length for all three sizes. Might "L" stand for Leggero (Light), as in lightweight ?

That's a good point, and I would not be at all surprised if the "L" in the 8000 series refers to "Leggero", though the 8000s are really out of my area of understanding. That said, my communication with them years ago indicated that at least the original reference on the 92 Compact was to "Lungo/Long". Beretta is pretty inconsistent in their nomenclature (sometimes even within the same series), so almost anything is possible with them. It may very well have been "Lungo" when the 92 Compact L was being developed, and then the letter was "recycled" with the newer 8000 pistols.

Update: I quickly checked with a source in Italy, and sure enough, "L" in the 8000 series does indeed refer to "Leggera"! The official line is that it was done to improve weight savings over the original 8000..the word inside the industry is that it was done to deal with reliability problems, especially with lighter loads. So it does look like we've got two different "L"s in play.