Beretta 92 Adventures

[MosinVirus]

Hello all,

Since I started tinkering with my Beretta, I thought I would start a thread so that people can comment, criticize and make suggestions/recommendations on the project.

Basically, I always wanted to make my Beretta more "mine", and having seen what Wilson Combat does to Beretta frames, I decided to do some of the same or similar alterations to mine.

I will be checkering the front and back straps, beveling the bottom of the magwell and rounding the trigger guard.

I have already done some trigger weight lightening and the changes I am doing now are almost purely preference based. Except a couple of sharp edges that just bug me when I shoot it.

So, here is the start. I extended the vertical serrations a bit higher, and then checkered the strap. I know it is not even everywhere, but I was filing by feel so I think it still turned out pretty good.





Back strap is next, but my hands are killing me from holding onto a tiny v file.

Let me know what you think. I am strongly considering adding more vertical lines on the sides of the existing ones to expand the checkered area.

[1911whore]

You didnt use a checkering file to do that? All with a V file? NIce work!
How long did it take you?

[smak28]

Wow MosinVirus! That looks professional where as mine looks amateur. That's beautiful!

[omega]

the factory serrations were enough for me

as long as there is enough metal to work with? wouldnt all the extra checkering weaken the frame?

[MosinVirus]

You didnt use a checkering file to do that? All with a V file? NIce work!
How long did it take you?

My checkering file is 20 lpi, and the vertical serrations are a bit wider than that, so I used my calipers to mark lines on the sides of the vertical serrations area with a .060 step and then filed by eye aiming from one mark to the other. It is aluminum to it only took about 1 hour.

Wow MosinVirus! That looks professional where as mine looks amateur. That's beautiful!

Thank you. It is not as good as it could have been but I am pretty happy.

the factory serrations were enough for me

as long as there is enough metal to work with? wouldnt all the extra checkering weaken the frame?

That is a good point and I was thinking about it. I am kind of wondering if my top cross line will be a future break point, but I don't know how much stress is on that area of the frame. I guess I will find out.

[MosinVirus]

here is a video of the front strap checkering...

[MosinVirus]

Rear strap is done...



And the trigger guard and the beavertail actually...





Now just need to lightly blast the areas I was working on and send it off to be refinished.

[eviioiive]

Looks better than the one that just came back from Wilson. Good work

[smak28]

Looks better than the one that just came back from Wilson. Good work

It sure does. Far better.

OP - You should open your own business

[MosinVirus]

Thanks guys,

Mine is not perfect either. I noticed that my rear lines started leaning toward the bottom. Payment for filing at an angle so that the camera can see what I was doing... But it is ok. Could have been better, but not horrible. Sending it to CCR Refinishing tomorrow. Will probably be $120 or so with shipping. Going for black. Because I am worried about asking for a color, hating it later, etc...

Video of the rear strap checkering, trigger guard shaping, and beavertail smoothing to come tonight.

[sloppy joe]

Great job! You got some guts.

[MosinVirus]

Thank you. I was thinking about the magwell beveling, but may simply leave it alone. Will see how I feel by the time I get home. If I get too bored, I may just do it.

[LeadFarmer74]

That's awesome. Good video of the work as well.

[MosinVirus]

That's awesome. Good video of the work as well.

Here is a Part 2... Going 32x speed for most of it. The footage I took was about 2.5 hours, condensed (with some parts cut out) to this video. In any case, that is how long it took to make all the alterations shown in the video.



and some more pictures of the cleaned frame.











Sending to CCR Refinishing in the morning. Can't wait to get it back.

[MosinVirus]

Frame has been sent. USPS apparently doesn't allow handgun frames to be shipped, even when they are stripped to Frame Only.

So UPS-ing it...

Originally I wanted to get together with Randall to quickly blast the areas I touched with aluminum oxide, just to give them a matching flat look of the rest of the frame, but Randall is away, and according to CCR Refinishing, they will do it there and then.

CCR will likely apply Cera-Hide finish on it. I asked for Black because I was worried about getting a different color (like burnt bronze) and then hating it later. Black is safe.

In any case, while that is being done, I decided to see about converting mine to G (decocker only)... Didn't see any videos of that, so I thought I would post one (obviously if I can actually do the conversion).