KSC Beretta M9 System 7

[Spencerman]

Ok, this is my first proper review, so please be a little forgiving if I miss anything out. I looked for one but couldnt find it, so I wrote this one myself. Also forgive the poor photos.

 

This is a review of the new system 7 version of the Beretta M9 by KSC. The M9 is basically the military variation of the Beretta 92 series. This is a full metal replica using the new system 7 gas blowback hard kick system, so it is not compatible with the older style magazines. It comes in a pretty basic box, pictured below after having been rather unserimoniously opened by customs.

 

 

Inside the box here is what you get.

 

 

The lid rather nicely doubles up as a target for those who like me do not keep the boxes, you can actually get a little bit more use from it rather than just throwing it away. Nice.

 

The instruction manual is pretty much useless, unless you can read Japanese, except for the words 'table of contents'. The diagrams are pretty good, but a little confusing when you cannot read what some of the parts are.

 

 

Inside the package there was a rather small number of bbs, as expected, although not very many. There was the magazine seperate from the gun, and the hop up adjuster.

 

The gun itself has a very nice finish to it, and the engraving is also very good. All the letters/numbers are a consistant depth, not too deep, but deep enough. The weight with the magazine in is about what you would expect a 92 series gun to weigh, so that felt nice too. The grip is plastic, but again has a nice feel to it.

 

 

One thing that puzzled me slightly is that this gun is very close to the real thing in details. The extractor rod is a seperate piece, although it doesnt do anything, and also has the nice red round chambered indicator, and the safety also rolls the firing pin into an upward position, just like the real thing. The little rectangular piece just in front of the rear sight doesnt come up as you pull the trigger, but that isnt really any big deal, I wasnt expecting it to. With the slide locked open the loading muzzle doesnt protrude into the opening, so that is also cosmetically rather nice. Anyway, the thing that puzzled me was the magazine. On a gun that has gone to so many lengths to replicate the original, why does the magazine lack the two small dimples on either side at the base? I know it is only a small thing, but it was the first thing I noticed that wasnt quite right.

 

 

The sights are marked with the standard tri dot markings, and are easily visable. In fact, all of the indicators both red and white are all very nicely done, with no sloppy extra bits or bits missing. The proper trademarks are abscent from this model as it is not licenced, but the markings that are on there are very good and do not detract from the piece at all, they look like they belong on there, except the large KSC logo on the grip, shame that they didnt try and make it look at least a little like the three arrows logo.

 

 

 

One of the things that I like about this model, is that you can also use the magazines from the new system 7 M93R, so you can have the extended magazine with the extra capacity. I got one of those to try it with. Again I was puzzled that that too lacked the two small dimples that should be at the base.

 

 

As I mentioned earlier, these are not compatable with the older style magazines. The top is slightly different, with the feeding lips also a different shape. I have not tried this myself yet, but believe this can cause problems if you want to use a speed loader, but they really dont take long to load up by hand anyway. This is done to make the gun feed more reliably, and to make it work more efficiently, so I am told.

 

 

So far I am very impressed with this gun, it really is a nice one in both the way it looks, and the way that it replicates the original so closely.

 

I will not be firing this until the weekend, but when I do I will get some chrono readings and report back on the performance.

Edited August 12, 2009 by Spencerman

[Punkypink]

whats that little logo on the left side that seems to say PP?

[Spencerman]

That would explain why you recommend them!!

[Reppyboyo]

Nice.

 

Been thinking of getting one of these but they are bloody hard to find in this country.

[Punkypink]

I can confirm old non system 7s do not go with system 7 guns. When i mistakenly got system 7 USP mags they wouldnt even stay in my non-S7 USP, much less work.

[WhutJP]

Nice review, I've been wondering about the KSC berettas, I've come to realise that of all my pistols the m9 I have is the most comfortable, but the lack of adjustable hop is a pta. Its now shooting off and if I could adjust the hop all would be well.

 

Maybe I should get a KSC.

[Gorf]

If you get the metal version, there's a bit inside the slide that breaks off under certain circumstances. I'm on my third slide already. It doesn't seem to affect performance. It seems to be from firing a couple of full mags in "Terminator mode" - it's only ever happened to me after that.

 

The nice thing about buying from someone like Mike C at Elite is that he offers a one-year guarantee. He's replaced the slides without fuss each time it's happened.

[DarkMM]

I can confirm old non system 7s do not go with system 7 guns. When i mistakenly got system 7 USP mags they wouldnt even stay in my non-S7 USP, much less work.

 

Well you'd probably be able to convert the M9/93R mags from one system to the other if anyone ever made replacement mag-lips and rubbers for KSC guns.... Have a new S7 M9 and old system 93R to compare and the magazine bodies are the same but the lips on the S7 are much lower in profile. Can't answer for the USP but that new P10SD is awfully tempting in the new metal slide version.....

 

Main difference is the magazine are now a single point feed from below the barrel axis where as in the old ,non-glock/1911, KSC system the magazine had a 2 point feed level with the axis of the barrel but offset to the left or right.

 

I find the S7 is much more reliable then the old system when it comes to feeding [i also had an old system M9 as well - I love the working decocking safety - I sold it as it was HW ABS so I could get the metal PTP version. ]

 

DarkMM

 

[Spencerman]

One thing that hasnt been mentioned is the magzine feed button. On a normal old style magazine you have a lip that you can pull the follower down with your finger. When you reach a certain point the opening where you can see the bbs flares out slightly. You can then pour bbs into that opening and fill the magazine that way if you like. But, if you let go or slip off the follower then it will shoot back up in the mag.

 

On the system 7 magazines the follower has a button lock, so that when you pull it all the way to the bottom, the little button pops out and the follower will stay at the lowest point in the mag, allowing you to very easily fill up the magazine from the top. When you are done, you simplt push the button in and it will pop up into place. This is a very nice little design feature. I will try and take a picture of it later.

 

[Fracsid]

I have the KWA PTP version and it's a very, very nice gun; this review seems to cover all the main things about it too.

 

Aftermarket outer barrels designed for pre System 07 guns won't work; I bought a Guarder threaded barrel that didn't fit.  I hate how there are so few aftermarket parts for the gun available, but at the same time it really doesn't need anything aside from a metal outer barrel with threads and maybe a nice metal slide; I don't like the finish on the stock slide very much, but I absolutely love what they did with the frame.

 

I've encountered that same problem with that piece of the slide (actually not a part of the slide but the part that goes inside the slide) breaking and in addition to that I've broken or lost the two springs for the feed nozzle, and it still works perfectly, firing at 350 fps on .20s; I believe the springs are just for the cosmetic effect of pulling the nozzle back when you lock back the slide.  I've heard there's a spring inside Bic lighters that makes a good replacement if cut down a little bit.

 

 

[Spencerman]

Ok, I got to fire this today, and I need to get another one now. Not because I broke it, but because I need to have two of these it was so good. The power was consistant, around the 320fps mark (I forget the exact number, it was something like 322.4) when chronoed using .02bbs.

[Punkypink]

Your bank account loves me

[teflon don]

are those new system 7 gbb better than the normal ones or is it just so the users need to buy new mags

[Spencerman]

I prefer it. In my opinion it is more realistic. Not millions of times better that you would really notice, it is a bit better than the old style, with nice little improvements that I feel make the gun better. I wouldnt rush out and upgrade all of my old guns, but at the same time, I think that now I will choose system 7 over another one if it is available, and dependent on price too of course.

[Punkypink]

System 7 does suffer from less cooldown effect than the old KSC system. It's actually an improvement, not a gimmick to make people buy new mags.

[Elvis]

Does the safety also work like a decocker?

[MrTreble]

Does the safety also work like a decocker?

 

 

Yes, KSC, KWA, and the Western Arms version have this feature.

[Fracsid]

Where's a good place to pick up the PTP/S7 mags?  I love my M9 but I've only got the one!

 

I highly recommend the Blackhawk M9 SERPA for this gun, by the way; fits perfectly, although the mag holders (the covered ones, not the ones that hold the mag by tension) have given me some trouble because apparently the magazines are slightly taller than real steel magazines.

 

 

[Utty]

Watch out for broken barrel lock (that spring loaded flappy part at the base of the outer barrel).

[davedawg123]

Thanks for the review!

 

Are there any metal barrels available for this?

[noninhere]

that looks amazing would you recommend this gun?is the slide metal?

[BorgWarrior_HUN]

slide is, outer barrel isnt. mine is over two years old, with 5000+ shots in it, only thing i had to change was the recoil spring. love it.

[kullwarrior]

that looks amazing would you recommend this gun?is the slide metal?

I was really disappoint how easily was it to break the magazine floorplate tabs. WHen you break it, the only fix is to glue the floorplate to the mag body.

[3vi1-D4n]

I have had a friend's M9 break its trigger spring, and another one break its barrel lock wedge.

 

Mine hardly gets any trigger time now, but its a fine pistol

[Spencerman]

Well, it has been a while scince I wrote this review, and it is really long overdue to update how this gun has peformed and whether it still works etc.

 

Well, I have to say that this gun wins hands down as the best pistol that I own, and I do own a few. I do not say this lightly either, but the proof would have to be the fact that I still use this gun as my primary sidearm, and have had no parts fail or have to replace anything.

 

One thing has changed however from my original review. I do now only have one more pistol to replace with system 7, which is something that I said I wouldnt rush out and do, but I have done (I just didnt rush, I dont do rushing!). The reason for this I have mentioned before on other threads except this one it seems. When I used my pistol with the extended mag in about 6" of snow, and still got nearly 2 mags worth of shots out of one fill of gas, and without any problems performance wise, I was well and truely sold.

 

Now, many of my system 7 guns I have had to replace to guide rod spring on, as the standard one is not strong enough to make it work without the odd jam. I have not had to do this on my M9. There is also a lack of aftermarket parts for these guns, but I really do feel that that is more because they do not need them. I would like to see some, but there really isnt much that I can say about the gun in its stock form that I really do not like. Nothing stands out as being really bad, unlike some other makes. In fact some of the little details are really nice, like the matching serial numbers (ok, I know that they are not unique, but they are nice) on all of the parts, the lower frame, the slide and the hammer, to mention a few. The only thing that I am really not happy about, was the grips. They felt ok, no problem there, but I didnt like the lack of trying to have the Beretta logo, so I just bought a set of real ones. They fit straight on with very minor modification, all I needed to do was file out a small section where the trigger engagement rod passes through on the right hand grip, and it was very easy and minor mod to do, anyone could do it with the most basic of anything.

 

I use my gun in a price weston duty holster, designed primarily for the Glock 17, but the M92 and the Sig P226 will fit so I believe (well, the M9 certainly does as I use it!) It now shows signs of wear on the gun. Looking back at the pictures of it brand new makes me want to get another one! I shall take a few pictures over the next few days so you can see what all this time of hard use has done to this gun.

 

To this day, it remains my most reliable, most accurate pistol (I have somewhere in the region of about 30) and despite what some people say about the hop up or parts breaking, I have experienced none of that. The hop is great on my M9, it is good on my other system 7 guns, but seems to be great on this one. Nothing has broken, despite some rapid fire action. Maybe I was just lucky? But, this is certainly one awesome gun and I wouldnt hesitate to recommend it to anyone, this and the WE G39, get gas and be happy.