Getting Complicated
In 1949, Beretta launched the M1951. Chambered for either the 9mm Parabellum or 7.65x21mm, the M1951 was called either the Helwan or the Brigadier, depending on whether it was made in Egypt or Italy. However, these cartridges were a bit too spunky for a simple blowback action in such a trim chassis, so Beretta engineers looked to their previous German allies for inspiration.
Most every other autoloading service pistol on the planet employed Browning’s short recoil system wherein the barrel locked directly to the slide. However, the Beretta M1951 used the same tilting-wedge, recoil-driven system pioneered in the Walther P38. In this case, a pivoting wedge underneath the barrel locks the barrel and slide together at the moment of firing. Recoil forces then push this assembly back slightly to cam the locking wedge clear and allow the slide to extract and eject the cartridge.
This system is not necessarily better or worse than the Browning design. It is simply different. It also allows the gun to utilize that same curious skeletonized open-top slide architecture of the previous blowback guns.
The M1951 in 9mm Para feeds from a single-stack, 8-round detachable box magazine and features a nice single-action trigger that trips an external hammer. Curiously, the magazine release is a button buried in the left grip. The other checkered button is a pushbutton crossbolt safety.
The end result is thin, concealable and effective. However, you do have to manually cock the hammer before firing. The subsequent Beretta Model 70-series came in .22 LR, .32 ACP and .380 ACP and was a direct blowback weapon that also utilized a single-action ignition system.
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