Just picked up this extremely unique pistol, it's a Beretta M9 with a Phrobis slide. In 1987, 3 Navy SEALs were injured when a few M9 slides failed, so Beretta needed to redesign the M9 in order to make them safer. The government ended up buying the redesigned Beretta slides, but during this time Phrobis had created their own version of the M9 slide.
The Phrobis slide has a closed top on it, as opposed to the open top the Beretta slides have. This provided more structure and less points for failure. The slide is engraved with "USN" because it was specifically made for Navy testing. Its has the same assembly number as a regular Beretta M9 slide, 9346487, but has an "A" suffix to that number in order to distinguish it as a different part. The slide also has the Phrobis cage code, 75081.
The Beretta frame was produced in 1990 and has the US military style markings, but with a civilian serial number. The "BER" prefix and "Z" suffix are common on older civilian M9's. The "Z" suffix indicates that the frame was made in Italy. The frame is marked "USN" instead of "US," since this was made specifically for Navy testing. I've never seen another "USN" marked M9 frame, so I have no idea if this is a one-off or if there are others.
What's interesting is that the frame has Phrobis' cage code in it (75081), instead of Beretta's cage code (65490). This is pretty unique, I have no idea why Beretta marked their frame with another company's cage code. Taking all these markings into consideration, it appears that this frame was specifically made for the Phrobis slide. These slides are extraordinarily rare, but there's still some information about them online. There's no information anywhere on the matching Beretta frame, so this is truly a unique piece of history. I assume that this entire pistol was submitted to the Navy for testing, not just the slide.
Marty told me that Rock McMillan actually made these slide for Phrobis, so I'm going to see if I can get in contact with him and ask about this pistol's history. Apparently a little over 100 of these slides were made and submitted to Crane, but they were all destroyed at some point. I'm also going to do a FOIA request to see if the government has any information. If any of you guys have information on this pistol or the Phrobis slides, please post it here.
Here's a website that shows one of these slides on a commemorative M9 frame (these all have the M9 serial number prefix). These are the only other photographs I can find of a real Phrobis M9 slide, everything else online appears to be airsoft shit.
https://www.collectordesignwerks.com/m9phrobis
The Phrobis slide has a closed top on it, as opposed to the open top the Beretta slides have. This provided more structure and less points for failure. The slide is engraved with "USN" because it was specifically made for Navy testing. Its has the same assembly number as a regular Beretta M9 slide, 9346487, but has an "A" suffix to that number in order to distinguish it as a different part. The slide also has the Phrobis cage code, 75081.
The Beretta frame was produced in 1990 and has the US military style markings, but with a civilian serial number. The "BER" prefix and "Z" suffix are common on older civilian M9's. The "Z" suffix indicates that the frame was made in Italy. The frame is marked "USN" instead of "US," since this was made specifically for Navy testing. I've never seen another "USN" marked M9 frame, so I have no idea if this is a one-off or if there are others.
What's interesting is that the frame has Phrobis' cage code in it (75081), instead of Beretta's cage code (65490). This is pretty unique, I have no idea why Beretta marked their frame with another company's cage code. Taking all these markings into consideration, it appears that this frame was specifically made for the Phrobis slide. These slides are extraordinarily rare, but there's still some information about them online. There's no information anywhere on the matching Beretta frame, so this is truly a unique piece of history. I assume that this entire pistol was submitted to the Navy for testing, not just the slide.
Marty told me that Rock McMillan actually made these slide for Phrobis, so I'm going to see if I can get in contact with him and ask about this pistol's history. Apparently a little over 100 of these slides were made and submitted to Crane, but they were all destroyed at some point. I'm also going to do a FOIA request to see if the government has any information. If any of you guys have information on this pistol or the Phrobis slides, please post it here.
Here's a website that shows one of these slides on a commemorative M9 frame (these all have the M9 serial number prefix). These are the only other photographs I can find of a real Phrobis M9 slide, everything else online appears to be airsoft shit.
https://www.collectordesignwerks.com/m9phrobis
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