As firearms instructors, we have a lot of influence over our students. They come to us not just for tips and tricks to improve technique, but often rely on our expertise in terms of weapon selection and similar needs. And as pistol-training.com contributor Rich Verdi pointed out in his article Keep an Open Mind! it is important that we not allow our personal preferences to cloud our judgment.
All too often, I hear instructors bad mouth traditional double action (DA/SA) pistols … and sometimes they bad mouth the students who shoot them, as well! In my experience, most often such criticism comes from instructors who’ve spent far too little time learning the proper ways to shoot and teach the DA/SA system. The old saying “those who can’t, teach” seems to be all too true when it comes to DA/SA pistols.
So if you’re not practicing regularly with a DA/SA gun to gain proficiency and understand the best ways to teach your students, now may be a good time to expand your horizons. Taking this advice myself, I recently bought a Beretta 92G Vertec. No longer in production, the Vertec was the most ergonomic 90-series Beretta ever made. It was also the first 90-series gun to have an integral light rail.
It’s been almost a year and a half since I did any serious shooting with a DA/SA gun, but the Vertec was quite at home with me at the range today. The group pictured at right is the first five shots I ever fired out of the gun. The group, fired from the bench at a range of twenty-five yards, measured less than three quarters of an inch. I admit, I was so impressed I took a photo and emailed it to my friends. 8)
After a box of ammo to get re-acquainted with the mechanism, the Vertec was running almost as well for me as the Smith & Wesson M&P9 … a gun I’ve been shooting extensively for the past sixteen months.
While the Vertec isn’t going to replace the M&P9 as my everyday carry and training gun, it will become part of my regular practice regimen. My goal is to put at least a few hundred rounds through it every month to maintain DA/SA proficiency. I like to do some drill demonstrations using a student’s gun instead of my own, and being able to pick up an less familiar gun and perform well with it is always a good thing.
For those needing a little help with their DA/SA shooting, you may also want to read Ernest Langdon’s Fear Not, the Double Action Shot! also here at pistol-training.com.
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
I keep telling myself I’m going to get a DA/SA pistol and I look at the FN FNP9 or the Beretta Ninety-Two but then along comes some other striker fired pistol I have to have instead.
I firmly believe any trainer worth his/her salt maintains proficiency with commonly encountered handguns, to include revolvers.
My array of guns I train with:
Glock 19 (primary training gun / carry gun / duty)
SIG P220 (my gun for training DA/SA transitions)
SP101 3″ (Easier to train with than my 442)
1911 (unfortunately…)
I’ll work with DAO guns when they come around, but the methods I train for the DA/SA transition work well enough to adapt to the DA guns, and the training parallels revolver work in most cases.
Glocks and M&Ps are easiest for me to train on and work with, but there is something amazing to me about that first DA shot when the technique arrives and the epiphany occurs.
What really killed the Vertecs? I always felt they had the potential to be one of Berettas best pistols.
You have great taste man, 2022 and the Vertec frames made a huge comeback by now.
PAK — The 90-Two guns killed the Vertec. The feeling was that it did everything the Vertec could do, at a lighter weight and lower manufacturing cost. Keeping the Vertec in the line up would have been redundant, they thought. Of course, the Vertec was successful and the 90-Two has not been particularly popular.
Doesn’t hurt that they are a very ugly gun in company that has specialized in recent years to make ugly guns. Cougar, Mini-Cougar, 9000s, their carbine – For a fine shotgun maker, their aesthetic department concerning pistols could use an overhaul….
The Vertec is a nice handling gun, if a bit muzzle heavy. Certainly a huge improvement over the 92.
Its a shame Beretta doesnt get it quicker. The PX series should have been out 10 years sooner.