Picatinny Rail Archives

Military Arms Channel (MAC) visited the Beretta USA facility in 2015. To be honest, I really didn’t expect anything surprising because three years had passed and Beretta really hasn’t done anything of interest to me for years and years. Well, that changed in this video at the 10:12 mark but let’s not jump ahead.

MAC got a good tour with tons of photos of the M9 service pistol, notably the M9A3 with its Picatinny rail and other updates. You get a chance to see some automation but also considerable handwork. When I watched the video on Beretta’s Gordonne, Val Trompia,Italy, facility, there seemed to be much more automation.

Regardless, it was interesting to watch purely from a manufacturing perspective. Nothing really noteworthy to be completely honest – just another factory … and then the video kept going on and knocked my socks off…

The Picatinny Rail as a Platform

Now this is where I need to point out that my jaw dropped starting at about the 10:12 mark. If you have been around weapons in recent years, you are probably very used to seeing the Picatinny rails on weapons for mounting accessories. Historically, firms would have proprietary means for adding accessories and this would limit your ability to find devices that could be mounted and your ability to move them from weapon to weapon.

MIL-STD-1913 was published by the Picatinny Arsenal in 1995 and finally created a standardized solution. This enabled all the different light, lasers, optics, mounting points and more to have a standard way to connect to the weapon.

So, let’s come back to the video. Beretta realized that the rail can be far more than a dumb mounting point. It can be a backplane that enables both shared power and data. I really had a “holy cow that makes so much sense moment.”

No more different battery types or some full and some not. You can attach to the rail and the device taps in via exposed connectors for power and data services. Beyond the battery, you could, for example, have a laser designator and range finder providing data to an optic and uplink all modularly.

Note the gold colored contacts nestled inside the top of the rail.

Good photo of contacts on the side rail.

I like the idea of a hard wired connection vs wireless that can be compromised or outright blocked. As more and more electronics show up on small arms, engineers will need to figure out how to make them both reliable, resistant to electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) and secure and that last part I am referring to information security.

Bottom line, kudo to Beretta. They thought of this over three years ago!! I think we are seeing a future direction for the industry here if it can leap frog from Beretta and get some other big players behind it notably Magpul and other DoD suppliers.

Here’s the Video

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Another great accessory for the Yugo M92 or M85 PAP is the slick picatinny rail kit that CNC Warrior sells. This thing is a breeze to install and is the best means I have seen for adding an optic to the M92. Because the screws are inserted from the rail side, it is superior to other products that require the screws to come in from underneath the dust cover and risk being hit by the bolt carrier.

All you need is the pistol, a drill and some cutting oil to do the installation.

SAFETY STEP – MAKE SURE THE WEAPON IS UNLOADED. NEVER ASSUME THAT IT IS – VERIFY IT IS UNLOADED BEFORE YOU BEGIN WORK.

1. This is the top thick hinge of the M85/M92 dust cover. See the faint circles? Those are the spot welds and they are very hard! Do not drill into them! The new CNC Warrior mount has four holes and you only need to use two of them. The reason there is four is so you can pick the best two that get you around/away from the spot welds. Please note that my rail is only silver because it was a brand new design and they hadn’t applied a finish yet. If you order one, you will get a black rail!

2. Here you can see my fancy high tech tools. My Ryobi drill, Tap Magic cutting oil to lubricate the drills and the taps. Note, you will need to buy a tap handle if you do not have one. Do not take the short cut of trying to start the tap with a regular socket or open end wrench. You really want the tap to be firmly held so you can tap the threads at a right angle to the surface of the hinge. Also, see that little black cylinder? That is a drill guide that you put into the hole you select to guide the drill bit to the right place on the hinge. Be sure to use the cutting oil!

3. As an aside, I blasted the mount and then sprayed on flat black Molyresin and baked it. You’d never know it came to me unfinished.

By the way, pictured above is a cheap Harbor Freight air brush. I used to buy a bunch of them at a time and then throw them away when they hard problems. I now use a Paasche H series air brush and am much happier with it.

4. After you clean up the chips and are ready to do the final screwing of the mount, be sure to apply Blue Loctite so it does not come loose.

That’s it! The mount is solid and it holds my Vortex Sparc red dot just great. Note our quick takedown pin to make it easy to remove the cover and get the optic out of the way.