Full interview at Pistol-Training.Com – learn the story behind the creation of one of the most robust .45 ACP caliber pistols out there!
Full interview at Pistol-Training.Com – learn the story behind the creation of one of the most robust .45 ACP caliber pistols out there!
Interviews like this always make me want to hear the arguments from the designers on the other side who made the decisions these guys think were horrible.
Mike — Having been the guy sitting across from the gun company executive decision-maker *many* times, trust me, few of them have any idea about what makes a pistol shootable or desirable for high-end users.
Right before I left Beretta, the pistol product manager wanted to introduce an “Elite III” that would be an F model instead of a G (horrible idea motivated by manufacturing efficiency over functionality) and — I’m not making this up! — would have a “refined deeply blued finish” because he thought IDPA/USPSA shooters were more interested in how the gun looked than whether it would, for example, rust.
On that note, the fact that they stopped making the Elite series period is also a “WTF”. I get they probably weren’t Beretta’s best seller, but I also doubt that the Glock 34 makes half the revenue in sales that G22s going to LEOs make, and Glock is still making that gun.
FWIW, Ernest and I are already planning to corner a key person at Beretta during the SHOT Show to present an idea we have for an “Elite III” … probably won’t go anywhere, but we’ll see.
Great piece!