doop de doop de doop

Slavex said:
Don't actually have it yet, that's a pic from Questar. From what I've been told the rotating barrel makes significant difference in recoil.
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Thanks for the answer and congrats on the new toy
 
TheCanuck said:
Whats the advantage of a rotating barrel?
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It makes the gun more complicated and less accurate. :p

The idea behind the Cougar was to overcome the difficulty Beretta was having in shortening the 92FS. Going to a rotating barrel enabled them to put the recoil spring and rod up against the magazine well, through the locking block that the rotating barrel is cammed by, rather than the way it is on the 92FS, i.e. up against the locking block. This allows the use of a shorter barrel, note on their website they described them as "medium" sized.

Basically Mr Beretta went to his designers and told them to come up with something that addressed all the complaints people had with the 92, and this is what they came up with. It's also the reason for the completely enclosed slide, as people (okay, DoD) were making spurious comments about 92 slides breaking in half (this problem was later traced by the USAF in testing at Elgin AFB to the fact that M882 ball supplied by Olin was over the NATO pressure standard at peak pressure, and DoD compensated Beretta for the change they made to the hammer pin to stop the back of the slide coming off the 92).

It also has a shorter trigger reach, another complaint about the 92.

It all sounds wonderful, but I've never been keen on the Cougar and if you go over to the Beretta forum there are a lot of people on there who don't like them either.

I've owned two, an 8000F and an 8000G, both in 9mm.

They're perfectly reliable (like all Beretta products), however they're just a bit clunky, for want of a better word. Also I've never liked the magazine release, as the mag release spring is exposed. And the trigger reach is too short for a lot of people. I was never that impressed with the accuracy of them. I wouldn't say accuracy is bad, it's just unimpressive, definitely less accurate than the 92FS. Also the cycle time of the gun seemed significantly slower to me than a 92FS, which was irritating, as a result I think of the heavy slide and the complex mechanism.

They improved it significantly with the Cougar L compact, (not to be confused with the subcompact model). That has a 13-round magazine, a redesigned slide that is not as bulky and a redesigned mag release that is similar to the 92FS.

8000F_CougarL.jpg


The PX4 is a redesign of the Cougar with interchangeable grip, cosmetic changes and some other fiddling. It looks to me as though they may have stopped making the Cougar and have switched the tooling over to the PX4, although the Cougar is still listed on the Beretta website. However, there was a firesale of them in Europe a few years back, because they just weren't selling and I haven't seen any new ones since then. The Inox ones look pretty cool.

I'd be interested to know what the .45s are like, as it's the only .45 that Beretta makes.

However having said all this, if you really want a Beretta pistol that you can unambiguously say is crap, then I'm afraid you'll have to buy a 9000S :p
 
the guys on Beretta Forum that don't like them, don't like the looks, they've all been impressed with accuracy and handling, just not looks. I like the looks so that's fine by me. As well the .45 is supposed to be the best of the Cougars, the other calibres are not as accurate apparently. At the time the .45 Cougar came out it was apparently the most accurate "out of box" .45 in the Military/LEO market without stepping up to a high end (double the price) 1911. Of course that was only said in a couple of articles and we all know gun writers are not biased towards the almight paycheque right?
 
I have no doubt the .45 is more accurate, .45s usually are because the round is lower pressure so there is less stress put on the gun in a number of ways. I doubt it's more accurate than a P220 or a high-end 1911 though. Although having said that, the Cougars do have really thick barrels. On the ones I had though I came to the conclusion that they weren't as accurate as the 92FS because there are more bearing surfaces. The tolerances involved in making it work reliably with more bearing surfaces means less accuracy.

Like I said, I wouldn't say accuracy was bad, it just wasn't anything special.
 
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seems to have a different locking system from the K100 also.

The cougar appears (from the diagram) to have a lug on the barrel that rides in a slot or cams off another lug.

very different from

The K100 which has a flat bearing surface on the barrel which 'cork-screws' against a freely rotating cross-pin in the frame.

Should be interesting to see what develops with regards to:
tightness of lockup
durability
accuracy
ease of maintenance
and
versatility
 
it's here and I've already managed to scratch it! taking the ####ing zap strap off the trigger guard and I scratched the trigger guard. what works good on aluminum to refinish? Air Dry Gun Kote doesn't I know that now.......
beyond that it's awesome, love it already. I'll be shooting it tomorrow and let you all know how it works.
In other news I am now working on getting a PX4. we'll see how that goes.
 
UFCK! is the word I used. Not a big deal though, as I imagine holster wear is going to be evident soon enough.
 
they make a marker I believe that blackens raw aluminum (someone chime in with link please) Its Similar to the cold blue touch up marker but its for aluminum!

Yea, so lets see it then, we wont laugh at the scratch, promise!
 
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took 'er out today and abused her. 66 rounds through it (thanks Piperdown!) very little recoil with Win Whitebox 230grs soft points. A bit heavy of trigger pull, and I shot it low, very low, on SA. DA was dead on elevation wise, but a bit right. Gonna need some time to work it out I think. But I love it, money well spent.
 
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