The Beretta 90-Two.  Beretta’s best and worst in one single package.  Let me explain why.

On one hand, it’s absolutely the best.  The best handgun Beretta has ever made.  It has all the latest features and updated good looks that really take it into the next century.   I love the swept lines and new contours in the frame on the safety levers.
On the other hand, it has the worst name they could have given the pistol.  I had people come to me at the gun counter and say “I want a Beretta ninety two.”  Yes, I have that right here.  “No, a ninety two.”  You get my point.  It’s name was made of confusion.  Had they called in a 2092 or something, it would have worked.  Colt and STI did similar things for the “1911” and it worked.  Worked just fine, without being cute.  In fact, it was more descriptive and accurate if a name.  People knew what you were talking about.
The internal buffer and the dovetailed sights are both features of the 92A1… and that’s great.  But the 92A1 doesn’t have the fresh new look.
I’ve been wanting one of these more and more this year.  For no specific reason.

Here’s the other gun I’m wanting.  The 92FS Compact.  I have no real justification for it.  It’s only a little bit smaller than the standard 92FS.  A little shorter in barrel and slide, a little shorter in the grip frame.  So it’s really not so “Compact”.  It’s more of a 92 “Commander” in that it takes the gun that feels rather large and turns it into a gun that feels “Just right”.  I can’t describe it any better than that.  It just felt oh so very “right” when I drooled on one at the last gun show I went to in Utah.  I passed it up, but the gun has been on my mind ever since and as of late as been doing laps like a motorcyclist in one of those round steel cages.

Both of these guns are very high in Want Factor for me.  I want them bad.  But I can resist buying them because of rational reasons.  But rationality can only go so far.

Now, if Beretta made a 90-TWO Compact.  I’d just have to throw my hands up and surrender to the Beretta Trident and do something very foolish to quickly raise the money to buy one immediately.   Because that’s what I really want.  I don’t think I could take living in a world that has that and me not having one.