[ Beretta 38/42 at the Range ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we are out at the range
with a Beretta 38/42 courtesy of Morphy's.
Now, we've talked about this yesterday on the table top,
looked at how Beretta was simplifying the Model 38.
A while back I had a chance to do some shooting with an ... early Beretta 38A,
and it was a magnificent gun to shoot.
However, a lot of changes and simplifications were made by the time they get to this.
And I'm curious if this is as nice to shoot as the 38A,
or if some of that shootability was sacrificed
in favour of having a gun that was faster, cheaper and easier to produce.
So, this is a great gun for a left-handed shooter
because it actually ejects out of the left side of the ... receiver.
We have a semi-auto trigger and a full-auto trigger, safe and fire.
Do a couple of rounds in semi.
Fairly easy gun to hit with. And then there is no selector to change.
For full you just go to the back trigger.
Nice, low, controllable rate of fire. Takes a little bit of getting used to.
You realise that, you know what, it's actually not going to shoot that fast.
You don't have to death grip onto the gun,
you can just push gently back into it and hold it on target.
I'm going to go ahead and reload the mag, we'll do a little bit more.
Alright, it's kind of funny we're filming a couple of different videos out here today.
And before I was shooting this I was shooting some really high rate of fire Russian stuff.
And so I picked this up and I'm like, "Alright, here we go! Yeah!"
And then it's actually slow and pleasant and cool.
It's really nice to shoot. Now is it as nice as the 38A?
It's going to be a little tricky to say because of course I don't have them both here side by side.
But based on my recollection this is close.
It's not quite as close, it's not quite the same experience,
but this is still a really nice gun to shoot.
Like, there's good reason that the Italians loved this thing, and the Germans loved it too.
And the Germans took as many Beretta 38 pattern guns
as they could get their hands on during the war.
Even the nice sized magazines just seem to empty a little too quickly all the time.
I like it, these are fun guns. The controls are nicely laid out.
If anything the length of pull is maybe a little bit short,
my face is awfully up close to the receiver here.
On the other hand, if that helps ... give it some of that controlability.
But definitely a fun gun to shoot. Let's go ahead and refill this guy one more time
and have a little more fun before we close the video out.
Alright, so overview on the Beretta 38/42 would be
this is a gun that saw a tremendous amount of use in World War Two.
Very historically relevant gun, you'll see these across the European theatre of combat
with a variety of different armed forces.
It's fun to shoot, it's reliable, 9mm, it's easily available ammunition.
It's a great machine gun for someone who is either a shooter or a collector.
... This one of course is a curio and relic, fully transferable, registered piece, all the better.
Unfortunate about the lacquered stock, but nothing can generally be perfect.
So a big thanks to Morphy's for giving me the opportunity
to come and put some rounds through this.
We'll go ahead and close it out with the whole stick there.
Thanks for watching. Hopefully you enjoyed the video.
Just it's right on target wherever you hold it, very nice.