500 Years of Innovation: Beretta's Legacy in Gunmaking

In 2026 Beretta turns 500 years old, an anniversary that’s difficult to conceptualize. To put the company’s timeline in perspective, consider that Bartolomeo Beretta was building firearms along the banks of the Mella River in northern Italy 17 years before Nicolaus Copernicus published his theory that the earth revolves around the sun. Beretta was building guns while Leonardo da Vinci and Michaelangelo were working artists. The first European explorers had only recently bumped into a substantial land mass in the western Atlantic that would eventually become known as the Americas.

Two hundred fifty years after Beretta was founded, the United States fought its way into existence, and after a Revolution, a Civil War, two World Wars and countless other engagements, the country would tap Beretta to manufacture the military sidearm that replaced John Browning’s beloved M1911 .45.

Beretta Italy is currently under the command of the 17th generation of that family, and the company continues to produce some of the world’s best firearms for hunters, shooters, and law enforcement agencies and militaries worldwide. Let’s take a look back through time at Beretta’s history of handgun manufacturing, starting at the very beginning.

Beretta Italy is headquartered in the Val Trompia in northern Italy along the banks of the Mella River, just as it has since the 1500s. Val Trompia, which is known today as the “Valley of the Gun,” was the epicenter of firearms production in Europe for two reasons. First, the Southern Alps offered a rich supply of high-quality iron close at hand, and second, the river provided energy to power production.

Foundations

Bartolomeo Beretta was the ironmaster in the valley, and his forged barrels were among the finest in the world. His first official receipt—and thus the company’s official start—dates to the October 3, 1526, sale of 185 arquebus barrels to the Venice arsenal. By the 1600s Beretta was manufacturing flintlock rifles for military and civilian markets.

In the early 1800s, Pietro Antonio Beretta registered his company’s name as Fabbrica d’Armi Pietro Beretta, still the official company name. And as I mentioned, the company is still owned by the Beretta family.

Although Beretta had been making barrels and firearms for almost 400 years, it wasn’t until 1915 that the company offered up its first semiauto pistol. Dubbed the Model 1915, the blowback-operated semiauto was designed by Tullio Marengoni and was available in both 9mm Glisenti and 7.65mm, which we mostly know as .32 ACP.

The Italian military had been looking for a pistol to replace the Glisenti Model 1910, which had a comparatively weak action, and the Model 1915 was considered a superior firearm. It’s also notable for the debut of a feature that would remain on Beretta semiauto pistols going forward: an open-top slide.

Great Starting Point

The Model 1915 proved to be a great starting point, but improvements were made over time. An updated version known as the M1915/1919 or Model 1919 sported a grip safety and revised barrel/slide lockup. The later Model 1923 offered an exposed hammer.

Around the same time, Beretta began produce 6.35mm (.25 ACP) pistols, beginning with the Model 1920. That was followed by the Model 1926, which had been a redesigned with a different firing mechanism that used a disconnector similar to the Model 1923.

From there Beretta launched the Model 1926-1931, Model 1934, Model 318 and Model 418 Panther in 1937. The Model 418 was notable as the sidearm of choice of 007 in Ian Fleming’s early James Bond novels.

In 1952, Beretta introduced another pocket pistol known as the Model 950. Available in .22 Short as the Minx and .25 ACP as the Jetfire, the 950 boasted a unique feature: a tip-up barrel. The design eliminated the need to operate the slide while chambering a round, and it was also quite simple to “pop the hatch” and determine if there was a cartridge chambered. Beretta’s tilt-barrel design carried over to later models including the 21A Bobcat in .22 LR, the 3032 Tomcat in .32 ACP and the 86 Cheetah in .380 ACP.

Design Changes

The M1951 pistol was released in 1949 in 9mm Luger and 7.65x21. Like previous Beretta pistols, it featured a Marengoni-inspired open-top slide. However, it differed substantially from previous designs in that it was Beretta’s first locked-breech pistol. Unlike most pistols at the time, it relied on the Walther P38-inspired tilting wedge lockup system in place of the more common Browning short-recoil design. These guns featured an alloy frame initially, but Second Series versions came with steel frames starting in 1955.

The 1951 remained Beretta’s flagship pistol until production of the Model 92 began in May 1976. The 92 was followed by the 92S, which incorporated a manual safety/decocking lever, and the next iteration was the 92SB with an internal firing-pin block. The subsequent 92F version was Beretta’s submission for the U.S. Army’s sidearm trial. In 1985 the 92F won that trial and became the military’s M9 sidearm until it was replaced by SIG’s M17 in 2017.

In addition to its M9/92 models, Beretta also manufactures several other modern pistols: the popular Px4 Storm double/action single action line (pictured in the lead photograph for this article) and the striker-fired APX series.

The company also owns French revolver manufacturer Manurhin—via its purchase of Chapuis, another French company, in 1998. One of these Manurhin guns is profiled on the opposite page.

Family Business

Handguns are only one aspect of the family business. The company also offers some of the finest semiauto and over/under shotguns in the world, and it owns several of the top long-gun manufacturers as well—including Sako, Tikka, Benelli and Franchi among others.

Sixteen generations after Bartolomeo Beretta began forging iron barrels in the Mella River, his family is still manufacturing firearms in Val Trompia. And the Beretta clan still competes well against the rest of the world’s gunmakers. You can certainly learn a thing or two about a family business in 500 years.

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