Meet Ben Cook, the marketing manager for tactical products at Beretta. Cook has confidence in the Nano.
At a recent shoot, he drove over a Nano with his truck. The video shows the Nano crushed into the soft Maryland mud, leaving a clear impression in the dirt. Cook then takes the Nano, pops in a new magazine and empties it without a hitch.
I know, because I got to shoot it the next day. I had not seen the video before I went to tour the factory, but I saw the Nano. There was nothing physically wrong with the gun. It was dirty. Mud had caked in the grooves and crevices, but it shot fine.
The Nano I shot at the factory worked exactly like the one Beretta had sent for me to review last year. But there were some who thought that it wasn’t really a good test of durability, as the gun clearly compresses the mud beneath it.
“No big deal,” the skeptics say. “The gun doesn’t take the abuse that is implied.”
So Cook took the Nano out into the parking lot and ran it over again. He even parked the front tire on the gun for an extended moment.
And it still worked fine. That’s the Nano.
But there’s more news from Beretta about the Nano.
This first part is going to get a bit technical. Bear with me. Inside the polymer frame of the Nano is a stainless steel sub-chasis. This is the skeletal component of the gun—the Nano’s backbone. And it is the serialized part—the part the lawyers consider to be the gun.
Why is this important? Because it means we are not finished with the Nano as we know it. There are rumblings at Beretta about new additions, but you won’t have to buy another Nano to get them—just the polymer portion of the frame.
Integrated lasers, maybe. Lights. Different grip sizes or lengths. While there aren’t too many additions needed, these are the big three.
It is no secret that I like Beretta’s new 9mm subcompact. The Nano is my favorite of the subcompact 9mms. Beretta released the Nano late in 2011 and demand for the basic configuration of the gun has not fallen off since. Beretta has done a great job promoting and distributing it, too.
About a month after it was released, more shipments were out the door. And right now the factory is working nonstop to produce more. New additions to the platform will make this ridiculously rugged weapon more versatile, more effective, and even more popular.
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