In the 1980s, Beretta enjoyed a renewal of popularity in North America after its Beretta 92 pistol was selected as the service handgun for the United States Army under the designation of ' M9 pistol'. Īfter the war, Beretta continued to develop firearms for the Italian Army and police, as well as the civilian market. Beretta modified the M1 into the Beretta BM-59 rifle, which is similar to the M14 battle rifle armourers consider the BM-59 rifle to be superior to the M14 rifle in some ways, because it is more accurate under certain conditions. The last shipment of Type I Rifles left Venice for Japan in a U-boat in 1942.Īfter World War II, Beretta was actively involved in repairing the American M1 Garands given to Italy by the U.S. During that time, the quality of the exterior finish of the weapons diminished, with late-war examples being much inferior to both the pre-war and mid-war weapons, but their operation remained excellent. With the Wehrmacht's control of northern Italy, the Germans seized Beretta and continued producing arms until the 1945 German surrender in Italy. Beretta manufactured rifles and pistols for the Italian military until the 1943 Armistice between Italy and the Allied forces during World War II. In 1918, the Beretta Model 1918, one of the first submachine guns in the world, was fielded by the Italian army. īeretta has been owned by the same family for almost five hundred years and is a founding member of Les Henokiens, an association of bicentenary companies that are family owned and operated. Under the guild system, the knowledge of gun barrel fabrication that was bequeathed to Jacopo (1520/25 – …) from his father Bartolomeo (1490 – 1565/68) was then passed on to his own son Giovannino (1550 – post 1577), and to his grandson Giovan Antonio (1577 – post 1649) and so on until guilds were abolished by Napoleon after his conquest of Venetian Republic in 1797. By the end of the 17th century, Beretta had become the second largest gun barrel maker in Gardone. The original account document for the order of those barrels is now stored in the Archivio di Stato di Venezia (in Italian) in Venice. The Beretta forge was in operation from about 1500, although the first documented transaction is a contract dated Octofor 185 arquebus barrels, for which the Republic of Venice was to pay 296 ducats to Maestro di Canne (master gun-barrel maker) Bartolomeo Beretta (in Italian). The birthplace of Beretta is in the village of Gardone located on the banks of the Mella river, in the middle of Val Trompia (i.e., between the upper valley and lower valley).

By the mid 16th century Val Trompia had forty ironworks, supplied by fifty mines and eight smelters. In the Middle Ages, Val Trompia was known for its ironworks after the Renaissance it came to be a center for the manufacture of weapons. Val Trompia, a northern Italian river valley in the Province of Brescia, Lombardy, has been mined for iron ore since the time of the Roman Empire.

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