Beretta is known for a lot of things. To most American shooters, they are known for fantastic handguns and exquisite shotguns. They are famous among tactical users and competition shooters. What we aren’t familiar with is their submachine guns. They have a long history of finely made submachine guns in use by multiple military forces. Obtaining an actual SMG is next to impossible for your average Joe, but plenty of companies release semi-auto pistol variants of their submachine guns. Beretta never did, until now, with the PMXs.
The PMXs is the semi-auto variant of the PMX submachine gun. Outside of selective fire, the PMXs lacks a stock in the United States due to our silly SBR laws. Other than that, it’s seemingly the same gun. I saw the PMXs at SHOT and was psyched to see that they were, in fact, bringing it to the States. I was extremely curious as to how a Beretta subgun handled, and as a PCC nut, I couldn’t wait to find out.
A History of the PMXs
Beretta initially produced the PMXs for the usual consumers, which tend to be police and military forces. In the United States, the submachine gun has been largely replaced by the short carbine. That’s not the story everywhere. European police forces still regularly field SMGs, even going as far as using them for basic foot patrols. SMGs tend to be fairly light and handy, and they typically use the same ammunition as the police officer’s handgun.
Beretta is an Italian firm, and the Carabinieri is the national gendarmerie of Italy. They are a military force that does police work across the country. Their submachine gun of choice since the 1970s was the Beretta Model 12. The PMX can be seen as an evolution of the Model 12, and the Model 12 has its own very interesting history.
From the 1960s to the 1980s, Italy went through something called the Years of Lead. This era was rife with terrorism from both left and right-wing groups. Kidnappings, bombings, and assassinations plagued Italy. The prime minister was even kidnapped and killed by the Red Brigades. Ultimately, the Italian police forces needed some extra firepower.
At this period, the SMG of choice was the Beretta MAB or Model 38. This submachine gun was very well made, without a doubt, but needed to be updated. It was a big gun that topped out at 37 inches and weighed a little over nine pounds. The wood stock design was very 1938. This led to the evolution of the Model 12, which weighed a hair over seven pounds and was 25.4 inches with its folding stock extended.
What was wrong with the Model 12?
We established the PMX is an evolution of the Model 12, which might lead you to ask, what’s wrong with the Model 12? Nothing is wrong, but like Model 38, it was a bit outdated. The Model 12 uses an open bolt design which does present some reliability issues. It also creates a forward shift of the gun when fired. Open-bolt SMGs have faded away for a good reason.
The gun itself lacked the ability to accept modern accessories, like optics, lights, and more. Plus, seven pounds is a little heavy for a modern submachine gun, and with the world of modern polymers, trimming weight is easy. This gave birth to the PMX and now the PMXs.
The PMX is a direct blowback, selective fire submachine that fires from a closed bolt. The PMXs is a direct blowback, semi-auto-only pistol that fires from a closed bolt. The PMX gets a stock, and the PMXs in the United States is stockless.
The PMX and PMXs have a modern handguard with plenty of space for accessories. We get a long optics rail and a variety of sling points on the gun. Beretta went with ambidextrous controls for the majority of the gun. Our magazine release and safety are ambidextrous. The charging is not ambi but is reversible for right or left-handed use. The bolt release is on the left side and not reversible.
The magazines are proprietary, and each holds 30 rounds of 9mm. Beretta threaded the barrel with a 1/2x28mm pitch, so toss on whatever muzzle device you like. A suppressor is a natural extension on a gun like this.
At the Range
Burris sent me a Fastfire 4 for the gun, and I hooked up a Magpul sling. Since I didn’t have a brace, I wanted a way to better stabilize the gun. These large pistols tend to be a bit awkward and heavy without a stock or brace. The Magpul MS3 made it easy for me to use sling tension to stabilize the gun and even provided a slight cheek rest, believe it or not.
With the sling installed, the gun was very easy to control. I had no problems shooting rapid strings into targets, both large and small. I shot primarily between 25 and 50 yards. That’s really the intended range of the weapon. I did back off to 75 yards, and I could still make solid hits on my steel IPSC target without much difficulty.
When we keep to that 25 to 50-yard line, you really see the benefits of the platform. I was surprised by the lack of recoil from the PMXs. With most direct blowback guns, I expect a bit more of a violent, harsh recoil, but that wasn’t the case here. The recoil impulse is smooth and quite nice.
The trigger also delivers. It’s smooth, and the only real downside is that it has some pretravel. It’s impressive for a series of guns that rarely have nice triggers. I could make some tiny groups at 25 yards. Most were large ragged holes in the paper. Back off to 50 yards, and I could consistently punch out headshots. Not bad for a stockless, large-format pistol.
Ergonomics in Action
With two magazines, I could practice my reload drills. I did run a very modified El Pres drill that was a blast. The mag release is solid, and reloading is drama-free. I found the charging handle to be a better alternative to the bolt release. Nothing wrong with the bolt lock, but the charging handle is huge and easy to grab for a quick release after a reload. An easy tug sets it free. Speaking of, another surprising factor about this gun was the lack of a heft spring, making it tough to rack. The charging handle and bolt move easily. The one big downside I had was that the charging handle reciprocates with the bolt.
The safety is easy to manipulate and does impinge the finger while firing. The front sling guard gives you something to rest your hand against and ensures it doesn’t slip in front of the trigger guard. I didn’t get a chance to test how easy it is to clear a malfunction because I didn’t have any. The gun didn’t malfunction once during testing. The ammo fired was a mix of 115 and 147-grain brass-cased stuff. No problems whatsoever.
Blasting Away
The Beretta PMXs is an awesome subgun. It’s lightweight, has great ergonomics, and is a ton of fun to shoot. If our laws weren’t so ridiculous and we could stock this gun without a permission slip, it might be my home defense gun. As it sits right now, I really enjoy shooting the PMXs, and I’m glad Beretta has chosen to release their PMX to the mass market.
The PMX itself is having some success, with adoption in Italy, Saudia Arabia, Malaysia, and likely many more I’m missing. You can grab a PMXs now as they have slowly leaked into the American market and are hitting all the popular gun websites.
