Beretta Px4 Storm

The Beretta Px4 Storm was introduced in 2004 as Beretta's polymer-framed service pistol, sharing its trigger and safety architecture with the Beretta 92 and the 8000 Cougar series but built around a light polymer frame with steel inserts, a standard Picatinny rail and swappable grip backstraps. It is distinguished from its predecessors by a rounded rather than squared trigger guard and a captive slide spring on a polymer guide rod. Full-size and Compact models are made in Italy; the Subcompact was produced in the United States.

The defining feature of the full-size and Compact models is the rotating-barrel locking system inherited from the 8000 series, in place of the tilting barrel used by most modern service pistols. The barrel's 6-R rifling generates counter-clockwise torque that the locking system harnesses, reducing the pressure the rotating lock's cam and pin must absorb to unlock. Because the magazine holds the top round directly behind the breech, only a slight feed ramp is needed and the barrel fully supports the case. The full-size and Compact use a spring-loaded disassembly bar accessed from either side of the frame rather than the rotating takedown pin of Beretta's earlier hammer-fired pistols; the Subcompact retains the pin and uses a conventional tilting barrel. The entire hammer unit lifts out as a single group for cleaning, and Beretta designed the pistol so that incorrect reassembly after field stripping is difficult.

Modularity extends to the backstrap (slim, standard or oversized), the magazine release button (standard, large or extended, mountable on either side), the slide catch, the safety/decocker levers and the hammer group. The original interchangeable three-dot sights were coated in Super-LumiNova and held their luminescence for up to 30 minutes after brief light exposure; Beretta replaced them with conventional three-dot sights in 2010. Variants include the full size in Type F, G, C and D configurations, the Subcompact of 2008, the Compact of 2011, the Compact Carry developed with Langdon Tactical in 2016 and updated as the Compact Carry 2 in 2024, and a reinforced .45 ACP full-size model that was Beretta's entry in the US Joint Combat Pistol programme.

The Px4 is the standard service handgun of the Albanian Land Force and is in service with Italian units including the NOCS counter-terrorist group and the Guardia di Finanza, the Canada Border Services Agency, Chilean special forces, Indian Para (Special Forces) and the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Police, among others.