United States Department of Defense - M9 pistol

The M9 handgun, formally Pistol, Semiautomatic, 9mm, M9, is a 9x19mm Parabellum pistol of the U.S. military adopted in the 1980s. It is essentially a mil-spec Beretta 92F, later the 92FS.

It won a competition in the 1980s to replace the M1911A1 as the primary handgun of U.S. armed forces, beating out many other contenders. Some other models have been adopted to a lesser extent (namely the M11 Pistol), and older, or different, models remain in use in certain niches. It officially entered Army service in 1990 according to the official Army website. It was scheduled to be replaced under an Army program, the Future Handgun System (FHS), which was merged with the SOF Combat Pistol program to create the Joint Combat Pistol (JCP). In early 2006, the JCP was renamed Combat Pistol (CP), and the number of pistols to be bought was drastically cut back.

The M9 has been modified as the M9A1, adding, among other things, a tactical rail for the attachment of lights, lasers, and other accessories to the weapon. The U.S. Marines have ordered large numbers of M9A1 pistols in the last year. Additionally, a contract for 70,000 M9 pistols was signed in 2006 by the U.S. military.