Designed largely for the U.S. Armed Forces' XM17 Modular Handgun System competition. Beretta had offered to provide their M9A3 model at a reduced price as a continuance of M9 procurement program, but were informed that the changes to the M9A3 were so significant that it fell outside the scope of an Engineering Change Proposal, and that the United States Department of Defense preferred to go through a new procurement instead. Should the Beretta APX have won the MHS competition it would have been manufactured in the Beretta factory in Gallatin, Tennessee. Beretta maintains administrative offices at the location of the first factory in Accokeek, Maryland, but moved the factory due to the Maryland Legislation posture of unfriendliness to firearms makers, dealers, and owners. On February 28, 2017, Beretta USA announced the APX availability for the US civilian market starting on April 15, 2017. In 2018, three variants of the APX were announced: the APX Centurion, with a slightly smaller frame, slide and barrel, and the APX Compact, with a subcompact-sized frame, slide and barrel, and the APX Combat, with a threaded barrel and a mounting plate for optics on the slide. In April of 2019, Beretta introduced the APX Carry, a single stack magazine variant intended for the concealed carry market. The APX Carry is based on the Beretta Nano design with some features incorporated from the full sized APX. In July of that year, Beretta introduced three more designs, starting with flat dark earth variants of the Centurion and Compact models. The Centurion Combat was also introduced, which features a threaded barrel and mounting plate, just like the full sized APX Combat. Finally, the APX Target was introduced, which is a competition variant of the APX with a longer slide and barrel; these are fitted to each other at the factory to ensure greater accuracy. The slide also has a mounting plate for optics and the sights have been changed to a fiber-optic front sight and a blacked out rear sight. In addition to the changes to the slide and barrel, the frame also has no finger grooves to better suit the needs of competition shooters. The frame also features an extended magazine release and slide stop, as well as a green striker guide for a competition trigger. The APX Target trigger is half a pound lighter than a standard model and a shorter reset.
Design
The Beretta APX represents Beretta's first striker-fired duty-sized handgun. The name APX refers to "Advanced Pistol X", as the firearm is fully modular and you can change calibers and frame sizes somewhat easily. In order to comply with the MHS specification, the firearms must support different grip sizes to fit shooters of different stature. The APX supports this with replaceable grip straps. The distance from the axis of the barrel to the top of the handgrip has been kept to a minimum of in order to reduce muzzle rise, which increases the ability to accurately fire quick follow-up shots. As specified in the MHS specification, the APX also features a MIL-STD-1913 rail under the front of the frame. Unlike other Beretta pistols, the APX uses the traditional Browning tilting-barrel short recoil design. The serialized part of the gun is a stainless steel chassis which allows true modular reconfiguration. by allowing the factory black frame to be changed with a number of different options, including flat dark earth, tan, wolf grey and olive drab. Replacement frames are also available without finger grooves. The slide and barrel are coated in a black nitride finish, except for a newer FDE model that has a cerakote FDE slide and black nitride barrel. When the APX's striker is cocked, there is a protrusion from the rear of the slide indicating that the chamber is loaded. Unlike a number of striker-fired pistols, such as the Glock, which have to have the trigger pulled during take down, the APX has a striker deactivation button that can be pushed to deactivate the striker, thus preventing accidental discharge, which other striker-fired pistols can suffer due to user negligence during disassembly. There is also an automatic striker block safety. The trigger mechanism features a drop safety. If the pistol is dropped, this prevents inertia from causing the trigger to fire the weapon, thus preventing accidental discharge.
