I love old guns: see my 'blued steel and walnut' thread. I'm not a big fan of the new polymer striker pistols with a tac rail and FDE color. But they work just fine.

But, the guns in between these two categories don't get as much attention. I like the hammer fired, metal framed, DA/SA auto. Their zenith was during the 90's.

Here are my two favorite '90's' pistols. The Beretta 92FS, and the Ruger P90. Both are absolutely reliable, and very durable. Large and clunky; yes---much like the style of the 90s. But I'm a big fan of these guns, even though they are being eclipsed by the polymer wonder guns.

Anyone else like these 90's pistols?

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Those are nice! I only have one in the category.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Shucks, I don't have any 90's pistols.

I'd like to try the CZ 97BD though.

Beretta 92FS, date of manufacture: 1994.

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Early to late '90s S&Ws. 9MMs, .45 ACP, 10MM.

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NRA Life, COTEP 640

I think that I'd have to add the Sig P220 and 226 as well as all S&W third generation guns. Though I have a couple of Beretta 92s, I have never shot or owned the Ruger. Eclipsed, I don't think so in terms of utility, but in terms of ease of manufacture and marketing, yes.

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Made it, Ma! Top of the world!

Nineties Guns....... my favorite years and my favorite autos;

IMHO the early Performance Center autos can't be beat......SD-9, Shorty 9s and the DPA 5906.........ya I've always liked 9mm

Beretta 92 Compacts, the single stack Type-M and Centurions are hard to beat....... only one FTF in 30 years and that was a deformed reload.

in .45s I look to the Sig 220 and the 245 Compact .


.........................and the gold standards in carry guns......... Smith 3913NL, 6906,and 915s....... along with the tanks..... 4566 and 5906s.


Hey Old_Cop; how are things up north?????

I've mentioned this before, but I've always wanted the Type-M.

All very nice and thanks for the pics. Seems today with pistols as well as long guns we have it the utilitarian era due to costs but as long as they function I can live with it.

They are great guns........I often carry one in cooler weather.......about the size of a Model 39 or Colt Commander.....at 8+1 the grip is as sweet as the Model 39...... and a spare mag or two are easy to carry concealed.

If they were a bit smaller they would be putting a real hurt on my 3913 as my EDC 9mm.

Since 94 I've picked up 5...... the first was as a hedge against the 1994 AWB..........over the years I come across 2 SB's; polished Blue with round trigger guards and wood grips and a fairly uncommon/rare D (DAO) Model.....10 years after the first I got a second FS at the same Police Supply House that sold me the first one.....it had been in the vaults for over 12 years.

The only thing wrong with those big 90s guns is they don't conceal well. Otherwise, you bet, they're fabulous. I've gone through a couple my own self, a Ruger P89, a SIG P226, and even older than those, a couple of 1911s. No regrets not keeping any of those but, yes, those big old METAL, TDA, are wonderful work horses and war horses.

I like the color "FDE"/"coyote". But I don't have any guns like that presently!

Some of my 90s guns are a little smaller than what we are discussing but, still, all metal, typical double action, all wonderful....and some date back before the 90s, obviously but, still, they're just so 20th century!!!

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That very well may be the first Ruger P series gun I've ever seen with wood grips! I like it! I think my favorite 90's gun is my 1076, but it's not that good of a carry gun either. Also still have a P89 I bought back in the 90's, a bit clunky, but reliable as all get out!

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thanks. I like the wood grips---it's a nice color.

I have a 2nd gen smith (it's an 80's gun), and I think a 3rd gen smith should be in my future.

I do
Here's a couple

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Here's a couple more

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A 1996 CZ 75 B is a 90's gun? Or a 70's gun?



Not fancy, but I really miss my Bersa Thunder Pro 9. I stupidly sold it. Really liked that pistol.



I also had a chance of buying a pristine 5906 and let it go. Still kicking myself over that one.

I agree with you. 90's pistols are pretty awesome.

I tend more toward revolvers of the 90's, but I do have a Star Firestar .40 pistol. The Firestar was Gun of the Year in 1993, the sticker on the box says so. It's the only .40 I own, and it's actually pleasant to shoot. My Colt 1991A-1 is also from the 90's, got it brand new in 1995.

In the past I've owned a Firestar 9mm, a FEG PJK-9HP, a Bersa and a Colt Mustang. One of these days I'll pick up a 3rd Gen S&W. I've shot enough of them over the years, just can settle on one to add to the menagerie.

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Wheel guns are real guns.

Only bought one in the '90s

IMG_4581 by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/152171653@N05/]

Well, this one was made in 1991, even though it was designed in 1975. All steel, DA or SA, can be carried "cocked and locked", even Colonel Cooper liked it!!




Best Regards, Les

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SWCA 3084, SWHF 495, PGCA 3064

Les, if you really like the feel of the 75, it's worth putting some factory rubber grips on it. The appearance is very similar to the original plastic grips, and the shape is about the same... so same ergonomics. And they just bring the comfort level up a notch or more.
My only gripe is that they have the new logo, not the old one.

The photo of mine in my above post has those rubber grips.

Are we talking guns that came out in the 90s? Or guns that were for sale in the 90s?

I think the 90s was a great decade for us firearms enthusiasts

By the 90s I had already been carrying a SIG P220 for more than a decade, the one on the lower right has been with me since 1977
However the P229 family of autoloaders were introduced to us in the 90s along with the NEW 357SIG cartridge
The following were all also introduced in the 90s.

In the 90s Smith and Wesson introduced the 10xx family of autoloaders chambered in the 10MM Auto cartridge. Many Federal agencies adopted the 1076 variation after the FBIs study. It is a shame that the pistols did not work out.
Lew Horton in conjunction with Smith and Wesson collaborated to produce that Company's first 8 shot Magnum revolver.
Smith and Wesson introduced the Company's first stainless steel 45 Caliber revolver.
The 90s also saw the introduction of the J-Magnum from Smith and Wesson. My ankle gun was upgraded to 357 Magnum as soon as I could get one
What would the 90s be with out Smith and Wesson's introduction of the Personal Defense Revolver and the Ultimate Defense Revovler (PDR/UDR)? We all know that Clint Eastwood was thankful for that
It was during that era that Smith and Wesson entered the plastic, striker fired world with the SIGMA. I have a few. These are the more unusual ones
I have to agree with BAM-BAM that the Smith and Wesson Performance Center stuff of that decade was really choice.
Taurus offered us a large variety of 5 shot, L-frame sized, Big Bor snubbies in everyting from Stainless steel to Total Titanium. The first two are 41 Magnums. The last one is a 45 Long Colt. These were too far ahead of their time. The Concealed Carry movement was not like it is today.
Now when the Swiss set out to copy the CZ75 design, they do a great job. This has one of the most amazing Double Action trigger pulls I have ever felt on a production firearm.
Then you have the Heckler and Koch USP family of autoloaders. Not very pretty, but built like Tanks
I am sure that I am forgetting lots of the GREAT firearms that were introduced in the 90s.

I owned multiple Taurus 92 9mm's in the early 90's....shot IPSC and other competitions with them. Great guns, absolutely reliable and with the Taurus safety you could start out "cocked and locked" instead of having the 1st shot dbl action...

Also had a Ruger P90 .45...very accurate...solid gun.

Yes.... by today's standards they were big and heavy but I really wish I still had one. Had a lot of fun with those guns and put a gazillion rounds down range with them.

I loved 90's era guns, and I liked 90's prices. If I could just find a way to get 90's prices and current wages, I would have one killer collection!

I've got a few hammer-fired heavyweights from the 90's. They were built then, though designed earlier. I may be out of line.

Browning Hi-Power Practical in 40 S&W: Built 1995



CZ 83: Built 1990



Beretta 84F: Built 1994

I'm not in this for the money, but I imagine those 90's pistols will eventually become worth a little something down the road. Sooner or later, we'll see nothing but compact polymer pistols in the stores, and as useful as they are, they're neither very fun to shoot, nor do they exude much in the way of craftsmanship. They're simply a molded plastic frame with a blocky slide attached.

I agree. The Browning Hi Power has been recently discontinued, and I think the CZ 75 and Sig hammer fired P-series is an 'endangered species'. The Ruger P Series is long gone.

There will come a day when the Beretta M9 will have the 'legendary / cult status' that the 1911 now has.

Seems like every action movie in the 90's had heroes carrying hi-cap 9mm's with those bottomless Hollywood magazines...

What real American kid didn't want a Beretta that never missed and never needed reloading?!?

I was a kid during the late 80's and through the 90's, and I saw good guys with Beretta 92's in the movies. Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Kuffs, The Professional, and the like, made me a big fan of the Beretta M9.

It's a big plus that out of the box, there isn't a more reliable pistol in reality.

This is a Beretta 9mm...

"Do you have a bigger gun that holds more bullets?"

No....

"Then I'll take two"

Spent a lot of hours watching those same movies...

Christian Slater in 'Kuffs'. Great Beretta action in that film. As a kid, the rapid fire and endless magazine capacity made me a fan.

I'm running out of room, but I'd like to some day pick up a Ruger P85 for cheap. I know there's a lot out there, because I remember them being the pistol of choice for a lot of guys on a budget, shortly before Glock exploded on the scene and changed everything.

Just an example of a rugged, once-commonplace pistol.

1995 SIG P220-1 9MM.

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NRA Life, COTEP 640

That's when the Walther P88 was available for an outrageous amount of money!

I wonder since years why I was so keen on it.

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colt ssa post (wow) reminded me ...... I'd switched from 1911s to a Sig220 in the mid 80s to meet my .45 needs.

I'd gone thorough Colts looking for the "right" .45 for me...... Goverment,Gold Cup, Commanders and Combat Commanders...... blue and stainless........

Finally traded a Stainless Combat Commander in for a Sig 220 (now that the mag release was 'right")...... made in W. Germany it could, and still can, shoot cloverleafs at 50 ft ( my eyes won't but the gun will).

A bit large for every day concealed carry...... I was in hog heaven when Sig introduced the Compact 245 in about 1993/94.

My 4516 was a brick to carry and pre-internet I could not find short 6rd magazines for the early Smith 4513TSW that replaced it! ...I got the 245 from a Police Supply house and they had dozens if not hundreds of extra magazines for sale.

All that said I got a soft spot for the S&W 4566....... heavy yes ......but just about the right size..... grip could be a bit shorter IMHO!

Stretching the 90s a bit.........IIRC in 2001 Beretta gave us the Elite II...the ultimate version of the 92 series IMO.

You'll need the sandbox equivalent of Sgt. York to accomplish that. I'm sure he's out there, but in this society, such a feat would never be celebrated.
Plus, even when we hit 2085, there will still be folks shooting 1911s, saying it's the best combat handgun ever (even though it will probably be made of 100% polymer. or worse, by then.)

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Because of the metric system?

I also love my P88. It is probably the finest Double Action Combat Pistol introduced. However, as the name implies, it is from the 80s.

Way back then, I was helping out over at Uncle Hal's range and gunshop. We had a doctor that owned one and shot it often. He did not like cleaning guns so he left it at the shop to be cleaned after every shooting. So before I cleaned it, I went and put some ammunition through it.

That is all it took, I was in love. It was so accurate I was astounded.

Back in 1991, these puppies were selling for $1,300+ on the retail market and I did not have that kind of cash.

One of the Gun Distributors asked us if there was anything out of the ordinary we were looking for. I chimed in with the P88 but at a bargain price.

Two weeks later I owned this P88 on a employee purchase deal that I could not refuse. I have since added the Nills grips to it.
BTW Andyd, if you need magazines, the Beretta 92 are the EXACT same magazine with the mag catch cut in a different location. Once I realized this, I converted about a dozen mags, including a 30 rounder.

You had told me that in the parking lot of BassPro about a dozen years ago. I still have the S&W 629 .

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Did you see American Sniper? There are still some red blooded Americans left.

I carried a Sig P220 with me through much of the 90's. It was (and is) as rock solid as it gets. Yes I carried one before the CCW law because a state trooper told me I was crazy not to carry one in my area because all the bad guys had them. I had a wreck with a Tokarev and 2 mags in my car that ended up laying in the middle of the street. The cops picked them up and charged me because people were looking but the judge dropped the charges in court in about half a second. I replaced that Tokarev with the Sig and never looked back. I put about 15,000 rounds through that pistol and I bought it used. It had a good bit of holster wear so likely it was some LEO's carry piece before I owned it. It never flinched until the recoil spring got weak. I replaced that and it went back to being completely reliable. It's crazy accurate too.

My only other 1990's handgun is a 629.

My P-6 Sig is marked with the year 1980 on it.
Communist Germany then.
Superb shape and shoots even better.
If it could talk,I would really listen closely.

I think that would be Free West Germany; Communist would be East Germany, which would be the Makarov.

I agree on the tales it could tell; Germany was at the heart of the Cold War.

I have a batch of Communist handguns from that era; EG Mak, Polish P64, Hungarian PA 63 (with a darkened frame, I believe the FEG site says that meant it was sent to EG), Czech CZ 82. Oh, and commercial Russian Mak doublestack. Those are definitely "before" the 90's, since the Wall came down... but I guess since that was only able to hit our markets because of the 90's, we can list them too.

My mid to late 80s Sig 220 is marked "W. Germany"

My P220 is too. The company operated out of West Germany. I think they moved when the iron curtain was being built. They had been in the Suhl region which had a number of great firearms companies. Or at least the Sauer part of the company was (Sig Sauer was the name of the pistols made in Germany. Now it's just Sig). A lot of great guns came from that region originally. The P210 remains the best pistol ever IMO.

BTW my P220 was made in 1990.

Almost correct. J.P. Sauer and Son was indeed a gun manufacturer in the traditional German center of gun-making, Suhl. That ending up behind the Iron Curtain, they relocated to Eckernförde in West Germany after the war.

However, SIG stands for Schweizer Industrie Gesellschaft and was a quite separate Swiss company. Their firearms branch developed the SIG P 210 in the 1930s; Sauer never had anything to do with that gun. They also developed the SIG assault rifles starting in the 1950s.

Not until the 1970s did some corporate mergers result in the emergence of the SIG Sauer brand and the line of pistols starting with the P 220 in 9mm, originally the Swiss army sidearm. Ultimately, the West German branch in Eckernförde fabricated all the pistols.

Later, an American branch was founded, and some more corporate shenanigans happened. I kinda lost track. Parts of the companies were at various times known as Sig Sauer, Sigarms, Swissarms, and what have you.

Some years back, I purchased a Beretta 96 LEO turn in. Lots of wear unfortunately. It was pretty uneventful in terms of fondness for me. BUT... The Ruger P90, was a great fun range gun. Don't have it any more. Wish I did. Maybe someday another will come my way. Bob

I got infected with CZ's in the 90s. I love wheel guns first and always, and my carry gun is an Airweight 5 shot with a hammer, but the CZ pistols are fantastic. I am going to get a 75 BD here shortly because they may or may not be made in the future. I have a pre-B model but its collector value keeps me from using it very much. (I have the original box, all the paperwork, all the extras in the box, etc.) I need one I can shoot all the time. My most accurate CZ is the 75 P-01 compact. In winter it is my carry gun. These CZ pistols look good, function flawlessly, are not picky ammo eaters, and make this average shooter a lot better than other pistols can. I WILL NOT buy any of their new plastic guns. I have a G43 I am transitioning to so I can carry magazines vs speed strips. I don't like Blocks but they work well, will take abuse, simple to clean, no maintenance other than springs whenever that may be. The newer guns just have nothing that says "sexy". Suppose that is why I love wheel guns. My blued model 19-5 with 4" barrel shoots extremely accurately and IS sexy.

I thought I said it was just the Sauer part of the company that moved from behind the iron curtain. I knew that at any rate. Didn't know they had no hand in developing the P220. I did know Sig was a Swiss company. But again, my P220 was made in W. Germany.

That's what I meant by "almost correct" . I just wanted to correct the impression that the P 210 had the same origin and belonged in the line of pistols, P 220 and up, that were developed by the joint operation of SIG and Sauer starting in the 1970s.

The P 220 actually replaced the P 210 as the Swiss army pistol in 1975, although a Swiss subsidiary of SIG continued civilian production of the P 210 (several dash variants) into the 2000s.

Meanwhile, SIG Sauer shrunk the P 220 to make it fit the dimensional requirements of the West German police trials of the mid-1970s, resulting in the P 225. Its adoption as the P 6 by the federal police and the majority of West German states was what really launched SIG Sauer on its path of becoming an international success despite losing the US military contract to Beretta later.

The P220 is certainly a big hunk of steel compared to many of today's pistols. That's a big reason I no longer carry mine. The capacity for the weight involved just isn't justified now. But the accuracy of those things is really good. I have one other pistol that rivals their accuracy but only to about 25 yards. Past that it doesn't seem to keep bullets stabilized enough. The Sig will shoot accurately to 50 yards or so. I did carry it for at least 10 years. I used a shoulder rig though. I didn't want my pants falling down.

Guns from that era are big.

People talk about weight and size like it's a bad thing, but unless you're carrying all day, it's desirable. Fits the hand better, tames recoil, etc. Makes range time pleasant and fun, and if it's on the nightstand or in the truck, size isn't that huge an issue for defense either.

Another issue- in the 90's, a large amount of available guns were known models that had been around awhile, and were maybe getting slight tweaks to improve them.
I see people talk about warranties today, and speak of the customer service they've received from places, and how they get things fixed, like that's a fantastic thing.
Maybe it's blind luck on my part, but I have a lot of older guns, and I just don't know anything about warranties and customer service... because I haven't needed to use any. Yes, the 25 yr old extractor on a CZ 75 finally lost it's bite, and I replaced it for $30. But outside of that, little to nothing. I'd be furious if I had to test a warranty within a year, not pleased that they honor it, but angry that the darn thing needed it in the first place.
Just seemed like there was more emphasis on getting out a pistol that ran ("built like a tank" seems to be the consensus), back then.

My rant about reliable guns is based on the Shield reviews I've seen- there are lots of "what a great price this is" threads, but also a lot of "I needed to send it back in for ___" too. The ratio of complaints to praise is way too high for my liking, but lots of folks seem to just dismiss that due to warranties. Gun does you no good sitting in the shop.