Book on Beretta's Submachineguns' History Published in Italy -The Firearm Blog

The Beretta M12, with its variants, has over 60 years of history, and it’s one of the most iconic SMG models in Europe. Recently Beretta gave it an heir with the more modern PMX. The book by Carlo Canterini “From the Beretta M12 Machine Gun to the PMX” details this journey.

More on Beretta M12 and PMX @TFB:

Book on Beretta’s Submachineguns’ History Published in Italy

Dalla Pistola Mitragliatrice Beretta M12 alla PMX

The book, released in February 2024, is currently available only in Italian, a detail that may sound far from ideal to most TFB readers. However, thanks in large part to its 550 pictures, it may still be a valuable resource for collectors and historians not familiar with the language.

A military history-focused online bookshop carrying the book (ISBN code 9788832033120) offers the following English translation to the foreword by M. L. Scomazzoni (Curator of the Historical Museum of War in Rovereto, Italy):

The author, thanks to meticulous and painstaking work, succeeds in this difficult objective with this work mainly focused on one of the most famous Italian weapons of the second half of the 20th century. Carlo Canterini’s profound passion and knowledge for mechanics emerges, which manifests itself in an almost obsessive attention to details and construction modifications that have characterized the evolution of this weapon. In the description of the accessories, their development and use, the background of the instructor and the user emerges who takes advantage of these descriptions to talk to us about the various departments and bodies that were equipped with the machine guns examined in this work. This book is a real mine of detailed and detailed unpublished information (prototypes, operating diagrams, variants, accessories), in particular on the special models and foreign versions of the BERETTA M12. This is an unmissable work for ballistics experts and hoplologists. However, it is not an exquisitely “technical” book for professionals only.

Paperback, 21 x 30 cm. page 359 with over 500 color and black and white illustrations, summary technical diagrams

Printed in 2024 by Arnaud

The book is divided into seven main chapters that can be translated as follows:

Beretta PM 12 – The dean of all submachineguns
Submachinegun Beretta M12
Evolution of the Beretta M12 SMG
Use and maintenance of the Beretta M12, PM12S, PM12SD, and PM12S2
Clones and authorized and non-authorized copies of the Beretta M12 and PM12 SMGs
Carbine Beretta CX4 Storm ancestor of the military version MX Storm
Submachinegun Beretta PMX

An English version is not in the plan at the moment, and should this edition be successful, it may be considered in the future.