The Coming Storm: Beretta PX4 Storm 

Subcompact 

I first shot the PX4 Storm Subcompact as a preproduction prototype. My first impression was, shall we say, underwhelming. I looked at it lying on the table like it was a fat envelope in the mailbox with an attorney’s return address, asking myself “Do I have to?” As soon as I glommed my size Large hands onto the grip, my attitude started changing. Many subcompact guns are hard to shoot. Some are abusive. After using up all the ammo our hosts would admit to having on hand, my hand felt none the worse for wear. I mentally filed away a note Here is a subcompact gun that is fun to shoot.

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I had to wait some months before getting my hands on one to test here at Firearms Abuse Central. The wait was worth it. The PX4 Storm Subcompact is a traditional double-action/single-action pistol in 9mm. It’s a very nice trigger, by the way. It gives you second-strike capability, so if you run into a hard primer, you can stroke the trigger again and see if the primer is more responsive on the second go-round. The “D” model (this one) has a hammer-drop safety that, when levered, blocks the firing pin, drops that hammer and, when left down, keeps the pistol from firing.

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Once I’d looked it over a bit, I went to disassemble it and found I had a problem. The usual Storm dual-lever takedown wasn’t there. Cycling the slide, it became apparent that the subcompact uses a tilting barrel, unlike the rotating barrel of the larger guns.