I don’t know much about guns, but I do know someone who owns a Beretta Cx4 Storm Carbine. He bought it for self defense (that’s what he told me and I have no reason to doubt him), and he allowed me the opportunity to fire it a few years ago at a gun club where he was a member. Here’s a picture of a Cx4 that looks just like the one he owns (sans accoutrements, i.e., laser sight, etc.):
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Basic Information
Pretty sexy, looking eh? Even futuristic in its design. This rifle is relatively short compared to your average hunting rifle or shotgun (under 30″ or around 3 to five inches shorter than a Bushmaster AR-15), and it’s quite lightweight, coming in at under 6 lbs. It has a pistol grip which is where the magazine fits. The owner tells me its a very easy gun to maintain, and it can be converted for either right or left handed shooters.
The Cx4 Storm comes in three varieties, though they all look pretty much the same. The difference? One shoots 9 mm bullets, one shoots larger .45 caliber rounds (.45 ACP to be specific), and there’s the one that shoots a .40 caliber round (i.e., .40 S&W), which is a round bigger than a 9 mm, but smaller than the .45 ACP. These rounds of ammunition are all typically used in semiautomatic pistols, and indeed that is one of the big selling points for the Cx4 Storm. If you already own a semiautomatic pistol that uses one of these three types of ammo, you can buy the same ammo for your Cx4. The one I fired was a Cx4 designed to use .40 S&W rounds. Here’s what a .40 S&W round looks like compared to a 9 mm round and a .357 SIG round:
As you can see, the .40 S&W a bigger, blunter round than the other two shown above. The .40 S&W round also comes in a hollow point version. A hollow point bullet is exactly what sounds like. The tip of the bullet is hollowed out so that upon impact with a “target” it expands. If the target is a living creature a hollow point bullet does not penetrate as far but, because it expands, it generally causes more tissue damage than a regular bullet. A regular pistol round can pass right through a person’s body. Hollow point bullets are preferred if your objective is “stopping power” because they generally do more damage and stay within the body of your target than a regular round. I know this sounds clinical and detached, so let me just say that hollow points are better at putting a person down and “out of action” than a regular pistol round.
The other great thing about the Cx4 is that it is easy to “accessorize.” Here’s what the Beretta website says about the advantages of a Cx4 Storm:
This innovative product is accurate, softshooting and easy to accessorize. Today’s shooter demands a gun that can accept a large assortment of accessories, and the Cx4 meets the challenge.
A retractable Picatinny rail extends from the fore-end for mounting tactical lights. Picatinny rails can be mounted on either side (one side rail included) and bottom of the fore-end for lasers or forward grips. A full length aluminum top rail is included for mounting your optics.
This light and compact gun also features a unique patented design that allows the user to reverse ejection and extraction with no special tools or additional parts. Combined with the reversible safety and magazine buttons, the Cx4 is the ideal solution for lefthanded shooters. Length-of-pull can be adjusted with the addition and removal of ½” spacers (one included).
That’s fancy talk for saying it is easy to attach an optical scope such as this one along the top of the gun or a laser sight, such as this one. You can also attach a second hand grip in front of the pistol grip (see here), which I’m told can improve accuracy.
As you can probably see already, this really isn’t a gun designed for hunters. Since it fires a less explosive pistol round, accuracy after 100 yards diminishes rapidly. It’s a gun designed for close in shooting. When I shot this carbine, I was able to hit a paper target at 25 yards 100% of the time. At fifty yards, I hit the target about 6 or 7 shots out of every ten. At 100 yards, I was down in the 4-5 shots per every ten fired. Of course, I’m no marksman. I learned to shoot a .22 Remington as a young boy, and I’ve shot skeet on occasion with pretty good success for a guy who rarely fires a gun. However, the gun owner (a better shot by far than me) said he gave up trying to shoot anything beyond 100 yards with this gun. Just too inaccurate. So you hunters out there, don’t buy a Beretta Cx4.
But I suppose you already knew that. After all, who goes hunting deer (or whatever) with a handgun? Not a very effective hunter, I imagine, because pistol rounds just don’t have the same range or accuracy of rounds designed for a long rifle. The Cx4 is really designed for shooting targets (like people say) at closer ranges, not deer or elk or whatever your animal of choice may be.
My Experience: Very Fun to Shoot
Okay, now for the fun part of my experience with the Cx4 Storm. I had a heck of a good time shooting this gun. For one, it shoots really fast. I was able to fire all the rounds in an 11 round magazine in under ten seconds. The gun’s owner could do even better – he could empty a mag in less than six seconds. I have to admit, it was fun to shoot that fast, and still place the majority of my shots on target (admittedly only 25 yards away, but still). Even a neophyte like myself felt the allure of rapid firing such a weapon.
And what was also nice was that the gun had very little recoil. I’ve shot my share of shotguns, and afterwards my shoulder always aches. The Cx4 Storm? No aches or pains, and I am prone to rheumatoid arthritis because of my autoimmune disorder. A paint gun probably has more recoil. Hell,that old .22 rifle I fired all those years ago may have had more recoil. The gun owner told me he’d fired as many as a two hundred rounds at a time at the range with no ill effects. He also claimed he’d never had a misfire in all the time he’d owned the gun.
For an idea on what it is like to shoot a Cx4, here’s a video by a guy who is clearly a much better shot than I am:
Man, that guy sure can shoot. Then again, he probably practices a helluva lot. He doesn’t look like he’s shooting at a gun range, though. Sure hope he was responsible and made sure no one else was within range of the rounds he fired when he made that video.
The Bad News
So what’s the downside to this gun? Well, it’s the same downside that a lot of semiautomatic weapons have. It’s really good at killing and/or wounding people. In fact, it was the weapon used by a shooter at Dawson College in Montreal, Canada. The date was September 13, 2006. Mr. Gill obviously wasn’t a great shot because he only killed one person, though he did wound 19 others. In all he fired 60 shots, fifty-five of which were by the Cx4 Storm.
In the aftermath of the event, a significant number of Dawson College students suffered from mental disorders linked to Gill’s shooting spree.
A groundbreaking study on fallout of the 2006 shooting at Dawson College in Montreal reveals that nearly one-third of students and staff suffered from psychological trauma in the years after the event.
… 30 per cent of people surveyed suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, a major depression, alcohol dependence or a social phobia as a direct result of what they experienced.
The rate is two to three times higher than the general population, said Warren Steiner, a member of the research team.
My Recommendation
As much fun as I had shooting the Beretta Cx4 Storm, I’m afraid I can’t recommend anyone buy one. It’s not really a sporting gun for target shooting competitions. It’s not a firearm designed for hunters. It is basically a weapon designed to kill and maim people in a quick, efficient manner. In the hands of even an unskilled shooter, it can still accomplish that purpose quite effectively.
Of course, others may argue I’m unfairly tarring people who own a Cx4 Storm (or other semiautomatic rifle or handgun for that matter) by bringing up the Dawson College shooting. And, it is true, that even under Canada’s more restrictive gun laws in effect in 2006, Gill was able to acquire his Cx4 Storm legally (though he did violate the law because he did not have a permit to transport it). Those are all arguments that have been discussed at length by people who support the right to own semiautomatic weapons, and I understand them perfectly well. However, I think those arguments miss the larger point.
Whether you can own a firearm legally, doesn’t mean you should own one. I’d like everyone who own a semiautomatic weapon to just consider whether your motives for owning that weapon justify the danger it poses to yourself and others. I’m not asking you to consider this from a legal standpoint, but a moral one.
I suspect that many people who purchased semiautomatic weapons, especially those who purchased them recently, did so out of fear, and an irrational fear at that. For example, my parents, both in their eighties bought handguns after Obama was elected? Why? They live in a safe retirement community in Arizona with a very low crime rate. I suggest to you that the greatest danger they face is the danger their own handguns pose to themselves and to their grandchildren who visit them.
Despite all the talk of responsible gun owners, in truth, my experience has been that a lot of people who own guns are not very responsible. They don’t have their guns locked away and often times they leave them around loaded. My former neighbor, for example, owned a handgun. I discovered this fact when one day my daughter (then seven or eight) came home after playing with his kids at their house and told me his son had showed it to her.
Another example: my sister carries a handgun in her purse, as does my Mother. At least my sister practices with her gun at a local range. I doubt my mom has practiced firing hers more than a few times. She has an anxiety disorder, and many debilitating physical ailments. I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to own a semiautomatic handgun, do you? But she’s all worried about her rights being taken away by President Obama, and has been since he was elected in 2008. So she and my Dad went out and bought handguns. Their excuse (besides Obama Derangement Syndrome)? Hordes of “illegal immigrants” are poised to commit heinous crimes against her, so she needs her gun for protection. This despite that fact that there is no evidence that immigrants commit crimes at any higher rate than other groups. In fact, her carrying a gun with her creates a greater risk that it will be stolen, an accident may occur or it might be used against her.
I told the man who owns the Beretta Cx4 that I was going to write this post and asked him what he thought about his ownership of that gun in light of all the recent mass shootings. I was surprised to hear that he was considering getting rid of it. He also lives in a safe suburban neighborhood and has never been the victim of a crime. He told me that he would be just as well off with a shotgun for home defense.
His biggest issue is that he wants to receive compensation for the gun (a Cx4 Storm is not cheap) but he also doesn’t want the gun to go to someone who might use it to harm others. If the local police only had a buyback program, he told me, which assured the destruction of the gun, he’d turn it in in a second. For now he’s holding onto it, but he’s conflicted. I asked him if he thought we had too many guns in our society. He told me he used to not worry about that, but now he’s not so sure. He admitted he really doesn’t need it for self protection, though he has enjoyed shooting it over the years. I hope he does the right thing and has the gun destroyed. I hope our federal, state and local governments do more to find ways to provide people like him the opportunity to voluntarily turn in their guns and either be compensated or provided some other incentive such as a tax break for doing so. because I believe that their are a lot of people who are having second thoughts about the guns they own.
I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.
If we had a national buyback program supported with some promotion, how many plowshares do you think we could manufacture?
I’m curious: Does your friend own any other guns?
Nope
That’s actually not a bad intermediate step, why not have a national gun buyback. You get a receipt from your local police verifying it’s destruction and you get a tax credit.
When I was in the army in the early seventies the thing I hated about the M-16 was that it kicked out the shell casings on the right side near where I’d have to sight.
Gotta admit that I haven’t had a desire to fire any gun in the last forty years.
The really big downside for hunting. Those .40 S&W bullets ruin the squirrel meat you’re hunting for your Brunswick Stew.
IOW, can’t hit the big animals. Can’t eat what’s left of the leetle ones.
Bet it’s not much of a skeet-shooter either.
Can we say “marketing name-branded pieces of crap with violent fantasies”? Victim fantasies or hero fantasies–it doesn’t matter. Both get that advertiser’s favorite emotional response: “Gotta have it.”
It’s a tricked-out pistol, which means it provides the benefits of neither a pistol nor a rifle.
For defense, you either want something small and handy, like a real pistol, or something you can crack someone over the head with if he pops up right in front of you, like a real rifle or shotgun.
You can’t really do either with that thing, at least not well. That’s a gun designed for storming a building.
It’s a gun designed for folks who have fantasies of storming a building.
Would it really work well in practice for storming a building? That is, would police SWAT teams buy it?
I thought the same thing at first, but maybe it’s all about the minimal felt recoil, as Steven mentioned. If you’re someone who has physical limitations, a 5+ pound pistol with a stock makes sense. Plus, it is more accurate.
Why you’d pay all that money for a Beretta when there are more affordable options, I can’t say.
Who needs “more accurate” for home defense?
It’s more accurate at fifty yards, fine. Who has a fifty-yard hallway?
Because it’s more accurate at close distance, too, due to the long sighting line.
The difference between hitting someone who is ten feet away, running at you or dodging or otherwise acting as he would in a real-life situation, and missing him, is not the sighting line.
Well, YMMV. I know I am more accurate with a subgun than a pistol at the range. Having the rear sight inches from my eye rather than down past my wrist helps. So does the the stock and additional weight.
Shooting at a stationary target, you probably are more accurate.
Think about someone dancing and running around in front of you. What could you do a better job following him with: your hand, or your torso?
The gun is specifically designed for close quarter combat. That’s the reason for the short barrel to allow easy maneuver in narrow small spaces. The small caliber is also intended to avoid having bullets go through people and walls and into innocent people.
Coincidentally, Boo’s biggest bro wrote an article about 30+ years ago for NJ Monthly magazine about gun control. He went an took shooting lessons and really explored all sides of the argument and pretty much came to the same recommendation. He didn’t realistically see how guns could or should be outlawed but it seemed to be a really unwise thing to have one around the house.
Look at Oscar Pistorius. Details are still unclear about whether he thought his GF was an intruder or he was just arguing with her. Either way, if there wasn’t a gun around she would likely be alive and his life would likely not be over.
Just an FYI: “close quarters combat” is a term with a specific meaning, and isn’t the same thing as “defending yourself indoors.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_quarters_combat
What a homeowner does with a pistol to keep himself and his family safe is not close quarters combat. Close quarters combat means purposely engaging with the enemy with the intent to win a fight.
I don’t mean “FYI” to you, Andrew, just as a general point of information.
The first-impression meaning of the term is not exactly the same as what the people who designed this for “close quarters combat” meant by the term.
Thanks Joe. I think a good chuck of the people buying this, if not law enforcement who actually do close quarter combat, are people who imagine doing battle with home invaders (or evil government officials coming through doors to take their guns) and have no intentions of being taken alive.
Standard 9mm or 40 cal ammo used in this rifle will go straight through walls and kill your neighbors unless you are fortunate enough for the bullet to hit a wall stud. Hollow points will alleviate this somewhat, but will still penetrate through drywall and insulation. A shotgun will do just fine for home defense and have much less chance or hurting your neighbors. Plus, imo nothing says “leave” to a robber better than the sound made when you rack a shotgun.
P.S. I don’t own any home defense weapon more deadly than a baseball bat. I live in a safe neighborhood.
Experts used to say the best weapon for home defense for untrained people is a semi-automatic shotgun.
Still sounds right.
But most people settle for a small pistol or revolver.