The Italian Legacy of Beretta (and the Legendary Manurhin MR73)
Podcast recap with Ben Grundwerg & Joseph King of Beretta
If you ever wanted proof that firearms can be just as “Italian” as pasta and wine, this episode delivers. In this conversation with Ben Grundwerg (Product Manager for Pistols at Beretta USA) and Joseph King (Business Development at Beretta), we dive into the Manurhin MR73, the elite French combat revolver that Beretta now imports, and wind up tracing Beretta’s roots all the way back to 1526—before tomato sauce even existed in Italy.
Yes, you read that right:
“Beretta is literally more Italian than marinara sauce.”
And somehow, that’s not even the wildest thing in this episode.
Manurhin MR73: The Last True Combat Revolver
The star of the show is the Manurhin MR73, a revolver originally built not for civilians or collectors, but for France’s elite counter-terrorism units like GIGN and RAID in the wake of the Munich Olympic massacre.
From the beginning, it was designed around one idea:
absolute reliability and perfect shot placement under extreme pressure.
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Think hostage rescues in airplanes, shots around hostages, through small windows, and in tight spaces.
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Think a gun that must go off every time and must put the bullet exactly where the operator wants it.
That’s why the MR73 runs full-house .357 Magnum and is built like a tank.
“Some Manurhins have held up to 1 million rounds fired.”
That’s not a marketing line—Ben and Joe talk about factory test guns with round counts tracked into seven figures. When you’re arming units that shoot every day and burn through more ammo in a week than most of us do in a year, durability isn’t optional. It’s the standard.
Built Like Nothing Else on the Market
One of the big questions people always ask: “Why is the MR73 so expensive?”
By the time Ben and Joe finish describing how it’s built, that question basically answers itself.
Old-school materials, old-school methods
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The frame is made from ordinance-grade steel forged by the same historic steel house that supplied metal for the Eiffel Tower.
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The barrels are cold hammer forged—currently from Lothar Walther, transitioning to Beretta’s own hammer-forged blanks out of Italy.
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No MIM parts, no cast small parts. Everything critical is machined from forged or billet steel.
Hand fitting like a custom watch
Nothing just drops in:
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Parts are machined slightly oversize.
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Each gun is then hand-fit by master craftsmen, many of whom have been doing it for decades.
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Before you’re allowed to touch the action, you apprentice for 3–4 years.
It takes about 12 hours of handwork just on the action. That’s not assembly time—that’s hand-fitting and tuning.
“This isn’t an assembly-line revolver. It’s a handbuilt gun that happens to be duty-grade.”
The result? A revolver that locks up tight, cycles like glass, and is designed to run full-power .357 Magnum as its normal diet.
Proofed Beyond Reason
The MR73 isn’t just “built tough” in a vague sense. There’s math behind it.
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Each chamber is proofed with .357 Magnum loads at 30% over CIP max pressure.
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Manurhin guarantees no failure even at double CIP pressures.
In plain English: if someone’s sketchy, over-hot reloads are going to blow up a revolver, this is probably the last revolver they’ll blow up.
That extreme strength is part of why French units trusted it for hostage rescue work:
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You can press the muzzle into a seat, a doorway, or even a person in a stack without worrying about the slide going out of battery like a semi-auto.
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You get that one perfect shot, not a spray of guesses.
A Combat History You Can Actually Watch
Joe brings up one of the most famous MR73 moments: the GIGN storming a hijacked Air France plane in Algeria (dramatized in the film L’Assaut).
The first man into the plane? He was carrying a Manurhin MR73 loaded with Magnum ammunition. The gun wasn’t just a sidearm—it was the primary tool for that entry. In the age of battle rifles and carbines, that alone says a lot.
“It was basically the last combat revolver.”
This isn’t some pampered safe queen design. It was built from the ground up for daily training, extreme stress, and real-world gunfights.
Limited, Not Mass-Produced
When you hear all this, you might assume there are thousands of these floating around the U.S.
Not so.
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Manurhin can build around 1,000 guns a year total.
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Only about 500 or so make it to the U.S. annually, spread across all SKUs.
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To put that in perspective:
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Colt does 70,000–100,000 revolvers a year.
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Smith & Wesson does well into the hundreds of thousands.
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Even smaller players often do thousands annually.
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The MR73 is closer to a Rolex-level production scale than a mass-market handgun. And like a Rolex, it’s meant to be used, not just admired.
“This is one of those rare guns that’s both a heritage piece and a serious shooter’s gun.”
Models, Options & How to Actually Run One
Ben breaks down the basic model differences in a way that’s actually useful if you’re shopping or spec-ing one out.
Gendarmerie (GEND) vs. Sport
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GEND / Police Model
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Ramp front sight for a clean draw from a duty holster.
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Barrels commonly in 3" and 4".
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Built around duty and defensive use.
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Sport Model
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Traditional partridge front sight for a cleaner sight picture on paper and steel.
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Barrel options from 3" all the way to 8", including heavy-barrel versions with underlug barrel weights.
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Ideal for precision, competition, and training.
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Right now, U.S. imports are all .357 Magnum, double-action/single-action, with:
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Adjustable trigger overtravel,
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Adjustable pull weight,
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Adjustable rebound weight.
Holster fit? Good news:
Ben has run his MR73 in K-frame Smith & Wesson holsters and used standard six-shot Smith pattern speedloaders with excellent results. So you’re not stuck in unicorn-gear land.
Revolvers Are Back—and This One Never Left
One theme that keeps popping up in the conversation: revolvers are having a moment again.
We’ve seen waves of striker-fired pistols dominate for years, but a growing number of shooters are rediscovering:
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The challenge and satisfaction of running a wheelgun well.
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The mechanical beauty and old-school craftsmanship you simply don’t get with plastic frames.
The MR73 sits at the top of that wave—it’s not an entry-level revolver. It’s the gun you buy when:
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You already understand revolvers.
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You want something you can shoot hard, for life, then hand down.
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You appreciate the blend of European heritage, French engineering, and Beretta stewardship.
Ben even mentions MR73s that have been on the SHOT Show and NRA Show circuit for years, handled by thousands of sweaty hands, knocked into racks—and somehow they still look fantastic. That deep, polished bluing isn’t just pretty; it’s tough.
Beretta: Older Than Tomato Sauce
Somewhere in the middle of all this revolver geekery, the conversation zooms out to Beretta itself—and this is where the Italian history lesson starts to sound almost unreal.
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The first military purchase order Beretta still has on record is from 1526.
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Tomatoes didn’t exist in Italy until after Columbus brought them back from the Americas.
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The time between that 1526 Beretta order and the first Italian tomato sauce recipe is longer than Colt has been a company.
Which leads to the best line of the show:
This isn’t generic “old company” marketing. It’s a family business that has been continuously making guns longer than the United States has existed.
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Beretta leadership is now in its 15th and 16th generations.
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Some employees come from families that have worked there for 13 generations.
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Craftsmen and women there still hand-build cases, stocks, and leather goods with a level of skill you can’t replicate with a startup.
Old-World Craft Meets High Tech
One of the coolest parts of the discussion is how Beretta blends artisanal craft with cutting-edge tech:
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Stocks made from hand-selected wood that’s 3D-scanned with Zeiss imaging to ensure structural integrity before carving.
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Barrels designed with advanced forcing cones and internal geometry you simply couldn’t engineer 500 years ago.
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A dedicated engraving school in Italy to train the next generation of master engravers.
And now, Beretta is bringing that same philosophy into Manurhin’s French factory:
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Modern five-axis CNC machines cutting cylinders.
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Updated finishing and QC tools.
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All while preserving the hand-fit action work that makes the MR73 what it is.
It’s not nostalgia. It’s momentum: centuries of doing this, getting better at it, and refusing to let the hard parts die out.
Why This Conversation Matters (Even If You Never Own an MR73)
You don’t have to be in the market for a four-figure French revolver to appreciate what’s going on here.
This episode is really about:
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Heritage – How Beretta and Manurhin keep multi-generational craftsmanship alive in a world of disposable everything.
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Design with a purpose – The MR73 wasn’t built as a status symbol; it was built to solve a very real, very dangerous problem.
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Culture & history – How timelines of firearms, food, and family businesses intersect in unexpected ways.
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Longevity – Guns, companies, and people built to last—not just for a product cycle, but for centuries.
Understanding that history doesn’t just make you a better gun nerd. It actually deepens your appreciation for Italian culture, European craftsmanship, and the kind of tools that outlive us.
Quick Episode Takeaways
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The Manurhin MR73 was created for elite French counter-terror units after Munich.
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Some MR73s have documented round counts approaching 1,000,000.
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Every MR73 is hand-fit, with ~12 hours of action work and brutal proof standards.
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Only around 500 MR73s make it to the U.S. each year.
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Beretta dates back to 1526—older than Italian tomato sauce.
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Craftsmanship at Beretta and Manurhin is multi-generational, both in ownership and in the workforce.
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Beretta is, in the most literal sense, more Italian than marinara sauce.
If you love revolvers, European gun history, or just good stories about people who still take craft seriously, this is an episode you don’t want to miss.
