Israeli Spy/Assassination Pistol - Beretta Model 71/ [ Mad Lads ] Mossad + Sayeret Matkal stories

This episode was brought to you by Slate Black Industries. For M-LOK grips and accessories, Security operations. Today, we delve into what we consider as one of the best .22 long rifle subcompact pistols ever made, the Beretta Model 71. The Italian Beretta Model 71 in .22 long rifle was poetically David's sling in the fight against a goliath of terrorism in the 60s and 70s. We'll discuss how the Israeli Mossad carried out assassinations on the Munich Olympic Massacre perpetrators. We'll hear from an Israeli operative who's racked up multiple body counts of Kalashnikov and grenade-wielding terrorists with his Beretta .22. They could go into the plane by and by machine guns. And how Israeli Tier 1 operators used it in a high-profile counter-terror incident. Adopted in the 60s and 70s, the Model 71 is a signature of Israeli intelligence, special operations, and airline security operations. Small, light, low recoil, accurate, and ammunition is easily obtained abroad under the guise of it being for sporting purposes. The Beretta 71 was an excellent choice for delivering headshots at sub-10 meter targets. This pistol was frequently employed in the hands of Mossad agents, LL Sky Marshals, and the Sayeret Metcal counter-terrorist operatives, the highly secretive Israeli Direct Action Unit, modeled after the British SAS. The Model 70 series of pistols were first produced in the late 50s, and the Model 71 being an alloyed frame .22 version weighing just under half a kilo, or right above a pound. It's a size of a Walther PPK and uses fixed sights, common for that era, and very rugged. These .22s exhibit the classic Beretta quality with machine work, precision milling, beautiful lines, and a deep finish on the steel slide and alloyed frame. An elegant simulated fixed barrel with an open chamber, a signature Beretta design, but the Model 71 was actually one of the first Berettas to receive a modern safety position while retaining the European heel mag release button. Disassembly is an easy single switch design to clean, a welcomed feature when shooting at suppressed. In recent years, the U.S. has received a significant amount of these Model 71s from Israel, but since the standard 71's weight and size are under the U.S. federal legal limits for importation, importers had to permanently attach a heavy fake suppressor to fulfill importation parameters. Now this pair of Israeli surplus pistols have had the fake suppressors removed, which is nice because the barrels are already threaded. However, the importers threaded the barrel half by 20, which effectively the only .22 suppressor that caters to this is a Bowers Bitty, but most suppressors in the U.S. are half by 28. So, we gave a gunsmith Mike a call. I asked Mike to rethread the barrel to a thinner diameter so we could sleeve a Sig Mosquito half by 28 adapter on. As a result, my Model 71 now accepts any U.S. standard half by 28 .22 long rifle suppressor, so you'd like it to be quieter. A few dabs of water, some tape, and you're good to go. But how does it shoot? Really interesting. This does not have the recoil impulse that a traditional modern .22 has. That's a bit of a misnomer, traditional modern, but what you might expect out of buying a .22 off the rack today. This actually feels like a centerfire pistol. Much less recoil, but you get that same impulse, and that familiarity is really appreciated. We compared the Beretta to a Ruger Mark IV with accuracy to 15 meters. All right, let's talk accuracy for a minute on these .22 suppressed unsuppressed assassin pistols. Now today, for a control, I went ahead and shot the Ruger Mark IV that we've shot on previous videos and done a full classic review on, and this is the grouping that I came up with shooting offhand from about 12 yards. Pretty much in line with what we saw before. I'm not a perfect bullseye shooter, but this is what we can expect from a modern, fairly decent, good sights .22 pistol. Let's go take a look at how our Berettas perform. So for starters, unsuppressed. This is the grouping that I've got here. Not too dissimilar from the Ruger, slightly larger group. Due in large part, I would say, to the size of the overall package, the sights. That's where I'm going to attribute it to. But inherently, I don't believe, based on these two groupings, that this gun is really all that less accurate than the Ruger. This probably comes more down to me shooting it offhand. Now as a quick note, we did shoot the exact same pistol, suppressed and unsuppressed, for these results. This one's just here for a prop. Let's go take a look at our suppressed grouping. On our suppressed grouping here, what you'll notice is that the grouping's actually shifted lower. That's not a point of impact shift with the firearm. Because the sights are not suppressor height sights on this pistol, I was unable to gauge and judge where the bullseye was in relation to the front sight blade due to the addition of the suppressor. This little guy down there, that was the first shot I took before realizing that, you know what, I'm not going to be able to see using my standard hold. I need to make an adjustment here. You can see clearly way out of bounds. And then we have nine shots here tightened up, focusing back in on using a technique for aiming that's going to work with this particular setup. As such, I dipped the point of aim slightly lower using the top of the suppressor in alignment with the front sight blade with the front sight sitting within the rear notch. That way I could see the bullseye center while also being able to align my sights. As such, the group dropped slightly lower because I was actually shifting my point of aim slightly lower. Very similar group size to what we saw both with the unsuppressed package as well as with the Ruger. So all in all, a very comparable and comparable pistol in terms of accuracy despite a much smaller overall package. So how does a reload speed compare in operation? No matter how much you train, a thumb release will always be faster than a heel release. However, the heel release is not unusable, it's just slower. Reliability has been phenomenal, suppressed and unsuppressed. The Beretta has been able to keep up 100% with the Ruger as far as the functioning reliability. Although as expected, the action does get sluggish with high round counts when shooting suppressed, as expected with any suppressed rimfire pistol. When you compare the size between the Beretta and the Ruger Mk4 however, the Ruger is clearly a brick house compared to the dainty Beretta that can be quietly tucked away in your back pocket. Beretta did a phenomenal job designing and manufacturing the sub-compact pistol to balance between size and usability. Now this cannot be understated as the PPK for example, is far less shooter friendly while the Ruger is far too bulky for concealment. And at the end of the day, this pistol's track record under Israeli service, well it speaks for itself. Now the Model 71 is a fantastic 22 pistol and unfortunately it's out of production but it plays a significant role in Israeli counter-terrorism operations. More side operations on the covert side, defensively protecting airline passengers by the Israeli air marshals and direct action taken by the elite Sayeret Metzkal. In 1972, Munich massacre was a reminder for more than just Western Europe that terrorism is a very very real threat and for Israelis who lost 11 of their athletes to the brazen attack by Black September terrorists, this was personal. Israeli intelligence agency Mossad had sent agents all around Europe and the Middle East to assassinate the PLO players who had a hand in organizing the 1972 Munich massacre. Codename Operation Wrath of God. This was actually portrayed by the 2005 film Munich which we use a bit of footage in this video. Now out of the 11 documented hits, four of them were actually conducted with the Beretta 71-22 pistols. Now on the first hit in Rome, the team drew their Beretta 22 pistols and emptied 14 shots into Weilsweiter who organized terrorist activities all around Europe. Yes and are you? Do you know why we're here? And yes, the scene in the film Munich clearly shows them using a nine millimeter Beretta M1951s, however in real life they used model 71s and in fact at the end of the scene you see a 22 casing on the floor. Now another hit took place in Paris. Dr. Basil Raoul Al-Qabassi, an Iraqi who was running logistics for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. According to an April 7th 1973 New York Times article, he was shot by two men on a street corner near his hotel and that he died with about a dozen bullets in his body. Interesting that in the article it was also stated that the police said that they had used 22 caliber bullets which made relatively little noise but were particularly lethal at close range. Now remember 22 cartridges are easier to source under the guise of it being a sporting cartridge in Europe and not a service cartridge like nine millimeter etc. I mentioned that the Israeli Airlines LL had air marshals that used to carry the Beretta 71s. On February 18, 1969 four Palestinians broke into the Zurich airport and sped their car right next to LL flight 432 as the aircraft was taxiing for takeoff to Tel Aviv. These four individuals were armed with Kalashnikovs, grenades and dynamites which they had the worst intentions. The Israelis were sitting ducks. Except this flight had an air marshal and not just any undercover cop but he was formerly a tier one operator under the Sayeret Metzcal. Introducing Mr. Mordecai Rahamim. This square-jawed Israeli agent promptly drew his model 71, ran to the front of the plane to return fire at the terrorists. He then ran to the back of the plane and deep plane to try to subdue said terrorists with Kalashnikovs and grenades and dynamite. When I heard these shootings I ran into the cockpit. I saw the bullets hitting the cockpit. One of the pilots was wounded and as a fighter I took out my body from the broken window. And he opened the window and stuck himself out all the way and he fired with a pistol. I decided to get out of the plane in order first that they will shoot me not the plane. And then he lowered the door and he ran out and he's the one that chased the f***** away. They were still firing. He ran out with a pistol. All the bullets around me and I start shooting towards them. But I saw that it's doing nothing. They are continuing to shoot. And I was horrified that they are going to hit the wings. If they hit the wing all the plane will blow up. They're meant to throw three grenades. Did you hear the grenade? You bet. You did? Yes. Well I don't know. You don't know what you hear. I heard a loud explosion. I climbed on the fence and start running towards the terrorist. On my way I shouted them in English to throw their guns. One of them throw his gun. The second one when I was close he start to shoot me and I shot him first. I killed him. Then I finished my bullets and I start choking one of them. One and a half. There were four. Three terrorists. One woman. And suddenly the Swiss police arrived and they aiming me by gun and told me to release him. Anyways that's about all of the action that the Model 71 has. Just kidding. This is Israel we're talking about. May 8 1972. Sabina flight 571 from Vienna headed to Tel Aviv again. Four terrorists again with pistols and explosives again held a flight of 90 passengers before they landed at Tel Aviv airport. Now the terrorists had demanded the release of 315 prisoners with the threat of blowing up the entire flight but of course Defense Minister Moshe Dayan disagrees and everybody there anyways. This was officially Operation Isotope and it was commanded by the legendary future Prime Minister Yair Barak. Overnight the negotiators kept the hijackers occupied and the Israelis were able to sneak in and let out all the air from the tires of the aircraft and tell them the landing gear is broken we've got to fix it and the Israelis actually then went to great lengths of even getting fake prisoners to bring to the tarmac to convince the hijackers that everything's going your way. Incidentally the hijackers got so comfortable that they left all the doors open because it was so hot during the daytime inside of the fuselage. Actually they allowed some mechanics to come close to the aircraft to fix the landing gear so they can get out of there. As the mechanics approached in white overalls the hijackers made sure that they opened up and they saw that they were not carrying any firearms so they allowed them close to the aircraft. However these were not mechanics. These were Syrette Metcal operatives dressed as mechanics. They all concealed the model 71 underneath their overalls. At a moment's notice 16 of these operatives stormed the fuselage, went in, killed two of the firearms wielding terrorists with their Berettas and subdued the other two who had explosives. Of these operatives one young captain was unfortunately injured a Captain Netanyahu. A Captain Benjamin Netanyahu. Yes the current Prime Minister of Israel was on the operation with operatives shooting 22 pistols at terrorists. However one other notable operative who was on this mission who in fact stormed in the very front and racked up a terrorist kill with a 22 pistol while wearing a white set of overalls. Your boy Mordecai Rahamim. Now as I said in the very beginning of the video I do consider this as almost a poetic David Sling against the Goliath of terrorism that plagued Israel in the 60s and 70s. But as we publish this video I know we're going to be getting comments from the comments section saying Henry why why in the world would you buy an Israeli assassin's pistol? What kind of use would you ever have for an Israeli assassin's pistol? Now that's a complex question to answer but at the same time it's not. And okay so for us in this country we have rights and one of the rights we have in this country is spekoneh noche taborish.