Description
The Beretta 80X Cheetah Tactical in 380 ACP, part number SPEC0715A, is a special run finished in pale blue. Slide, frame and grip panels all wear it, with the controls, trigger and internals left black, and the result is a gun that looks nothing like anything else on the shelf. Underneath the colour it is a serious pistol. The barrel is 4.40 inches, the slide is optic ready and serrated, the frame is aluminium with a beavertail and a Picatinny rail, and the grips are Vertec panels. Capacity is ten plus one.
The action is the locked breech tilt barrel Beretta introduced with the 80X rather than the fixed barrel blowback of the old 84 series, so the slide racks easily and recoil is mild.
A colour with an argument behind it
Finishes like this get dismissed as novelty, and that misses the point. A gun that is instantly identifiable is harder to confuse with someone else’s at a range, and easier to describe if it ever goes missing.
Nothing functional has been softened to get there. The frame still has a beavertail, the slide is still cut for an optic, the rail is still there, and the barrel is still 4.40 inches.
The controls and trigger stay black, which keeps the sight picture clean and the wear points looking like wear points rather than chipped paint.
If the colour is not for you, the same gun is offered in gray, black and a bronze and black two tone.
Why the 80X shoots the way it does
The original Cheetah was a straight blowback. The recoil spring had to be stiff enough to hold the breech shut, which made the slide hard work for exactly the shooters a 380 is aimed at.
The 80X uses a locked breech tilt barrel. The spring is lighter, the slide racks with far less effort, and felt recoil drops because the action absorbs part of it.
A 4.40 inch barrel gets real velocity out of a cartridge with very little margin, and the long sight radius makes the gun easy to shoot accurately.
The aluminium frame keeps it carryable while giving enough mass to stay controlled, which polymer pocket 380s cannot do.
Specifications
- Model: Beretta 80X Cheetah Tactical, part number SPEC0715A
- Caliber: 380 ACP
- Capacity: 10+1 rounds
- Barrel length: 4.40 inches, black
- Slide: optic ready and serrated
- Frame: aluminium with beavertail and Picatinny rail
- Grips: Vertec
- Finish: pale blue with black controls
- Action: single and double action, locked breech tilt barrel
- Safety: manual
Cartridge dimensions and pressures are standardized by SAAMI. For practice we stock 95 grain 380 ACP full metal jacket, and for defensive use 95 grain jacketed hollow point. Put at least a box of your chosen defensive load through the gun before you rely on it, because 380 hollow points vary more in feeding reliability than any other common pistol cartridge.
Buyers who want a threaded barrel and a steel frame should compare the 10 round and 15 round Tactical builds, and the standard length guns are the gray 13 round and black 13 round Cheetahs. Every handgun we sell ships to a licensed FFL for transfer.
Why it is worth considering
- A finish you will never mistake for anyone else’s gun at a busy range.
- A locked breech action, so the slide racks easily and recoil stays mild.
- A factory optic cut, so a micro red dot goes on without machining.
- An aluminium frame with a beavertail and a rail, rather than a stripped down pocket gun.
- A 4.40 inch barrel, which gets real velocity out of a cartridge that has little to spare.
Who it suits
This suits a shooter who wants an easy handling 380 with modern features and does not want a black pistol. It is a full sized compact rather than a pocket gun, so anyone whose first requirement is deep concealment should look elsewhere. Every handgun we sell ships to a licensed FFL for transfer.
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