Beretta APX Falco: One-Off APX With an Integrated Burris Red Dot

The APX Falco is a single pistol Beretta built with Burris to mark its 500th anniversary, and its defining feature is a red dot that is part of the slide rather than bolted to it. Beretta says the slide and the red dot optic frame are machined from one single piece of steel, and it describes the result as the first monolithic integration of a red dot and a slide. Beretta posted the pistol as its sixth quincentennial one-off project, published through the Pietro Beretta Special Projects program.

The base is the APX, which Beretta notes was its first striker-fired pistol when it launched as a platform in 2017. Almost everything around that striker architecture has been reworked. "Falco" is Italian for falcon, and the styling leans on it hard: tapered slide lines meant to evoke a falcon in flight, a magazine release shaped as the falcon's eye, and hand-engraved, gold-inlaid lines tracing what Beretta calls the path of the eternal spark.

Carlo Ferlito, CEO and general manager of Fabbrica d'Armi Pietro Beretta, framed the project as a deliberate break from mainstream tactical handgun design, built around a partnership with Burris, which sits inside the Beretta Group. This is the same program that produced the one-off Beretta Titan rifle earlier in the anniversary year.

Building the optic housing into the slide removes the two parts of a pistol red dot setup that cause most of its problems: the plate and the screws. On a typical optics-ready pistol the dot sits on an adapter plate, which sits in a slide cut, with screws holding each layer. Every layer adds height above the bore, and every screw interface is a place where recoil can loosen the optic and shift zero. Beretta claims the monolithic design delivers minimal dot height, long-term stability, perfect alignment, and lasting zero retention, which are the four things a plate stack works against.

Beretta says this was the hardest part of the project. The video released with the pistol describes the limited space for electronics and the manufacturing complexity as a true engineering challenge, and Beretta credits Burris with the miniaturization, insulation, and battery optimization that made it fit. Beretta states the design is patented and that it and Burris are the first, and currently the only, companies to offer the capability.

The tradeoff is permanence. A bolted-on dot can be replaced when its LED fails or when a better optic comes along; an optic that is part of the slide cannot. Beretta has not published the Falco's battery type, battery access, emitter design, or dot size, so how serviceable the optic is remains unstated. For a presentation-cased one-off that matters less than it would on a duty gun, but it is the question a production version would have to answer.

Beretta has published a feature list for the APX Falco, not a spec sheet. There is no listed caliber, barrel length, weight, or capacity, so the table below holds only what Beretta has stated about the pistol.

Under the engraving, the Falco is set up as a flat-shooting competition-style pistol. Beretta lists a lightweight ported slide and an integrated compensator for faster cycling and recoil control, a shorter pre-tensioned barrel meant to increase rigidity and reduce vibration for more consistent point of impact, and a new dual-stage recoil spring. Trigger components sit in an integrated chassis, and Beretta describes the result as short travel with a crisp, clean break.

The frame is the biggest departure from the APX you can buy. The production APX A1 uses a serialized stainless-steel chassis inside a polymer grip module; the Falco replaces the polymer with a skeletonized steel frame. Beretta says this forced a complete rethink of weight and balance, and argues the added mass improves ergonomics, stability, and accuracy. The extended magazine well is machined into the frame rather than bolted on.

Porting and an integrated comp work on the same gas from two directions. Our APX A1 Ported coverage explains what venting gas upward buys you in muzzle rise and what it costs in flash and noise, and the compensated carry pistol rankings show where factory comps sit across the production field.

You cannot buy an APX Falco, but you can buy an APX with a Burris dot on it. The production APX A1 Full Size is sold in an optics-ready configuration that ships with a Burris FastFire 3 red dot and one optic plate, on a 4.25-inch barrel with 17+1 capacity. That is the plate-mounted version of the idea the Falco eliminates, and it is the closest thing to the Falco in a dealer's case.

If what draws you to the Falco is a low dot, the production answer is a direct-mount slide cut and a low-deck micro red dot. Beretta is moving that way on its own guns: the 94X Performance uses an RDO cut that Beretta says sits 3mm lower than its previous designs. Our pistol red dot guide covers footprints and mounting heights, the enclosed emitter rankings sort the dots that keep debris off the LED, and how to zero a pistol red dot walks through getting any of them on target.

If you want a metal-frame Beretta with a factory optic cut today, the 92X RDO is the established option: a factory-milled 92 slide that takes red dots through Beretta's RDO plates.

Beretta

Beretta 92X RDO Full Size

A factory optics-ready Beretta you can buy now, with plates for the common pistol red dot footprints

$799

MSRP

Optic-ready 92 series with factory-cut slide and Beretta RDO adapter-plate support for common pistol red-dot footprints

Pros

• +Only factory optic-ready 92 under $1,000
• +Beretta RDO plate system covers common red dot footprints
• +Vertec-style grip fixes the 92FS's most common ergonomic complaint

Cons

• −Standard 92FS grip panels do not fit; Vertec cut is required
• −Adapter plate system sits the optic slightly higher than a direct-mount cut
• −LTT's patented low-mount RDO cut on the Elite LTT II sits lower if you want the absolute lowest dot height

Caliber: 9mmCapacity: 18+1Barrel: 4.7 inchesWeight: 33.3 oz

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The Falco ships in a black presentation case machined from a single block of aluminum, shaped to echo the pistol's tapered lines. The interior is black Alcantara, French-fitted and handmade by the Pietro Beretta Atelier in Gardone Val Trompia, Italy, and the golden Beretta 500-year logo appears inside and outside the case.

The pairing is the point of the whole project: a monolithic steel optic, a world first by Beretta's account, delivered with hand-engraved gold inlay in a hand-fitted case. Beretta reached its 500th anniversary in 2026, and the Falco is one of the pieces it built to mark it.