Spain: Was in service with Guardia Civil until it was replaced with the Beretta 92.Among the greatest service pistols of all time is the CZ 75.South Africa: Used by the South African National Defence Force.Mechanically they were identical, with the only difference being a frame made out of alloy rather than steel. In the motion-picture industry, particularly in the filming of war movies, a Star Model B pistol would often substitute for a Colt 1911, since the former works more reliably with blank ammunition, and the two appear quite similar from a distance.Ī handful of star BM variants were created, including the BKS and BKM.

La France, the principal of LaFrance Specialties (formerly of San Diego, California) used the Star BM pistol as a basis to manufacture a sub-compact custom pistol called the NOVA 6-Pack, basically a Star BM shortened to pocket-size the NOVA 6-Pack was manufactured only under custom order in a very small number of samples, and was, at one time, the smallest 9mm handgun in the world.

Importers like Interarms got a hold of them when the agencies traded up to more modern designs.

Spain's Guardia Civil used BM's up through about 1990 or so as did many other police agencies in Europe and Latin America. For the Interarms imports, Star reworked all these trade-ins prior to selling them to Interarms. Most imports in the US are arms that were traded in by various Spanish military branches to Star for exchange for newer model 28/30M and 28/30PK pistols. There have been at least four importers of ex-Spanish BMs to the United States: Garcia Sporting Arms, Interarms, PW Arms, and Century International Arms. The slide cocking serrations are also reduced in number on these later pistols. At approximately this same serial number a few other shortcuts were used to expedite production – a shorter rollmark/slide legend, coarser polish limited to the side of the slide and frame, and all the small parts were given a bead blast matte finish. After serial number 1,560,901 in 1981, all BM pistols were fitted with a ramped and serrated front sight. In general, earlier pieces were more highly polished and later ones were more of a matte finish. The pistols were made without mechanical variation throughout that period, but there may be a lot of different cosmetic variations depending on agency issue and commercial sales. BM serial numbers ranged from 1,226,501 to somewhere around 1,982,884. A total of 217,682 Star BM pistols were made between 19.

9mm star pistol