8000FT Stoeger Cougar
Beretta design
THE STOEGER COU AR 8000 FT is a product o eger Industries in Turkey, owned by the Beretta Holdings Group. The pistol is not a new design by Stoeger, and diehard Beretta followers may recognise it as a copy of the Beretta C ar series that appeared in the early 1990s, when the Cougar was Beretta’s smaller alternative to the full-sized Beretta 92, and was designed for security work and civilian self-defence.
At the time, the Beretta Cougar pistol series was unique for its rotating barrel system in an enclosed slide. It seems the series was very popular with police agencies in Europe and the USA, but when Beretta introduced their polymer-framed pistols like the PX4 Storm, the Cougar 8000 faded out. The Cougar also became too expensive to produce in Italy, so Beretta shipped all the Cougar 8000 tooling to their Stoeger Silah Sanayi AS facility in
