Bear Cub

So a while back I picked up a Taurus Millennium Pro .45 as a home defense weapon. I made sure to buy something small enough for when I picked up my CCW permit (I purposely waited to get it. Lets just say it's a LOT less of a hassle here in Texas than it would have been back in CT).

Its a great little gun, plenty of knockdown power, but I'm only 5'7", about 170 pounds, and don't wear very loose clothing. It's still a little bit of a heffer if I want to conceal it in the summertime, moreso with weight than the overall dimensions. Not to mention .45's aren't exactly the cheapest round for target practice.

My father was a PPK-S owner. Great little gun, albeit a bit heavy, but notorious for grabbing your thumb with the slide. I figured something comparable to the Walther would make a great BUG, and would be easier to conceal. Giving the fact that I'll be moving to New Orleans in July for work, NOT being able to CC simply isn't an option for me.

So I stumble across the Bersa at Academy Sports. Must be junk, I'm thinking to myself, but I take a peek at it anyways. Pretty light, all metal, comfortable moulded rubber grips, but fixed sights. Hmm. A little internet research is showing these things to be stupidly reliable, pretty accurate, and feed just about anything. OK, I'll give it a shot. Any time I can walk away with a new pistol, including tax and ammo for under $330, I'm not going to complain too heavily.

What an AWESOME little gun this thing is. While I still find myself struggling to group consistently with the Taurus (that long trigger pull and muzzle jump is something new to a long time .22 cal international 3P rifle shooter with a 2 oz Anschutz trigger), I was just drilling the 10 ring with this little guy standing at 10 yards.

I have mixed feelings on the fixed sights. While I don't mind them, and will rarely use them if I have to draw in a self-defense scenario, the target shooter in me frowns at anything fixed. I found the sights to group just a tad low and to the left, solidly in the 9 ring at about 7-8 o'clock. Shading about 2 inches up and to the right put me dead-nuts on center.

In 150 rounds, I had zero hiccups whatsoever. No stovepipes, feed issues, trigger problems, stuck slides, FTF, FTE, nothing. I thought I was imagining things, but nope, this little $269 Argentinian tack driver was performing flawlessly.

It fed el-cheapo Blazer ammo with the aluminum casings without a hitch. Winchester white box, no difference. Remington hollow points, no difference. When I mean no difference, I mean no difference. Not in zero, not in feeding, not in muzzle jump or recoil. Nada. Even the 15 grains difference between rounds showed no discernable difference, unlike my .45 which goes from docile puppy at 230gr to hand cannon with the lighter rounds.

The trigger was surprisingly nice in a gun at this price. Just a little bit of creep at the second stage, but consistent and predictable. The little bit of jerkiness/stiffness in pull that was present right out of the box was gone completely after 100 rounds.

A quick field strip for cleaning after returning from the range showed just a little bit of machining flash on the slide where the hammer resides. Just a poke with the finger nail took care of that, the only discernable flash anywhere on the pistol. The bottom of the slide and frame where the two contact showed almost no finish wear, indicating a great fit and no burrs/high spots.

All in all, I'm thrilled with this little pistol. Sure, there are more expensive guns, but I'll take this over a PPK or PPK-S almost any day of the week. And yes, there are smaller guns, but I have no sympathy for guns that need work right out of the box just to function reliably *cough*Keltec*cough*.

While the .380 is questionable as a self defense round, I will be using Corbon DPX's in my mag when it comes time to carry. I'm entirely confident that I can put 7 "definites" into an assailant with this gun 100% of the time with no reliability issues, which in my eyes is still better than 10 "maybes" with my .45. Along with a good IWB holster, the Bersa Thunder is a potent little package that I look forward to having alongside me for a long, long time.

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Living in the United Socialist States of America.

Fire

shot placement is king- though there is some debate about the wisdom of .380 and hollow points, due to lack of expansion, the ability to put em where it matters is more important than a round 2mm larger in diameter.... BTW, in a defense situation, ranges will be short, but a good many in that situation have reported using their sights- it figures heavily into modern defense training, the hip shooting thing has been pretty well debunked.....incidentally, is the bersa argentine?- if so, I would note that they also made the FM highpower clone, one of which I own and love , and the Balista molina (sp) which is also well liked by many- so the argies can clearly make a gun when they set out to do so....... have also heard much bersa love from a variety of owners, so you are far from alone....

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Thought the harder, Heart the bolder,
Mood the more as our might lessens