dakota.potts
New member
If you remember my last thread, my girlfriend got a Bersa Thunder .380 for a carry gun for Christmas and it was intended to be her CCW. It had an issue where the safety started out stiff, got stiffer, and then became impossible to dis-engage, leaving the gun on safe with no resolution.
Being that I'm a member of a gunsmithing school, I took it in to have this fixed. Was this a mistake? Maybe. The gun was given back to me a couple of weeks later, where I was told the issue was some part of the safety mechanism had slipped out of its proper orientation and was locking the whole thing up. Safety felt a little stiff but I figure that's just because it's a new factory gun with relatively few rounds through it and some things will still be stiff.
This past weekend we took it to the range and had a brand new issue. The gun will fire fine for 3 or 4 rounds and then suddenly click instead of bang. Each time this happened, the gun was held pointed down range for 30 seconds in case of a hang fire and then the trigger pulled at least 5 times in double action. These rounds would refuse to go off. When ejected, the primers were not dented and some had slight scratches. These rounds, put back into a magazine, would sometimes fire, but every magazine would have one of these failures after 3 or 4 rounds.
We managed to stumble through almost a whole box of Winchester White Box before switching to Sellier & Bellot, which had the same issue.
I know a lot of people here love the Bersa and many have stories of thousands of rounds gone without an issue. At this point, the damage is done for us and we are looking at other options. We're considering now the Glock 42/43, S&W shield, and Ruger LCR in .38 special. I know that many of these guns have been good examples, I know that not having work done by an authorized gun dealer was a mistake, and I know that many people will say to send the pistol back or have it re-serviced and try again. For me, the issues are there and neither of us feel like trusting a defensive handgun after this kind of issue. There were some things I grew to not be too crazy about on the Bersa ergonomically (in spite of the decent trigger) so we will just chalk it up to experience and try something new. I don't really have a point or want to say anything bad about the company in particular (though I do dislike their system of using unaffiliated gunsmiths as authorized service centers) so much as to say this has been our experience even if others would recommend taking different steps. That's why there is variety on the market.
Being that I'm a member of a gunsmithing school, I took it in to have this fixed. Was this a mistake? Maybe. The gun was given back to me a couple of weeks later, where I was told the issue was some part of the safety mechanism had slipped out of its proper orientation and was locking the whole thing up. Safety felt a little stiff but I figure that's just because it's a new factory gun with relatively few rounds through it and some things will still be stiff.
This past weekend we took it to the range and had a brand new issue. The gun will fire fine for 3 or 4 rounds and then suddenly click instead of bang. Each time this happened, the gun was held pointed down range for 30 seconds in case of a hang fire and then the trigger pulled at least 5 times in double action. These rounds would refuse to go off. When ejected, the primers were not dented and some had slight scratches. These rounds, put back into a magazine, would sometimes fire, but every magazine would have one of these failures after 3 or 4 rounds.
We managed to stumble through almost a whole box of Winchester White Box before switching to Sellier & Bellot, which had the same issue.
I know a lot of people here love the Bersa and many have stories of thousands of rounds gone without an issue. At this point, the damage is done for us and we are looking at other options. We're considering now the Glock 42/43, S&W shield, and Ruger LCR in .38 special. I know that many of these guns have been good examples, I know that not having work done by an authorized gun dealer was a mistake, and I know that many people will say to send the pistol back or have it re-serviced and try again. For me, the issues are there and neither of us feel like trusting a defensive handgun after this kind of issue. There were some things I grew to not be too crazy about on the Bersa ergonomically (in spite of the decent trigger) so we will just chalk it up to experience and try something new. I don't really have a point or want to say anything bad about the company in particular (though I do dislike their system of using unaffiliated gunsmiths as authorized service centers) so much as to say this has been our experience even if others would recommend taking different steps. That's why there is variety on the market.
]). The guides really know their stuff. Amazing!