Rossi Rifleman

Hadn't fired the .40 Bersa in awhile so I took it with me to the range today.
I've always enjoyed shooting the Bersa and today was no exception.

At first I thought it was a lark to shoot at the 8 in. target even as close as
ten yards. I had a mixed bag of Rainier copper plated HP and RFN, the HP
first and they went where I aimed.


RFN went low ??? I'll have to weight some of these bullets cause I really don't remember what they
are.

But based on these results I think the Bersa will be replacing the current "bedstand" revolver. Don't
think I have a photo of the Bersa handy. Nope... Jim

Nice

I don't have one, but a friend does and he likes it a lot. Looks like yours shoots good. The only Bersa I ever owned was a .22. Wish I would have kept it - nice little gun.

Bersa used to be a budget busting blaster. I guess they still are but they sure have jumped in price. Years back I pined for a Sig P230 but just never saved up the money. A buddy had the Bersa Thunder .380 which is more of a PPK clone I think or closer at least than the Sig. Anyways he let me shoot his Bersa and I took my Sig money the next day and bought this:



The big ILS in the side bugs me but the gun has never stuttered even once. I mainly used to blast cheap ball .380 (remember when that stuff was cheap and undesirable???) but I've ran a few of the mainstream HP brands though it and it's never choked on a single one. I did disable the mag safety which was pretty easy. I would have no issue carrying it and depending on it. I will add that it's far more pleasure to shoot than any of the modern poly frame micro .380 pistols.

Hey Bob,

One of my sons has the same exact gun. I never cared much for a 380 because the ones I had shot before, were plastic framed. I didn't think getting a small caliber and light gun made a lot of sence to own, if it kicked and hurt my hand worse than a regular sized 9mm. But the bersa's all steel construction and larger size made it easier to shoot.

I threw together a few loads for him to try, and most were so-so, bout like the factory stuff, then he tried 100g berry plated ahead of 2.7g of tightgroup. A whole mag full went into one large hole, off hand at around 7-10 yards. He looked at me and said "wright down the specks for that load, it's a keeper".

My friend took a deer with his Bersa .380....well sort of.
He was walking his farm with his Brittany Spaniel, Trip, a few days after modern gun season. Trip jumped a deer and chased it. He usually just chases them for maybe 50 yards then comes back. My friend couldn't see Trip, but heard a major fight going on. When my friend could see the fight, the 5 pt buck was trying to gorge Trip. He quickly ran to his dog, not wanting Trip to be hurt. The buck saw him and turned to escape. Trip is a BIG Brittany of 45 to 50 pounds. Trip knocked over the deer. It was obvious it had a serious wound to the shoulder. My friend put a .380 slug in it's head. He later did a European mount of the skull to hang with our other trophies at the cabin. This one has Trip's name on the plague.

I bought a Thunder .22 soon after that, as a "carry around the farm gun." I'm not very impressed with it. But, then, again, I might be comparing it too much to my Ruger Mark II. The trigger pull on Thunder .22 is long, stiff and doesn't break real smoothly. At 25 feet I shoot about a 3" group. I was hoping for a 3" group out to 25 yards. I'm probably just expecting too much from this little gun OR I just need to practice with it more.