bersa

I'm a big fan of "underpowered" guns, such as full size revolvers chambered in .38 Special and the Bersa .380 pistols. Shot placement is king, and this sort of gun gives me the best possible chance to make that happen.

DeadEyeDick said:

Your loss p-ruger. They are an excellent CCW firearm.

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Have to agree, I've own numerous Bersa's and still have them. Great guns, the two down sides are 1. Finish (bluing) is not great and a little thin. 2. Limited amount of accessories available for them.

Great shooters tho, my EDC is a Bersa BP9 and all my Bersa's have lots of rounds thru them. My Thunder Pro .40 is getting close to 3000 rounds thru it and only issue I've had with any of my Bersa's is a few fail to feeds using cheap aluminum cased federal ammo. Never have had an issue with the quality brass ammo.

blume357 said:

They always looked like a Sig Copy to me... which I have a Sig 230 and is probably the best semi-auto I have, but it is a 380 and I like some others here moved 'up' to 9mm and a LC9spro....

looks to me like the Thunder has a Safety... a safety on a double/single action semi-auto just does not seem practical to me.

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The lever that you see on the Bersa Thunder 380 is a decocker/safety. The key to using this little pistol is to only use the decocker and ignore the safety feature. So you are right, the safety feature is not needed since the first shot trigger pull is like a double action revolver.

FergusonTO35 said:

I'm a big fan of "underpowered" guns, such as full size revolvers chambered in .38 Special and the Bersa .380 pistols. Shot placement is king, and this sort of gun gives me the best possible chance to make that happen.

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Actually, both the 380 & 38 Special are adequate with good ammunition selection. On reflection, my "underpowered" comment would more accurate if it said "adequate" instead. The double action police service revolver has a phenomenal safety record in 100 years of service. Your Bersa has that same trigger action for the first shot, which makes for an very safe pistol during gun handling. Very safe, adequate power and good shootability(shot placement) make for a pretty good combination.

Agree completely. I mostly carry the .380 in the form of a Glock 42 and Ruger LCP. Ammo of choice is quality FMJ or my own lead bullet reloads.

FergusonTO35 said:

Agree completely. I mostly carry the .380 in the form of a Glock 42 and Ruger LCP. Ammo of choice is quality FMJ or my own lead bullet reloads.

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I don't mean to derail the OP. But often I hear the phrase "Bullet technology has advanced to the point the .380 is a viable self defense round." But using FMJ you seem not to be taking advantage of that. Do you not trust the latest bullets to penetrate?

I'm not criticizing your ammo choice I'm just trying to learn something. I am am considering a .380 purchase soon and would like to understand your thinking on the FMJ vrs JHP issue in .380 acp.

In the 70's during various jack rabbit hunting sessions, I found that the 9mm FMJ or ball ammunition to be totally ineffective in stopping these critters. Even hits in vital areas did not seem to slow them down! By contrast the 9mm Speer 125 gr. soft point I loaded was a good stopper. CCI Mini-Mag .22LR, in a rifle, was a good stopper, the 38spl with hard cast 158gr "flat point"was also a very good stopper. The recent performance upgrade of the 9mm is based on recent bullet technology in ammo choices such as Speer Gold Dot, Federal HST, and Hornady Critical Duty.

I believe the same is true(even more so) of the 380 FMJ. Recently, several ammunition/bullet upgrades have improved performance of the 380 to make it a viable defense round. Is OK if someone wants to use FMJ in 380 or 9mm, but they should realize those round nose bullets will over pentrate and are poor stoppers. Chances are that most who carry, will never need to use their gun and therefore it doesn't matter what gun/ammo they carry. I found Hornady & Speer tests interesting and could be good choices for those who wish to maximize the effectiveness of the Bersa Thunder 380. Note that the tests were made using a Bersa 380. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-H9M6cZGd18

Thanks for the reply MountainWalker. I looked into this myself and read a lot. What I found was not very useful with about half the folks preferring fmj for the .380 and the other half jhp. I tend to lean towards the side of the jhp for the .380 myself. All the brands of ammo you mentioned are also my top 3 favorites. HST,Gold Dot, Critical Duty. I've shot them all. From a shootability standpoint the Critical Duty's are my favorite. They will never expand as far as the Gold Dot, or HST but they are a pleasure to shoot and unless it's my imagination slightly more accurate.

I was very surprised to hear your experience with the 9mm fmj vrs rabbit. I would have thought that without question a 9mm fmj would have been more than enough, but I've never hunted rabbit so I wouldn't know.

Best regards

P.S. I had already watched that video you linked years ago. I really like tnoutdoors9's channel and have been visiting for years. It slowed down a while back when he got sick and I stopped visiting but there are some more recent videos on his channel now I see. If there's a better ammo review channel on youtube I've never seen it.

I 100% agree with MountianWalker regarding the .380 and JHPs. Another decent source regarding ballistics is at

http://www.luckygunner.com/labs/self-defense-ammo-ballistic-tests

Makes for an interesting read. I am a believer that knowledge is power and being informed enables...

Saved that "Lucky Gunner" site. Their approach is logical, select a load that appears to work and test it in your pistol.

Rei40c said:

I don't mean to derail the OP. But often I hear the phrase "Bullet technology has advanced to the point the .380 is a viable self defense round." But using FMJ you seem not to be taking advantage of that. Do you not trust the latest bullets to penetrate?

I'm not criticizing your ammo choice I'm just trying to learn something. I am am considering a .380 purchase soon and would like to understand your thinking on the FMJ vrs JHP issue in .380 acp.

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No problem at all, I'm happy to explain. I don't use expanding bullets in any of my handguns as none of them have enough velocity and bullet weight to where I would be confident in the ability of the bullet to both penetrate and expand reliably. The strongest handguns I ever shoot are .38 Special +P and standard 9X19. The other side of the coin is, that it is quite easy to achieve proper penetration with a bullet that does not expand or only expands minimally. My lead bullets, which I cast myself, are all flat point or very blunt round nose and made from a fairly soft alloy. They actually do expand a little bit when when fired into a hard medium and penetrate really well.

I think we are doing ourselves a major disservice by trying to get significant expansion and penetration out of a modest cartridge fired from a short barrel, i.e. .380 Auto and .38 Special. Yes, it can be done, but at the expense of considerable recoil and muzzle jump as well as paying $1.00-3.00 a shot for ammo. I think that the key to successfully using one of these small guns is the ability to place the round where it needs to go with a quick follow up shot if needed. Standard FMJ in .380 and wadcutter or semi-wadcutter in .38 are accurate and easy to shoot in a small auto such as the LCP or a snub nose revolver and most tests indicate they penetrate quite well.

Finally, I am a firm believer in frequent practice with what you carry, both gun and ammo. Meaning, I want everything to be exactly the same both on the range and in a defensive scenario as far as gun and ammo are concerned. I want any problems with accuracy, reliability, or my own abilities to come up during practice, not when I need the gun and ammo to save my life. For example, my standard 9mm load is a 124 grain plated lead flat point over 3.8 grains Titegroup for a consistent 1020 fps. I know this round is accurate, reliable, and easy to shoot in my Glock 19 and 26. It penetrates well and the big flat point makes a nice cavity in the target. This knowledge is comforting to me, and I trust this round as much as I could possibly trust a handgun round for anything.

Interesting, FergusonTO35 I think you are the first person I've heard of that takes this approach. It seems to me it's a well thought out idea. I've only been into shooting for the last 5-6 years or so. And as I'm sure you have noticed, every article, every youtube video done by experts tends to say the same thing which is - Jacked Hollow Points or nothing. No argument, no debate end of story.

As you pointed out on the cost issue I'm sure there are many companies making a fortune selling the high end well known self defense products. When I first started shooting I was told that I should practice with what I carried. I knew it would be expensive but I said to myself "yeah I'll do that". Guess what I don't. lol I can't afford to and even if I did make better money I'm not sure I would out of principle. It's simply too much money for me at least. I shoot the cheapest FMJ I can find now off the shelf. I don't even care what it is anymore.

But thanks for the explanation I've never heard of that idea before.

You will find alot of folks with the same philosophy on the forum at castboolits.gunloads.com. I would never disparage anyone's choice of gun or ammo as long as they return the favor.