Bersa thunder 380. Thoughts?

Good pistols.

A friend of mine has one and has run 500 rounds through his so far and it has run 100%. Running 100gr plated bullets in the ammo.

Very good pistol.

When I decided to stop collecting .32s & .380s and sold them off. Away went the Walthers and the Bersa remains.

FOR ME:

The controls far surpass any Walther that I've had.
The fill-to-hand feeling is outstanding with a reasonable and very worthwhile *beavertail*.
Mags drop clean & sure.
Doggone fine sights for so diminutive a pistol. Adjustable front & rear. Easy to pick up in low light.
The DA trigger is smooth and presents as rather short travel.
SA trigger is a bit *gritty* and longer than necessary in travel but breaks-in nicely.
Price is nice.
Quality serrations front & back of the magazine well.

In point of fact, after owning one for many years, there is only one down-side that I've noticed. That trigger guard spur queers using tight fitting *Walther* holsters that I have used for my Walthers and Sig 230SL (another *keeper* .380).

Good looking little guns with a wide range of appearance options if one were to order new.

Todd.

It s a good gun if and until it needs repair. Bersa has no OEM repair in the US so you have to go through gunsmiths that Bersa has approved. That has to mean long waits and higher prices. As for the Thunder, it is a basically good and simple gun. The one I tried worked fine, but it did not charm me so I sold it. I’’d say you will likely be OK with any model Thunder, but they are not special. I have tried many guns over decades. I now have only Rugers.

Not my first choice, but underrated and underappreciated, imho. As Walther clones go, just not a bad piece.

I bought one on a whim a few years ago and to my surprise actually liked the gun. Is it the top of the line ? No, but it is a good gun for a limited budget.

I've fired a friend's .380 Bersa Thunder Combat and thought it was a good gun. I own the .22 LR version, which is a fun gun.

I tend to fumble using slide mounted safeties in a hurry, though.

Nice gun, but I prefer my Sig 232...

Two of my acquaintances own them and both of them really like them but more importantly, they trust them.
I have only shot one and I thought it was a nice pistol.

Every one I owned was very reliable and accurate. Fit my hand great, but the recoil was awful! Friends said the same thing, about two mags was all anyone liked to shoot from it. I had the CC and regular versions.

Only reason I do not recommend them is that magazines and grips are high compared to other sized pistols. And like mentioned before, no CS to speak of. One friend carries one and she bought three, in 2018, for $550 for the lot. If one breaks, the next one is there waiting. But that seems excessive to me. I would rather have a G42 and more mags and sights for that money.

So if you are planning to keep it as is, shoot it sparingly, and can get it dirt cheap it’s a winner.

LeftyRed said:

Fit my hand great, but the recoil was awful! Friends said the same thing, about two mags was all anyone liked to shoot from it. I had the CC and regular versions.

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Yeah, small blowback action .380s can be like that.

I have a Bersa Firestorm...it has been a very reliable, comfortable pistol.

I have a T380 that is reliable and a good shooter. Recoil is like most blowback 380s, fairly strong but it is not objectionable. I put the rubber wrap-around grips on it and it seems to help the recoil feel.
Truthfully, I purchased it for my wife but the recoil is still a little strong for her arthritic hands. I keep it because it’s a good pistol and accurate to shoot.

i had one. i bought it relatively cheap with two mags during the obama gun/ammo drought, considered myself lucky then. it’s not particularly fun to shoot, always gave my meaty hands bloody slide bite even after some judicious dremel work. safety lever simply snapped in half (metal fatigue?) one day at the shooting range after just a couple of mags, which is a known problem according to bersa internet search. i paid eagle imports $10 for a replacement and $20 to a gunsmith, test fired it, and then put it away until selling it last summer.

a little bigger but infinitely better pistol is a s&w shield ez 380acp. also better are a s&w bodyguard and taurus spectrum, all of which i test fired before buying the ez. if one is absolutely intent on getting a small steel 380acp pistol but at the prepanic price of $200 then just maybe a bersa is kinda ok. i am generally a revolver guy, to me a bersa is the charter arms of semiauto pistols, i.e. hit or miss, pun intended. neither a charter arms nor an argentine bersa are as good as a brazilian taurus.

I bought a used one in 2008, when I was coming back to firearms as a hobby and as protection provisions. I have not been able to get it to malfunction, though I did have one round of ammunition (out of unknown hundreds) that did not fire the first time the hammer was dropped on it. I've tried mixing ammo types, profiles, case materials, and ages, in the magazines and it still runs and runs. Shoots well, and hits where I expect it to.

I carried it for two years until I happened across a Kel-Tec PF9, then a highly-sought pistol, and bought it. The PF9 is harder-hitting than the Bersa, on both ends, and not nearly as enjoyable at the range. I still find the Bersa to be a great pistol, though its relevance has been diminished by several factors, including the pocket-.380 class, the micro-nine class, and the new interest in double-stack micro-nines. Other .380ACP pistols released after the Thunder, such as the Ruger LC380/LC380s, the S&W Shield-EZ .380, and the SCCY CPX-II, have also further diminished Bersa recognition.

For a solid, all-metal, DA/SA hammer-fired .380, though, the Thunder series is an exceptional value.

Incidentally, I also bought one in .22LR a couple of years back, also used. I only got that one out to the range once (so far), and it wasn't that reliable. It looked not to have been broken it; maybe the previous owner bought it and then couldn't source any ammo at the time.

I've shot a couple friends' Bersas in .380. Nice gun, very few .380's are more pleasant to shoot-and they are the larger ones; Beretta 84, CZ 24, HSc, etc.

I found it a good gun to shoot, pleasant recoil, it hit POA/POI at 7 yards, the sights were easy to pick up and the trigger was smooth. My friend who owns it, found the recoil unpleasant, was firing a buckshot pattern at the same distance and kept hitting high-right on the target. So we had very different experiences with the same gun. My friend said a few foul things about the gun so I asked to buy it off of him, afterwards, he suddenly decided the gun wasn't that bad. I suspect that if it fits your hands well and you have a good grip you'll like it and possibly shoot well with it, if not... You might have issues.
Try before you buy if it's possible. Neat little gun, better than a lot of pocket guns.

The Beras Thunder 380 is a nice little gun, but over priced for what you get. You can spend just as much, or a little more and get a better gun for your money.
I have fired a couple of hundred Berra 380s in all types of conditions over the years. The little guns work.

My wife has one. It has never failed with anything except steel cased ammo. We've probably shot 400 rounds or so through it.

She carries it, and it gets dirty. So we fire it like that, no lube and full of lint.

Friend has one, that's been shot a lot. The slide catch notch was worn on the slide badly and needed reshaping to allow it to work. I did successfully reshape it. His gun functions well.

We trust ours.

Recoil is rather brisk, but I prefer full sized guns.

I have one and carry it every sunday. Good gun

I enjoy shooting mine. It has never failed to go bang. I run it dirty as heck and only clean it rarely. And it runs just fine. Some of the people I shoot with think that the blowback action is a little tough on them. I don't find the recoil excessive. Especially compared to my makarovs.

It is a nice pistol and is reasonably priced.

^What he said.

The Thunder is the best bang for the buck .380 out there in my opinion. I've gifted four or five over the years and have a .380 CC model and one in .22 LR sitting in the safe now. My LGS, pre COVID, always had several Thunder .380 models in stock. All, except the nickle finish, were under $300 with the plain Thunder model selling for $265. They can't order them now although one or two have shown up unexpectedly since the beginning of the year.

Never had a problem with any of the ones that I've owned. Good shooters that conceal well.

Old. Along with PP/PPK, HSC, Cheetah, CZ83, et al are a previous generation, so larger and heavier than the current crop of compacts firing the same cartridges.

Within that constraint, always been decent guns. I tend to say they have improved over the years; when introduced, much worse triggers and so on, but well made. Only failures I have heard of are when fed sketchy ammo and not even slightly maintained, but have heard of them used in a number of SD shootings as they were sorta low-cost Walthers, so the gun kept by pawnbrokers, jewelers, etc more than maybe any other one model. Even to indifferent shooters in bad situations, they always go bang.