Bersa .380 longevity, how long?

[38snapcaps]

I've had a Bersa for a little over a year now and its had around 1300 rnds thru it. Its a wonderful shooter, I feel very confident with it as a carry piece, but I wonder about its durability.

I've noticed on the slide stop notch in the slide there is some peening of the metal. Would you consider this normal or an indication that perhaps as nice as the gun is today it shouldn't be considered something my grand kids could have?

I like to practice alot, and could put easily run a 1-2,000 rnds thru it in a year. Its a fun shooter, too, so often I use it for recreation, thereby pushing up the round count even more.

Do you think this pistol will last for years and years?

 

[Cthulhu]

If you should wear it to the point it ceases to function, a slide stop notch can be cleaned up by a careful hand and files. Only the minimum amount of metal should be removed, and anyone attempting it should see if the area warrents hardening to the metal exposed during reshaping.

Will it last years and years? At that rate of use, probably not.
All carry and use causes wear. Bersa's are meant to be inexpensive pistols for CCW and light target/recreational use. They are built to be light, accurate, fairly compact, and, above all, reliable. The examples that I have tried and sold seem to meet these goals. As an added bonus they also tend to have smooth triggers and are easily handled by beginning female shooters and those with poor hand strength. That being said, I don't think long term durability was a design requirement. As an alloy framed pistol in a useful caliber that retails for around $200, it seems to be durable enough for its intended purpose. Even a service life of 2-3K rounds (a conservative estimate, as longevity data on Bersa's isn't really established) seems like a fair trade. Seen a few PPK/S and Sig 230's that didn't make that before developing problems. When it (or your confidence in its ability to function wears out), buy another one. Better yet, buy 2 (or 3) now, and enjoy for years to come. If you spend enough in ammo to wear one out, the cost of a new Bersa is a mere fraction of that.

 

[horge]

Hi,

The rental Bersa Thunder 380 duo-tone at the range I frequent has roughly 3500 - 4500 rounds through it, according to the RO or the ammo sales clerk. That's based on range reloads sold, and cannot account for factory ammo brought in by users like me. They say it hasn't had anything replaced, except the recoil spring once (with very weak range reloads, the spring probably lasts longer).

The finish is a mess of wear, scratches and dents. The manual safety lever is broken right at the hub, supposedly because some monkey at the range wanted to make believe he was a gunsmith. (By the way, disassembly instructions are on my website below). The front sight post looks like the pistol has been dropped on it a couple of times, and slide-frame fit is a bit looser than it should be. It is still fairly reliable and accurate, though only with factory ammo (S&B, Fiocchi, Rem GS, PMC Starfire, Armscor, Win, you name it --CorBon's illegal for civvy use here)--the range reloads are despicably weak and malf-inducing. The slide catch notch looks like it's been filed square at least once, and frankly, I'm surprised it still works given the obvious signs of abuse elsewhere. If I can visit the range this Monday, I'll photograph the piece for posting to this thread.


The controls on the Bersa are apparently MIM, and with the exception of the slender manual safety lever, are nice, thick and quite strong. The high stress parts of my hammer drill are MIM, so there... The slide looks like an investment casting, and while it's definitely not up to Ruger or Armscor hardness, is quite servicable with .380 recoil in mind, otherwise that range rental wouldn't still be around.
---

Although I'm a little short of 1,000 factory rounds through my own thunder 380 in satin nickel, I do disassemble the piece often and check the internals, with a baseline set of photos to compare for wear. I also measured the recoil spring length NIB as another baseline.

My personal guesstimate on the Thunder 380's ultimate lifespan on standard factory loads is 6,000 to 12,000 rounds or even much more. I think it's all in how you care for it, help it along, and keep the recoil spring fresh --changeout appropriate every 1000 - 2500 rounds is my guess...

I try to field strip/disassemble with care and precision, otherwise the frame edges and rear of the frame rails wear out more. Lube intelligently. With more play in the rails, there's more cycling chatter and thus more wear throughout the pistol. It's small amounts of deliberate care, consistently over time.

Accuracy, Reliability, Fun Factor appeal and Good Looks...
Remember how little you paid for all that,
Remember how cheap the critical replacement parts are..
It costs a bit less to apply intelligent care towards your Thunder 380.



hth,
Horge

 

[mod12]

bersa

buy a keltec p3at. they're guaranteed for life. regardless of the owner. only your heirs will have to worry about it!

 

[38snapcaps]

Thank you for your reponses, very encouraging.

Calling all Bersa shooters, check out Horge's website, its really nice.

 

[Snaps]

I actually rented one a few months ago just to play with that was over four years old. So I can only guess how many rounds it's had through it being that long as a rental gun.

Worked very well after all that.

 

[SirVette]

Some of the BERSA 380s are made of steel & should last a long time.
They are probably not meant to be inexpensive, the cost of labor is much lower in Argentina than Germany, etc. No telling what someone may do to a range gun. The safety levers on both of mine look good (like my Walther) & don't expect any problems w/ them.

 

[Aaron]

Maybe my memory is off, but it seems to me that I read that U.S government specs for service pistols specify a minimum useful life of only 5000 rounds. I use this as my guide for all my pistols, all of which are from supposedly high quality manufacturers, and I normally retire and/or dispose of them at about 4000 rounds. I certainly would not expect an inexpensive pistol to equal this performance, expecially one built on an alloy frame. It seems to me your Bersa is just one of those unusual deviations from the norm, like the occasional dog that manages to live for 20 years.

 

[horge]

Hi Aaron,

I'll presume you're addressing me and mine

IIRC, the life-expectancy requirement for a LEO handgun sustaining 9mm recoil is around 15,000. Military requirements on weapons run up to 225,000. Then again, I do not live in the US, so you may be more familiar with the regulations and requirements there.

I don't think the Bersa Thunder 380 breaching 12,000 is going to be unusual: the .380 ACP cartridge (9mm short) doesn't generate as much damaging kick as its longer cousin, 9mm Parabellum. Privately-owned guns are also (to my mind) more likely to receive life-extending TLC.

With a fixed barrel blowback, you're correct to focus on the Bersa Thunder 380's aluminium alloy frame and how it handles stress, but there is once again the counterbalance of the .380 ACP cartridge's relatively-weak kick.

An ultimate stress failure in the frame would probably occur where the magazine catch button and slide catch lever are --two breaks in the frame, aligned and placed so close together. Early Bersa .380's had a wide gap between a very short rail and the breechface, and I've seen early-Bersa frames that fractured right where this gap lies --these were steel frames, mind you.

In recent pistols, Bersa has mercifully kept the gaps to a minimum by lengthening the rails as much as possible and beefed up frame thickness. I have not yet heard of confirmed stress failures in the aluminium frames of the Series 95 and its present incarnation, the Thunder 380... but a structural failure can occur with enough use on any pistol. The question is when it might probably occur for most.

I'm fairly sure Thunder 380's can put out 5,000 and keep going, based on several examples (the range weapon I cited was merely the most abused), and offered what I called a "personal guesstimate" on the ultimate life expectancy of Thunder 380's in general. I guess all one can ask for is that Bersa owners appraise their guns regularly, and honestly report any present or impending structural failures.

Then hopefully down the road, we'll really know, won't we?



horge

 

[caz223]

This question gets asked regularly here, and the one response that makes the most sense is as follows.
Cost of gun: We will just say $300, though I know you didn't pay $300 for it.
Cost of 10,000 rounds of .380 ammo: Well over $1000 of ammo. Maybe $1500. Maybe more.
Sell it when it gets to 1/2 of it's useful life for $100, buy a new one.

If you can afford the ammo, you can afford a new gun every few years.

There. That was easy.

The major cost in shooting isn't the guns, it's the ammo, if you want to save money, and shoot more, reload.

 

[kokapelli]

My Bersa Thunder 380 has about 300 rounds through it and it has some faily deep gauling on the bottom side of the rails. The gauling on one side seems to be from the that little hump on the rear of the trigger bar and on the other side from the slide lock. I am a lttle concerned that if the gauling continues it will eventually effect the pistols operation. I tried taking a picture of it, but as you can see, my camera is not very good at macro distance!

 

[38snapcaps]

Kokapelli- thank you thank you for sending in that response and photo. If I had a digital camera I would have posted that exact picture along with the peening of the slide stop notch.

In a way I'm glad your gun is doing that, its starting to look like its a normal wear pattern and not anything adverse. My gun did the same thing at the same amount of firing. I got an e-mail from Steve Camp who has done a very good write up on Bersas, his has over 2,000 rounds thru it and it's functioning perfectly. He believes the wear patterns are just breaking in marks and won't get any worse, they've "settled", to use his words. The only thing he said was really necessary was recoil spring replacement like Horge stated. I'm thinking when I hit 2,000 I'll replace it.

So, Mr. Horge, you really know your stuff about Bersas, do you have any further comment? (I'd love to hear it

 

[horge]

My Bersa Thunder 380 is the first and only firearm I've owned.
I am literally a gun-newb. I'm no expert, though I like to take things apart and (try to) understand them, so i can share a coherent opinion, hehe...



I think...
You're all observing wear on the slide from contact with the disconnector nub on the trigger bar. It is just like the wear you'll see on the manual safety lever pivot from contact with the hammer release plate: perfectly normal.

The Trigger Bar disconnector "gouging" the slide
The trigger bar has a disc-edged protrusion we can call the disconnector nub. (In BERSA literature the trigger bar is called the disconnector for this reason).

The disconnector nub fits into a matching slot in the slide above. Only when it's in the slot can the trigger bar function. In essence, it ensures that the trigger can only work when the slide is more or less in the correct position. When it's out of the slot, the nub drags along the slide's lip, producing the shallow track reported.

The trigger won't work without a mag inserted, right? That's because there's nothing to push the trigger bar up into the "active" position. BUT, even with a mag inserted, an out-of-position slide will push DOWN on the trigger bar, back into the "inactive" position. As the slide cycles, keeping the trigger bar pushed down, it gets worn by the trigger bar's disconnector nub.

I guess what I'm really saying is that the trigger bar gives way quite a bit, moving up or down, otherwise the wear on the slide wouldn't be so superficial. Even though the trigger bar is forged, and the slide I believe to be a rather soft investment casting, the wear is limited. The wear-track would have to become nearly as deep as the proper slot to affect function, and AFAIK there's just no way that can happen in 12+ years of respectable use --work-hardening of the area metal would slow down the wear anyway.

The Hammer Release "gouging' the Manual Safety pivot
The hammer release plate also has a disclike edge, and it rides hard against the pivot/axle of the manual safety lever. The pivot however has a big notch built into it that (when in position) spares the plate-edge such contact.

Let's say you're cocked. If you switch the lever to SAFE, the notch rotates out of position, and there's the hard, full circumference of the pivot for the plate to deal with. The hammer release plate gets pushed violently down, disengaging the leaf-spring-like cocking piece down below, and dropping the hammer --although since you accomplished all this by switching the safety ON, there's no contact with Mr. Firing Pin, and what you've really done is DECOCK the hammer. Yep, that's what all this hammer-release chicanery is for: to DECOCK.

The contact in this case is much, much harder than in the previous case with the slide and the trigger bar, because the hammer release plate is working against more pressure from below....

However, the parts in conflict here are forged vs. MIM. Both very, very hard, and so there's less evidence of the violent contact. You can see it in the disassembled slide by switching the manual safety ON (SAFE), and looking for the wear track on the pivot/axle.



hth.

horge


PS:
Kokapelli (JF), can I request a photo of your Bersa and P3AT together for a size comparison? I'd like to post it on the gallery of the site if you're willing. PM me if so...

 

[kokapelli]

Horge, the link is on it's way.
Jerry

 

[horge]

For a size comparison, that picture serves very, very nicely.
Thank you, Jerry!

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