Bersa Thunder 9 Pro – Initial Impressions

Went to a gun show this weekend and an IBM make M1 carbine tried real hard to follow me home (stupid broken A/C on my car stopped it).  Instead, a full-sized Bersa Thunder 9 Pro decided to jump at me and not leave me alone until I did the paperwork.

As the name implies, it’s a 9mm.  It came with 2 17 round magazines, a trigger lock that is still in its shrink wrap, and… that’s about it.  This thing is at the price point where they stuff ’em into cardboard boxes instead of nice hard cases.  If you’re interested in the spec rundown, all that can be found on Bersa’s website here.

One thing that I noticed immediately was that the grips feel great.  I think it’s because they went with actually contouring the grips some instead of the current trend of “oh, you think it’s hard to hold on to? MOAR STIPPLING!”  Oh, it definitely has that.  Thanks to using wrap around polymer grips over the aluminum frame, there’s stippling on the back of the grip and they did the standard groves on the front.

Then there’s the trigger.  This was something that I couldn’t really try at the show because the shows around here have apparently started requiring dealers to run zip ties through their guns in a manner that stops the slide/bolt/whatever from closing.  The double action trigger on this is insanely heavy.  I don’t have a way to actually measure it, and my google-fu is failing me (although, I did find that the previous model to this had a 10lbs trigger pull).  I will confidently say that I would be completely confident in carrying this pistol with a round in the chamber, hammer down, safety off.  That thing ain’t getting yanked by accident.

The single action is much, much better.  It’s still a little heavy, but not nearly the “OMG, I’m getting a workout!” heavy.  It’s got very little slack in this mode and the distance between fired and trigger reset in miniscule. I’m going to guess that firing this pistol quickly and accurately after the first (double action) shot is going to be fairly easy.

Doing some dry fire practice, I tried balancing an empty 9mm case on the front sight.  I was able to keep it on there more times that not in double action mode, but the casing danced every time the trigger broke.  The casing didn’t budge when I tried single action.

The other controls are fairly straight forward.  The magazine release is where you would expect it.  The slide release and safety are both ambidextrous.  The frame mounted safety is also a decocker, which is a little different than what I’m used to (the only other frame mounted safety I own is a 1911).

Considering I  paid under $400 before taxes and background check, this looks like a pretty good purchase.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to get to the range soon, try it out, and report back as to how well it goes bang.