Author: oddball

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.

So… I currently have a hole in my collection.  Namely, I don’t presently own a .22 semi-auto pistol.  I have plenty of .22 rifles and a neat little Heritage arms .22 SA revolver, but I’ve been without a pistol since I traded the Walther P22 back to WizardPC for his WASR.  I could buy that back, since he’s still trying to sell it.  While that would make an already funny story (which I might recount at some point here), it’s not really what I want.

I think I’ve narrowed it down to a couple.  I’m looking at either a Ruger mark III or a Beretta Neos.  I know the Ruger is kind of the industry benchmark, and has been for quite a while.  I don’t think I’ll get the 22/45, since I really like the way the standard grip feels over the 22/45’s.  Of course, if I choose the Ruger, there’s then the seemingly unending configurations to choose from.

The other is the Neos.  Which I think I’m looking at mostly because I think it looks cool.  I know others think it’s ugly, but I kind of like the raygun look.  From what I’ve read, it looks like it’s dependable and accurate.  Of course, I would be surprised if it wasn’t and Beretta decided to stamp their name on it anyways.  I’d probably go with the 6″ barrel.

Anybody have any thoughts or suggestions?  Is there another plinking .22 I should think about?

By the way, I’ve been told that I have to wait until National Buy A Gun Day for this specific purchase, so that’s when I’ll make the decision.

So, I finally got my lazy rear into a carry class in order to get my permit.  Yes, yes, I know, I know.  I’m fixing that.

Anyways, I found out about Condition-1 through the local chapter of the Zombie Squad, and that they had a few slots still open for yesterday’s class.  Honestly, that’s all I knew about them.  I remember WizardPC telling me that I pretty much already knew what they taught in those classes, and I just needed to get into any class and get the rubber stamp.  As far as the state requirements, he was definitely correct.

The format of the class was the standard class in the morning, then range time in the afternoon.  The classroom portion went over a heck of a lot more than what was required on the test.  One think I thought was interesting was that the state has 3 rules of gun safety instead of Cooper’s 4 rules.  The instructors treated it they way I probably would by going over the 4 rules (oh, and the included 5th rule) and then mentioning “oh, yeah, the state uses these three rules.  We like the 4 rules better.”  I tried to sit there and not be the snot-nosed, know it all gun nut.  I think I mostly succeeded.  The only thing the instructor said that I really had any issue with was they held a Bersa .380 up as an example of a cheap gun not to buy.  Talked to him about that later.  He admitted that he had never had problems with his, but had seen a few fail including one or two slide failures where the slide actually flew off towards the target.  Never heard that one before.

I do need to comment on the video the state required them to show us.  About half of it was actually on topic and about what you would expect from a state-made video.  Somewhere in the middle, they decide to go on a tirade about the evils of drugs and alcohol.  Really?  I think it’s enough to say “guns and drugs/alcohol are bad, m’kay?” and possibly here’s penalties for drinking/doing drugs while carrying.  We don’t need a break down on how alcohol affects the system and how much various shots of alcohol will change your alcohol blood content if you’re a 100lbs girl.  Also, if you’re going to go into the evils of marijuana, please get some better information than what you got from Reefer Madness.

After lunch, it was time to head to the range.  They had blue bins for us to put our guns, magazines, and ammo in, which was a good idea for transport and having someplace to put the stuff when you weren’t using it.  Their instruction was pretty good.  One of the instructors ended up spending a lot of time with an older lady next to me who hadn’t really shot much before the class.   I had to remind her a few times that I’ve been shooting for a few years now and not feel bad about the fact that her target didn’t look like mine did, and she was certain that she was going to fail.  At the end of the day, we did the state required shooting test of a couple 6 shot strings at 3, 5, 7, and 15 yards on silhouette targets.  I had a couple flyers where I know I jerked the trigger, but other than that, I turned the high 8 (where we were told to aim) into a ragged hole.  The lady next to me?  Well, it wasn’t a ragged hole, but every round was on target.  I think the lowest score was 46/48, and most were 48/48.  I suspect that there were a couple of folks in our group that would have failed at the beginning of the day, and I know my groups were tighter than they usually are.

These guys were friendly and knew what they were talking about (I’ll let the Bersa thing slide).  They made it explicitly clear on their website and in class that this was not a class for anything other than getting your CHP, and it wasn’t.  Of course, it’s kind of difficult to make it more than that in one eight hour day.  I’d say this was a pretty good fundamentals class, and I’ll probably keep my eye out for their more advanced courses in the future.

oh, almost forgot a few choice quotes:

One of the instructors after looking at my target and the guy’s next to me after the first string: “you guys are cheating.”

After I volunteered that I had paracord and duct tape in my car for separate issues: “In case of the apocalypse, we’re going with [Oddball].”