About Bersa

What You Didn’t Know About Bersa

The story of Bersa handguns is a story of Italian immigrants and their endeavor and progress in creating arms. The Company itself was established in the mid-1950s in Argentina by three people, who came from Italy, Benso Bonadimani, Ercole Montini and Savino Caselli, all of them mechanical engineers. Montini worked at the Beretta company in Italy before moving to Argentina. The name Bersa is a combination of the first two letters of their names. Before the company was created, they worked for a different arms manufacturer in Argentina – the Ballester-Molina company, now defunct.

Bersa started the production of their first firearm called Luan, based on a Ballester design. This gun however didn’t have any commercial success and if you are an owner of one, than you have a rare collector’s item as they were not produced en masse. In 1959 Bersa came up with  the first .22LR pistol called Modello 60 and later changed the design and name to Modello 62. Bersa established a name for itself in that period and started excessive research and arms manufacture always improving their designs and adapting different, more powerful, calibers. In 1989 the fir full-size combat pistol was introduced. A 9x19mm Parabellum pistol called Model 90.

Bersa introduced their famous Thunder series in 1994. Each gun in this line features a number that states the caliber of the gun. Although the series has a uniform name, the design of the Thunder series varies. The less powerful calibers in a Thunder are based on blowback system and the more powerful calibers, starting with the 9x19mm Parabellum, are based on a locked breech and short-recoil modified Browning design.

Bersa is nowadays a staple of the gun world and a large corporation in Argentina, they produce their pistol massively and deliver them worldwide.