Bersa .380 situation

[itgoesboom]

For those who are having this issue, humor me and run a little experiment.

1. Take a loaded magazine, insert. Release the slide, but don't drop the hammer with the decocker. In fact, don't drop the hammer.

2. Drop the magazine.

3. Pull back the slide and eject the loaded round.

Examine the case.

Now do it again, but with a small change.

1. Take a loaded magazine, insert. Release the slide, but don't drop the hammer with the decocker. In fact, don't drop the hammer.

2. Don't drop the magazine.

3. Pull back the slide and eject the loaded round, while locking the slide back. Now drop the magazine.

Examine the ejected round.

If yours is like mine, you will find it's not the firing pin, it's the ejector, and only when you rack the slide when the magazine isn't inserted. For some reason, the loaded magazine puts pressure on the chambered round when it's extracted, and keeps the ejector from hitting the primer. But drop the magazine, and the primer hits the ejector when it's extracted.

 

[enjr4]

All of this sounds scary as he** to me. But, then again, decockers scare the he** out of me.

I have a Bersa 380 I carry some. To set it up, I either put a mag in and rack the slide to load a round, or with the slide back load a single round and send the slide forward, then load the mag. I then hold the hammer back with my thumb, move the safety to safe and then let the hammer go forward slowly. Then move the safey to off. It is good to go and I haven't put a round through the bedroom floor.

Like I said, decockers scare the he** out of me,
Ed

 

[Swedish K]

I dunno how much good it would do to send it to Bersa if that's normal for the gun.

I know it borders on an apples and oranges comparison, but if you chamber a round in a AK variant and then manually eject it, there will very likely a tiny dimple on the primer left by the free-floating firing pin. But that's just how it is for such guns and you won't have any luck sending it back to Arsenal, Russian American Armory, Century Arms, or whoever it is that made your AK in hopes of getting them to "fix" it.

Not if it was one of the early polytech AKs - they used a firing pin that had a spring to prevent the firing pin from floating into the primer when you drop the bolt. The reason for this was AKs were built for mil spec ammo/primers that are much harder than commercial primers. They were concerned with slam fires using commercial ammo.

 

[raftman]

Not if it was one of the early polytech AKs - they used a firing pin that had a spring to prevent the firing pin from floating into the primer when you drop the bolt. The reason for this was AKs were built for mil spec ammo/primers that are much harder than commercial primers. They were concerned with slam fires using commercial ammo.

Yeah there's another AK variant or two that uses a firing pin spring... but those are the exception, not the rule.

 

[Generator]

For those who are having this issue, humor me and run a little experiment.

I ran the experiment and got very very light taps with the mag out

 

[humdrum]

Happens in my AK variant but never happened in my Bersa. Is it possible that any after-market spring manufacturers such as Wilson or Wolff make an extra-power FP return spring for that model?