Bersa SA

Bersa S.A. is an Argentine portable weapons manufacturing company, located in the city of Ramos Mejía, La Matanza District, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina.1 Initially founded under the name of Tecnofres in 1958 and changing its name to BERSA S.R.L. in 1962 (although the years of the company's life are counted from the founding of Tecnofres) with the acronym BERSA being the result of the union of the letters of the names of the founding partners, Benso Bonadimani, Ercole Montini and Savino Caselli. Currently the company focuses on the production of pistols, with an annual production that reaches 60,000 copies, reaching 6,500 units per month. In its entire history, 725,000 weapons have been manufactured, of which 345,000 have been exported.

History
The company was born with the association of a group of Italian immigrants who arrived in Argentina during the 1950s, they were Benso Bonadimani from Cologna Veneto, Ercole Montini, arrived from Brescia and Savino Caselli born in a town near Ivrea. Savino studied in Ivrea and in 1940 began working for the Olivetti company, which manufactured typewriters. In 1952, the management of Olivetti decided to install a manufacturing plant for its products in Argentina and carried out a selection of personnel, among whom Savino was selected and traveled to Argentina a year later where he obtained the position of Head of the Workshop. Die-casting, which was the most important sector of the plant. Ercole Montini, who had worked for some years at Beretta with his brother, arrived in Argentina as an immigrant in 1953 and once in the country he set up a small workshop, with a milling cutter and a lathe to do work in his free time. Given his Beretta background, most of the orders were related to weapons, such as the manufacture of spare parts that were difficult to obtain in the country. Savino was in the habit of designing various devices, but he needed a workshop where he could materialize them. This is how Ercole made contact, who allowed him to use his workshop when he was away from the factory.
Around 1958, Ercole was asked to manufacture a large number of parts for a weapon. But the quantity required by the client exceeded the capabilities of the small workshop, so he asked Savino for help. In addition to personnel and machinery, they would need a trusted man to control the process while both were away. For this reason, they contacted Benso, who was only 20 years old, for the task. The three formed a company that they named Tecnofres, the seedbed of what would later become BERSA.

First weapons
Tecnofres was active without problems for a year and dedicated itself to manufacturing parts for the most important Argentine weapons factory of those times, Ballester Molina. However, after that period, they found that they could not sustain the workshop and pay the salaries and loans for the machinery.
If the young company wanted to stay alive, it had to find a new profitable business to keep it afloat and it was at that moment that Savino came up with the possibility of redesigning and manufacturing his own weapon.
Savino was sent back to Italy by Olivetti, Savino acquired a .22 caliber Beretta pistol (probably a Beretta M34), which he disassembled and studied carefully to understand its operation. Later he redesigned it to adapt it to the means of production that he and his partners had. To his original design he added stylistic details inspired by the Beretta 70 pistol, whose design plans he was able to see at the Brescia plant.
The prototype of the new pistol was completed in just forty days, thanks to the collaboration of other Olivetti workers who were on strike.
The result was the BERSA Model 60 pistol, which had excellent acceptance due to the lack of competition within the Argentine market for that class of weapons made in the European style. This initial success led to increased production and the design of new models such as the Model 62 and Model 64.
Around 1962 the company changed its name to BERSA S.R.L.

Pistols