Making friends with my competition pistol

In June I picked up this Bernardelli Practical Elite competition (dynamic shooting) pistol.
When I worked at Bernardelli (1996-1997), I sold them for the astronomic price of 4.700.000 £, which would be, at the official exchange rate between € and £, almost 2.450 €. Plus 24 years...
Now that I broke her in, I’m starting to get my satisfactions from her.
I just can’t fully zero her for the 6’o clock hold. She would keep printing a tad high at 15 metres.
So, my first shot went high, then I settled in and did better.
50 rounds in fairly rapid fire (one round every 2-3 seconds).
I already reloaded for her. Just like to shoot that jewel!

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What kind of competition?

It was made for dynamic shooting. Bernardelli won a couple world cups in some of the disciplines in the mid-90ies.
With that one and with the somewhat simpler, but also much lighter VB Practical, which was less of a piece of art, but preferred by the pros.

Yesterday, after 50 rounds with my .44M, I shot these 50 more 9mm with my Practical Elite.
The last 10 were a tad less accurate, due to fatigue, but I can live with such a target.
Just can’t understand why some pictures are turned by 90’...

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After too much time shooting with the awful front sight and compensating, I decided to ask a friend of mine to make me some front sights, a couple mm higher.
That part of the message didn't get through, but now he'll make me a few higher ones.
These work great and I have tested them. Still need to compensate for elevation, but they are easy and clear to see.
I'm very pleased with these sights!
As soon as the correct height will be on, I'll for sure further improve my shooting with this beauty!

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I notice that she is in 9x21mm. Is that a special match round?

No, that is the Italian way to 9 Luger. We have still a few really idiotic laws here. One of them makes the 9x19 illegal on handguns because it is a military round. I could use it in a PCC or in an old handgun with historical value (I guess, not 100% sure), but I can't have a pistol in that round. It would be too dangerous...
So, Italy invented that round. It was developed together with the Israeli Military Industries, but then brought to life and used only here. That's why here it is also called 9 IMI.
All in all, it is exactly the same round as the 9 Luger, same COAL, but with 2 mm longer case.
That allows you to make some pretty nasty rounds for a 9 mm if you like testing and playing around, but the standard ammo is comparable with the 9x19.
Same with .45 ACP. We used to have the .45 HP instead. When the US changed to 9 mm, we got the ACP. Before that, it was forbidden.
Same went for .308 and .223 for a while.
.50 Browning is still a no-go, but we can have everything else.

I must make a little correction. The cartridge was developed by the Italian company Jager, from Loano, and then commercialised and "adopted" by IMI.
The idea was to create a legal round for big calibre handguns to be used in guns normally working with .45 ACP or 9 LARGO.
It did not have much success, until IMI used it on the 9 Luger guns.
Until then, those guns were rechambered in 7,65 Browning, which was not very popular, since it was weak and people wanted bigger and stronger rounds.
Quite simple genealogy...

For pure coincidence, on today’s new gun magazine there is a picture of a 9 Luger and a 9x21 side by side.
The caption says that the performances are the same.

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She is a beauty. Great shooting.

Little update concerning the 9mm issue: the Italian parliament finally passed a law authorising 9x19 or Parabellum. IT WAS TIME!
Now we’ll be able to organise international competitions too…
Until now, international athletes couldn’t come here for ipsc or similar categories, because 9x19 was a horrible, devastating military calibre…