Bergara B14R Carbon - 60 5-shot groups
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Put a few hundred rounds through a carbon fiber Bergara B14R today. I picked this up at South Dakota Arms in Miller, SD. Great outfit with great people. Give them a call if you are looking to get a Bergara rimfire. (605) 870-2008
This rifle is setup with Hawkins Precision hybrid rings, vortex diamondback FFP 6-24, and atlas PSR bipod. Rifle is totally factory. Had a few failure to eject, where the case extracted, but then stayed in the action and then prohibited bolt closure. Generally, the rifle is well built for the price point and ran well. It seems to be somewhat of a picky eater, and seems to throw some pretty wild flyers once in a while. Not uncommon for 3-4 shots to land touching each other, then one goes zinging off, doubling the group size. This particular sample REALLY liked a lot number of Lapua Polar Biathlon I have. I attribute the wild flyers to bullets being handled indelicately during magazine feeding, and it could very well be that the unique shape of the polar biathlon lends itself to feeding from this setup with more uniformity. I shot some more polar biathlon and it performed similarly, shooting in the .2's, .3's, and .4's. So clearly if a person does some lot testing, you'll likely run into a lot number that will shoot pretty good. The rifle is clearly capable of shooting well, despite the fact it is a lightweight carbon fiber setup and not a target rifle.
There was an attempt made to stick a TT Diamond and a Timney 517 in this rifle, though both were relatively loose fitting in the action. The action slot is a bit wide, and both triggers seemed to function well enough, but they felt very odd. The factory trigger is surprisingly good for a rifle at this price point. A bit weighty for some shooters, being on the 3lbs+ range, but very crisp and very shootable. This was nice to see.
Another random note; I was setting this up for youth shooters. I loosened up the screws in the recoil pad, removed all the spacers, and began tightening the screws back up. Before I was able to get the recoil pad tight with no spacers, the included screws would have popped right out the front of the stock, just behind the cheek piece. Luckily I realized what was happening and stopped before the screw actually made its way out. You'll need to source your own screws if you want to setup for little miniature type humans.
It certainly won't be taking the place of a TS Customs RimX build, and at 1/4 the price... I wouldn't expect it to either. If you're after a rimfire rifle with rem700 compatibility that will perform solidly around half-inch at 50yd, or slightly better with lot tested ammo, I'd say the Bergara deserves a look.
