Tag Archives: Rifle

The Bergara B14 HMR Is Good to Go

In a recent post, I gave some background on Bergara and as mentioned, after learning more, I did go back to Michigan Gun Exchange and buy the Bergara B14 HMR.

The B14 HMR is made in Spain in a modern factory with CNC machines and careful quality control. This results in consistent parts with fairly tight tolerances – certainly better than years ago when parts still required a great deal of hand fitting.

With the Bergara B14, you are getting a receiver that has the same footprint as Remington 700 short action receivers. Bergara makes their own by the way plus one of their high quality button rifled barrels.

The barrel is a 20″ M24 profiled barrel that has a 1:10 twist. On the far end, it is threaded 5/8″-24. With the HMR, it is fully free floated meaning nothing touches it to affect accuracy. Bergara does have an interesting page about how they make barrels.

Bergara’s Performance Trigger is quite nice. It is set at 2.8 pounds at the factory and is adjustable from 2.8-4.4 pounds via an adjustment screw. I have run really light triggers in the past but 2.8 pounds is in my sweet spot and it breaks nicely when pulled.

The HMR stock has an aluminum chassis that stock is then formed around. This means the receiver has a solid platform that is not going to flex or warp.

One of the things I like about the stock is that it can be adjusted to fit the shooter and the “bottom metal” meaning the floor plate area, supports the use of an AICS-style magazine. This magazine design started with Accuracy International in their Chassis System ( hence “AICS”) and now a number of makers produce that pattern inclduing Magpul.

The base rifle comes in at 9.5 pounds and is 40 inches overall – bear in mind there are spacers in the recoil pad so between that and if you install a muzzle device, that overall length can vary.

What does it look like out of the box?

Not to be funny but what you get is a base bolt action platform that you then customize. Now you are getting a jump start in terms of having a really good stock and pretty decent trigger right out of the box.

Let’s look at some photos:

It comes in a box with a nice secure molded liner that protects everything. It looks like many other bolt action rifles albeit with a cool stock.
The stock design is very well thought out and fit me very well.
This is an interesting view of the bolt face. You can see the big ejector and the extractor claw off to the left plus the firing pin hole. What you also ought to notice are the wear marks on the bolt lugs. This bolt has two lugs – the protrusions on the left and the right. When you push the bolt in and then bring the bolt handle down, these lugs are travelling in the receiver into a locked position that then withstands the enormous pressure of the cartridge when it is fired. The wear marks are showing the contact points where the bolt is rubbing on the receiver as it goes into the locked position and also when it is unlocked. How well the receiver, lugs and bolt body “fit” each other contribute to how smooth the action feels. Also, the more consistent the lock up, the better the repeatable accuracy is.
This is the back underside of the bolt assembly. We are looking at the firing pin to the left and the Bergara is designed to cock on open, meaning that as you open the bolt, the firing pin is pulled back and spring compressed. You’ll note there is some debris here that needs to be cleaned up. Even so, it was pretty smooth right out of the box. Scott had the rifle on display so there’s no guessing how many times the action was cycled – at least a hundred of times probably – before I bought it. Also, note the oversized bolt knob. The larger size makes manipulating the bolt easier.
The receiver comes drilled and tapped for whatever Remington short action scope mount you want to use. The bolt release is sticking out at the rear, closest to us. The left close to the “B-14” in the photo is the safety lever.
It comes with a very decent thick recoil pad on the far right. The black “discs” are spacers that you can add or remove to adjust the scope to your desired length of pull.
Protected by a muzzle cap are the 5/8″-24 TPI threads. This is a very common thread size for .308 muzzle devices and gives you a ton of options.

Summary

I’m going to wrap this post up at this point. The base Bergara B14 HMR is a very nice rifle – sub MOA guarantee, good barrel, action was pretty smooth, decent trigger and a very slick stock. It definitely gave me a starting platform to build on and a rifle I wholeheartedly recommend. In the next post, I’ll tell you about what I added.

I hope this helps you out.


Note, I have to buy all of my parts – nothing here was paid for by sponsors, etc. I do make a small amount if you click on an ad and buy something but that is it. You’re getting my real opinion on stuff.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.


Do you want reliability and maintain your firearms?  You might be overlooking something really important

I’m old enough to have grown up with iron sights.  It wasn’t until I wasn’t until I was a teenager that I bought my first four power scope for my pump up Crosman airgun.  In 1990, I bought my first red dot scope – a big Aimpoint thing that went on my .44 Desert Eagle.  Today, 34 years later, I have all kinds of optics, lights and lasers. Do you know what most of them have in common?  They all take batteries of one type of another.  So, here’s a question for you – when was the last time you checked or replaced your device’s batteries?

My dad was in the 6th infantry at the end of WWII and he drilled into me the need to clean and lubricate firearms.   Every time we went plinking it was followed by running patches and then lubricating the .22 rifle.  Maintaining firearms was second nature but back then there were no electronic do-dads on firearms. Now, years and years later and a few range trips where optics wouldn’t work due to dead batteries, checking batteries and having spares was added to the list. 

Here’s what I want to share with you – if you want to count on your electronic gadgets, you need to maintain the batteries too.

Why bother checking?

First off, batteries have a finite capacity and that as we use them, they eventually run out and need to be changed.

Second, batteries have a shelf-life.  In other words, they are chemical devices and at some point, the chemicals are depleted, no reaction can occur so no power comes out.  The packaging may say the lithium batteries are good for 10 years – well, that is from when they were made and not when they went in your device. 

Also, just when did you buy those batteries anyways?  Get older and you’ll understand that last part more.  If the packaging doesn’t have a date, I write down when I bought it and guess they are about a year old.  I have Surefire CR123A batteries that hit 10 years – time flies by.

You might want to write either the date you bought batteries or the expiry date on the box. In this case, Surefire writes the expiration date on each battery – “04-2033”. I wrote the purchase date on the box so I can track orders but you use whatever system works for you.

As an aside, I take comments like “Our optic’s batteries will last 10,000 hours” or some huge number with some skepticism because they are usually estimated from testing and with a number of assumptions.  Your real battery life might vary.  So, that cool slide mounted optic you just bought with a huge hour claim — I’d recommend you know how to change the battery and keep a spare around just in case.

Improving Device Reliability

Let me share with you a few things to increase device reliability that concerns the batteries:

1.  Know how to change the battery in each device.  That might sound simple but sometimes somebody else installs a battery for you on a new optic and then you don’t know what type it is or where it goes so find out and practice doing it.

In the case of Vortex Crossfire red dots, the CR2032 battery is under a cap on the rotating brightness knob.

2. If you log work on your device, include batteries.  I am honestly not this organized but some guys are.

3. If you have no idea how old or depleted a battery is in a device, change it.  Some guys change batteries before they head to the range. I’ve talked to a few law enforcement officers that say they change the batteries in their lights before they go do something and that’s an option if you have time.

Energizer brand batteries will have a “Use by” date. If you look at the bottom of this CR2032 package, you will see the date is 3/2033. Lithium batteries have a 10 year shelf-life so these were probably made in 3/2023. By the way, a common scam on eBay and Amazon is to sell batteries nearing the end of their shelf-life at steep discounts so be careful who you buy from.

4. Test your device before you go to the range or at least every six months.  Shorter if your device is mission critical.  Now, just because it powers on doesn’t mean it will last – the battery might be near the end of its life but at least you have an idea.   If you want to go the extra mile and have a multimeter, find out what the acceptable voltage range is for that type of battery and discard it when it nears the bottom.

5.  Always keep spares – both in your house as well as your range bag.  I can’t tell you how many shooting sessions were saved because I had a spare battery in my bag.  On the flip side, I’ve had a few range sessions where the firearm had to go back in its case because an optic was dead.

Two days ago, while I am writing this post, I took my brother-in-law and nephew shooting the other day and the CR123A battery in my Vortex UH-1 holographic optic was dead. We were only able to shoot my 10mm Stribog because I had spare Surefire CR123A batteries in the Stribog’s carry case.

6. Buy quality batteries from a reputable seller. Did you know a lot of devices that use CR123A will not be covered if you use a no-name brand battery? Yeah – they had problems with cheap CR123As catching on fire and people wanting warranty coverage so the big device vendors expressly mention that cheap batteries will invalidate their warranties.

Also, not all batteries are created equal – some supposed alkaline or lithium batteries hold a fraction of a charge compared to name brands such as Duracell, Energizer, Panasonic and Surefire. Not to mention that cheap batteries may “pop” open and leak corrosive acids in your battery compartment. In short, don’t go cheap on the batteries for something you need to rely on.

7.  Have a plan if the device stops working.  This is critical – your red dot, laser or whatever stops working then what will you do?  For example, practice shooting a pistol both with the device on and off.  Do you have back up sights? Do you need to remove the optic to use the sights? What will you do?

Build For Reliability

Now, I need to expand a bit on that last one when it comes to optics.  At this point in life, whenever possible, I want one of two things to be possible – my first choice is to co-witness the optic with the iron sights so even if the device stops working, I can immediately continue with the iron sights with no lost time. 

You can co-witness a Vortex Crossfire red dot on a MP5K when you use a low profile B&T mount. It’s a pleasure to shoot and reliable. If the red dot should fail for any reason, I can just use the iron sights.

If that is not possible then I want the optic on a quick release mount that I can get off the weapon in a hurry.  You’ll notice most of firearms have American Defense quick release mounts because they are quality and I can count on them.  You can use whatever name brand you like but I would not recommend cheap no-name mounts because stuff bends, they don’t return to zero when remounted, etc.

On this one, an MKE rail was used. The rail allows you to use the sights but the optic will not co-witness with them. So, if I need to get the optic off in a hurry, it’s on a low-profile ADM quick release mount.

Practice For Resiliency

Resliency is the property of a material to bend and turn to its original shape.  In your case, if an optic fails, how do you stay in the game?You can do all kinds of the stuff above and then life throws you a curve ball – what do you do?

Part of the answer is to mentally rehearse what you will do and then a very important point is to actually practice with the device turned off.  How will you aim?  How will your transition to a backup light or whatever?  How do you get the optic out of the way in a hurry if necessary so you can use the backup sights that are blocked by the mount?  It’s one thing to think about these things and another to do them.  For example, the quick release levers for American Defense mounts have a small button that must be pressed for the levers to turn.   You wouldn’t want to be fumbling around with them if you are in a rush – they move out of the way very easily with practice.

Rechargeable Batteries Introduce New Variables

“No more changing batteries” sounds great but there are still things you need to consider.  If you have a device with a rechargeable battery, like a thermal or night vision optic, then remember three it takes time to charge them.  To me, this is their biggest Achille’s heel – you can’t swap the batteries and go so plan accordingly. You need to also consider how long will it store a charge and how long will it run?  Can you plug in a USB battery pack to extend the life or recharge it?

Even rechargeable batteries have a limited life – it may be three, five or seven years or they may tell you the number of times it can be charged and discharged but you need to have an idea.

Buying Batteries

Amazon is just about the cheapest place I have found to buy batteries. Look for name brands — I only recommend Duracell, Energizer, Panasonic and Surefire. There are dozens if not hundreds of brands out there and not all are good. Whether brand name or no-name, be sure to read reviews before you buy something from a seller other than Amazon directly:

Quick trivia for you – the “C” in CR means it is a lithium battery. The “R” means it is a round shape.

Summary

Electronics are everywhere these days and sometimes we don’t think twice about them.  If you want to rely on your firearm and it has an electornic device on it, like a dot optic or light, always factor your devices’ batteries into your maintenance plans.  That’s the first part and  preventive maintenance certainly helps but you also need to plan and practice in advance if the optic or whatever device fails. 

I hope this helps you out.


Note, I have to buy all of my parts – nothing here was paid for by sponsors, etc. I do make a small amount if you click on an ad and buy something but that is it. You’re getting my real opinion on stuff.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.


Use a Wheeler Engineering Green Laser Bore Sight To Get Your Scope or Optic Range Ready

When you buy a scope/optic and mount it on your rifle or pistol, it may relatively be close to where the actual bullet will hit the target or it may be a mile off. This applies just as much to dot optics as well as scopes with magnification. First off, this is why you need to sight in any type of optic before you use it. Second, unless you want to waste a ton of ammo, this is why you want to bore sight an optic before you do the final adjustments.

“Bore Sighting” refers to looking down the bore, seeing the target and roughly dialing on the elevation and windage of the optic. This was never perfect but it at least got you on the paper at 25-50 yards you could then start dialing in the scope and backing up to whatever range you wanted to dial the scope in for. This method worked fine if you could actually remove the bolt and look down the scope, such as a bolt action rifle. It doesn’t work for semi-autos where you typically have a closed rear receiver and can’t look down the bore. It also doesn’t work for folks like me who can’t see the broad side of a bright red barn when trying to look down a bore.

The industry responded with all kinds of gizmos to help improve the process ranging from calibrated collimeters that let you roughly sight in by pointing at some target held up from the end of the barrel. That lasted for a few years until lasers started getting affordable and then models started popping up that either went in the muzzle with some form of collet to help center the shaft in the barrel or there were ones that approximated the shape of a given round and went in the chamber. The accuracy of either one greatly depended on the quality control of the manufacturer. In general, they worked and were really simple – put the laser in, turn it on and then dial in your scope to where the red dot was showing.

Pros: Simple, cheap, did the job Cons: acccuracy was highly dependent on how well the manufacturer made the unit, they are impacted by how well the inside of the muzzle device aligns with the barrel and the red laser faded out quickly in bright light and because they all use button cells of varying sizes the battery life might be short – especially the fake cartridge units. Note, a number of the muzzle end manufacturers do offer green lasers and that helps. Bottom line, they do the job and I do favor the muzzle end devices more provided they are from a quality manufacturer.

Then along came Wheeler Engineering with relatively large green laser unit with a strong magnet that sticks on the face of the muzzle (the end of the barrel). This got away from issues with the muzzle end units not centering and the frequent poor quality of the imported fake cartridge units. The green laser is powered by a relatively large CR123A battery that is the same used in many tactical lights. I should point out that they make a red laser version too but if I had to pick I would go with the green laser as your eye can see it easier and it reflects from further away.

This is the Wheeler laser bore sighter and it is the green laser unit. Note, I have a bettery in the unit and a spare Surefire CR123A in the holder. Steer clear of no-name cheap CR123A units as they have had issues in the past and caught fire, burst, etc.

I’ve used it for a few years now (I bought it in 2019) and have found two issues that affect it. First, the end of the barrel or your muzzle device (flash hider, muzzle brake, and so forth must be steel for the magnet to stick to it. By the way, I am not impressed by how aluminum muzzle devices hold up over time and just buy steel whenever I can.

The second shortcoming is that the manufacturer of the muzzle device and/or the barrel must have created a true end meaning the end of the barrel, the thread, the muzzle device – they must all result in an end of the barrel/muzzle device that is perpendicular to the barrel. The worst offenders in my experience are the muzzle devices because their positioning depends both on how well the threads were but on the barrel plus how well the device was made. Some combinations are better than others. If I were to make a generalization, unthreaded barrel muzzle faces from a quality manufacturer tend to be pretty true.

This is a quality Ballistic Advantage 20″ 5.56 DMR barrel. I’d expect its threads to be cut properly. The next variable would be how well the muzzle device engages the threads and how square the end of it is.
This is a IWI Galil Ace in .308. In a favorable nod to their manufacturing the factory barrel and brake yielded a remarkably close test pattern at 25 yards. I’m always amazed when boresighting is within inches and then going to range yields initial rounds within a6 inches of the expected center and this one did.
This is the strong magnet that secures the laser boresight to the end of the barrel or muzzle device. It’s also why either end would need to be steel for it to magnetically attach.
Here’s the unit secured to the end of a PSA barrel and PSA bird cage brake. It did the basic job of getting the rifle on paper with it’s Vortex UH-1 optic.
The power button is on top of the battery compartment and you can see the green laser hitting the off-white plastic cup. I like to sight in when the sun isn’t bright so I can get out 25-50 yards.

As with the other bore sighting devices, this unit will get you in the ballpark. Because of the factors above, you might be on the paper at 100 yards but you are better starting off at 50 and working things out from there.

By the way, one tip of any of them is to do your boresighting early in the morning or at dusk but not in the bright light of day. You can reach out 25-50+ yards and see the dot enough to do the initial sighting.

As a closing comment – none of them are perfect because they were all designed to be approximations. The final sighting must be done by you with the rounds you expect to use because a ton of variable will affect where you bullet actuall hits – your cheek weld, your trigger pull, factors with the bolt and barrel, how consistent the ammo is, the weight of the bullets, etc. My goal is to save some ammo and at least hit the target so I don’t have to shoot so many rounds to dial in the final settings and then begin working out firing solutions for different ranges.

In Conclusion

There actually isn’t a perfect solution – I mainly use the Wheeler Pro Green Laser Boresighter when I can but I still have a couple of good muzzle end units that I use when the muzzle device is aluminum. I know one unit is from LaserLyte and I really do not recall who the other is from. I do not use the dummy cartridge units after a few disappointing tries.

So, if you haven’t tried a Wheeler Pro boresighter and are in the market, I like mine.


Note, I have to buy all of my parts – nothing here was paid for by sponsors, etc. I do make a small amount if you click on an ad and buy something but that is it. You’re getting my real opinion on stuff.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.


Video: Rocket Surgery: Inside the Russian Nikonov AN94 by Forgotten Weapons

The Russian AN94 Nikonov is a rather bizarre rifle that is often described as complex and expensive.  Just those words alone should make you realize the rifle is a hard departure from the relatively simple and inexpensive Kalashnikov design maxims.  I have been hoping to see a more thorough breakdown of the AN94 and Ian of Forgotten Weapons does just that.  This is a great video released April 11, 2017.  You definitely should check it out as he does a great job taking the rifle down and explaining how it operates.  When I saw the pulley, cable and extra sub-assemblies required to do the two round burst, I just shook my head.  Time will tell how rugged it really is.

Here’s the video:


If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.



Kevin’s badass Veprs with our Vepr handguards and second generation Molot grips

Kevin’s badass Veprs with our Vepr handguards and second generation Molot grips!

ronin_1 ronin2

 

The 2nd Generation Molot Grips are in our store at:
http://shop.roninsgrips.com/Russian-Molot-Second-Generation-RussianMolot2ndGen.htm

The Vepr handguards are in our store at:
http://shop.roninsgrips.com/Vepr-Furniture_c16.htm

ATF Opinion Letter on AR Pistols – Some Key Considerations

In this ATF letter, the author asked the ATF’s opinion on a number of great AR pistol related questions.  I am paraphrasing a few points I found important to help folks doing full text searches for opinions:

1) An AR lower receiver is neither pistol nor rifle until it is built the first time.  If you want to make a pistol, a lower receiver must *never* have been built in a rifle configuration.

2) AR pistols do not have a barrel length restriction.

3) AR handguards can be used on an AR pistol

4) An AR rifle and pistol can be in the same household — note, and this is a personal comment, what got a guy in trouble years ago was that he had only an AR rifle and a pistol upper with no lower to mount it on.  I don’t remember all of the details but the main thing here is that you never want it to look like the only reason you have a pistol/SBR upper is to put in on your AR that is legally classified as a rifle.

5)  Magpul angled fore grips (AFGs) are permissible on the bottom accessory/picatinny rail.

AR_Pistol_1AR_Pistol_2AR_Pistol_3

 

I recommend people print and keep copies of letters just in case they need to show someone that some aspect of a weapon was “approved” by the ATF at some point.  Just bear in mind that ATF letters are not absolutes but it helps to have them handy if asked.  A state or local government may have their own more restrictive regulations as well so this may not mean AFGs are legal for everyone everywhere.

Legal Disclaimer:  I am not an attorney and am not giving legal advice.  I am just passing this information along and it is up to you to determine what you can/can’t do.

More Info on IMI Galil Rifles

I’ve always found the IMI Galil rifles one of the more interesting variations of the Kalashnikov AK design.  I thought you might find the following links of  interest if you want to learn more:

IMI Galil Page on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMI_Galil

IMI Galil Assault Rifle (Israel) – On World Guns
http://world.guns.ru/assault/isr/galil-e.html

IMI Galil ARM / SAR Assault Rifle / Carbine / Submachine Gun / Designated Marksman Rifle
http://www.militaryfactory.com/smallarms/detail.asp?smallarms_id=23

 

The following video is very informative.  It shows the rifle being made at IMI, interviews designers and talks about some of the unique features: