tactical Archives

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.

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Ran across these photos of two riot shotguns I built – a Winchester 1200 I bought new in the early 1980s and a Remington 870 Express I got a good deal on from Gander Mountain in the early 2000s. One thing I learned is that the Blackhawk recoil reducing stocks really make a difference.

To be honest, I think Remington makes a lot cheaper guns than they used to and their quality has suffered. Some years back I picked up a Remington 870 express in great shape but one thing that drove me nuts was that the little orange plastic follower would spring out and jam the action. I did some quick digging and found a machined aluminum replacement that I installed and never had a problem since.

Also, from a pure “keep it simple” angle, I have since stopped installing anything on a tactical shotgun other than a light. It took to long to turn on the red dot plus worries around battery life, was it still zeroed, etc.

For lights and lasers, I really like the Streamlights. I use a TLR-1 300 lumen LED light on my home defense 870 to this day. They are rugged, simple, easy to operate and durable. Having had a ton of cheap Chinese imports fail over the years, I only use proven lights and lasers on critical firearms. To save on the CR-123 batteries, read my post on that topic.

The red fiber optic sight really worked out better than I thought. It made target acquisition fast. I eventually ditched the red dot optic, installed a side saddle shell holder and used just that sight.

The flashlight on the Winchester was a Hellfighter with a xenon bulb. It was ok but I would only buy LEDs going forward and my preferences are Streamlight or Surefire.

The Blackhawk recoil reducing stocks do a very good job but make sure you buy the right model. They sell stocks both with and without the recoil reduction system. Also make sure you get the right model – they make them for Winchester and Mossberg. The following is an automated search from eBay so you need to double check the product and that the buyer has plenty of trades and good feedback.