Darkone1221
FNG
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2025
- Messages
- 3
Hey there! On recommendation from my gunsmith, I purchased a Bergara B-14 Sierra wilderness chambered in 6.5 PRC with a 20” barrel for an accurate budget rifle for the girlfriend. We threw on a cheapie vortex venom 5-25x56. This is her first hunting rifle and we wanted to start with a set up that would perform well and not break the bank until she decided to upgrade. We have nicknamed it “Murphy” as in murphys law…. What can go wrong, will go wrong. This rifle has 240 rounds through it as of today and we still cannot get the rifle to shoot 1 moa. Here’s how our journey began. We purchased the rifle and followed Bergara’s barrel break in procedure. It really wasn’t shooting great. At that time we figured we hadn’t found an ammo it liked, or the barrel still wasn’t broken in! We tried 4 types of ammo, gave her 100 rounds and told her to practice up (she already shoots exceedingly well. Better than I do often) but the gun never grouped. I had hoped that maybe the barrel would wear in and tighten up the groups, but it didn’t. Eventually I put a chronograph on it to help select a load that performed well. Well after 20 rounds I had an extreme spread of 120 and a standard deviation of 60 using the Hornady precision hunter. Something was seriously wrong. Eventually I found the front action screw was loose. I took the stock off it, and there was the rubberized coating on the mounting pillars that has plagued newer Bergaras, removed the coating, cleaned everything up, torqued it to spec, verified barrel float with a dollar bill. Put the gun on a rifle vise, leveled it. Put up a plumb bob and verified the scope was strait and tracking. No obvious loose parts, I gave everything a tug and at the time the scope rings were tight, verified with a in-lb wrench. Gave it a good cleaning and it shot excellent groups! For like 10 rounds…. Okay then. Well then I noticed the scope rings and the pic rail were loose, this drove me crazy because I just checked those. Remounted everything and torqued it to spec. Unfortunately it gouged the scope pretty bad. Verified it was tracking on a plumb bob. Scoped out the bore for fouling. There was some stubborn copper so I used some jb bore paste and did some polishing with a nylon brush. Finished off with losso bore cleaner. So here we are. With a lightly polished bore, ammo that is now staying at a consistent velocity (ES: 60 SD: 16), a scope that’s mounted properly and the thing still really doesn’t shoot well. Some groups are 1” at 100 yards. Others are more like 1.5” at 100 yards. I Get crazy flyers every few shots. Crown looks excellent. No carbon ring. No copper fouling, has correct headspace, throat and rifling looks good, and ammo that has been extremely consistent on the chrono. Oh, and yes, the human element. I am not a perfect shot. I have the occasional flinch, or I occasionally jerk the trigger. I have a few other large rifles that I can sit down, take my time, and put down a respectable group. Well with this rifle, I can really focus, relax, and take shots I’m proud of, and they are all over the place. I have asked other experienced shooters to shoot this rifle and they experience the same thing. I’m at the point where I’m out of tricks. I really wanted to get it shooting 1 moa with factory ammo, and then developed a load from there after hunting season. Right now my options are to develop a load, send it back to Bergara, send it to my gunsmith. I know there are those who never even touch factory ammo and go strait to hand load and claim they’ve never seen factory ammo shoot 1 moa groups. In my limited experience I have had excellent success with most factory ammo. Has anyone had this experience? Is Bergara’s quality declining? Any suggestions on how to improve the accuracy more?
