Continuing their trend of answering the demands of the modern shooter and hunter, Bergara is now offering standalone actions and barreled actions, direct to the public.
Bergara has been making their own barrels for a while now. After purchasing CVA in 1999, they made barrels for CVA’s muzzle loaders. Dedicating the company to barrel manufacturing and using modern manufacturing, they even hired Ed Shilen (yes that Ed Shilen) to oversee quality. By 2006 they were making rifled barrels for several other European rifle manufacturers and building a name for themselves on both sides of the pond.
In 2012, they started making their own complete rifles and selling them to the public. Good timing and an ability to adapt to the market were on Bergara’s side and in 2015 they released their Premier action in a variety of their own rifles. It was a huge hit. Shooters could purchase an extremely capable hunting rifle or a quality precision rifle at cost well below the semi-custom rifles most were familiar with.
Although several chassis and stocks were offered, the big draw for most shooters was the Premier action itself, as well as the barrel options offered. The Premier action has a lot going for it. These actions are made in the USA of 416 stainless steel with a one-piece bolt body.
Savage made the floating bolt head design popular many decades ago and the Premier action follows suit with a two-lug bolt and a floating bolt head. The purpose of the floating bolt head is to allow the bolt head to more completely make contact with the action’s lug abutments, but the design also means that it’s fairly easy to change the bolt head as well. That’s a big bonus. There’s a sliding plate extractor on the right side of the bolt head itself, forward of the lower locking lug, and a dual plunger-style ejector. The spiral fluted stainless-steel bolt features a nitride finished bayonet-style bolt shroud.
Bergara is now offering the action itself, either in short action with a .470″ bolt face, or short PRC and long action lengths, each with a .540″ magnum bolt face. The price for any of the actions is $899.
In addition to the standalone action offering, Bergara is also offering barreled actions, which makes sense for a company that was built on barrels. All in all, there are 21 different contour and caliber combinations. The lightest is their 20″ #4 contour at 4 lbs. even. The heaviest is the 26″ heavy barreled #7 contour, at 7.7 lbs. Beyond the three stainless offerings, there’s a carbon fiber wrapped over stainless version. All come threaded with thread protectors included.
Bergara calls their version of a carbon fiber barrel their CURR barrel, with Colt Bore Technology. Both “CURE” and “Cold Bore Technology” are patents owned by Bergara. It’s a pretty interesting solution to the well-known problem of carbon fiber barrels changing point of impact as they heat up.
According to the Bergara website . . .
These barrels contain a center wrap carbon weave that is designed to align directionally true to the center of the barrel’s bore. Utilizing Bergara’s proprietary Cold Bore Technology (Patented), CURE Barrels weave continuous stainless-steel strands into the carbon fiber to conduct heat away from the chamber and down the barrel efficiently and consistently. This technology results in a reduction of overall barrel temperatures by an average of 50 degrees.
Whether you go for one of Bergara’s stainless or CURE barrels, the options Bergara is providing are outstanding. For a very reasonable price ($1,249 MSRP), you can mount a great barreled action in an old Remington stock and trigger and have yourself a very solid hunting rifle. You can then upgrade the stock and trigger over time to make something even better.
Ever since I gave one of my sons my Remington 5R for a hunting rifle, I’ve been looking for another 20-ish-inch .308 Win bolt gun. They’re just good general all-around rifles. When Bergara announced they were offering their barreled actions, I ordered a short action in .308 Win with the 22-inch #6 contour CURE barrel. The CURE carbon fiber-wrapped barrels bring the price up a bit, with the MSRP of this combination at $1,599. It’s been worth every penny.
All of the Bergara Premier actions fit on the Remington 700 footprint. As I’ve opted for a short action in .308 Win, (yes there are long action .308s), this barreled action sits in just about any stock or chassis that’s designed for the Remington 700.
Since this was a barreled action, Bergara supplied it with the recoil lug in place and pinned. I had a Grayboe stock with a modified cheek piece sitting around, this one in a carbon fiber-like finish. This particular stock included bottom metal from HS Precision and utilized their outstanding magazines. The Bergara barreled action dropped right in, exactly as advertised.
After adjusting the feed lips of the magazine using HS Precisions Box Magazine Tool, I drove a round forward. It slid right home into the chamber without a problem. After that, I pulled the action back out and fully cleaned it along with the barrel. There wasn’t much cleaning to do, but that’s always a good practice.
A Timney Elite Hunter trigger was next and, just like the stocks, pretty much any aftermarket trigger that fits a Remington 700 will work with this action. There were no issues with assembly or installation to the Bergara action.
Finally, the scope bases themselves follow a familiar theme, being spaced just like the Remington 700 and following the same pattern, although the screws are an 8-40 pattern. Finding a one-piece 20 MOA Picatinny rail style scope base online was no problem, nor was installation. Keeping with the carbon fiber theme, I used a McVick carbon fiber scope mount and set a Nightforce SHV 5-10X56 optic in place.
The whole rifle came together simply and easily. There was zero smithing involved. No parts needed to be filed, nothing needed to be bent or filled, no work aside from just screwing things in place, exactly where they should be.
This Bergara barrel features a 1:10 twist. That’s more stability than I need for the only rounds I ever care to shoot through a .308 Win, the 175gr SMK and SGK. I can find plenty of quality and relatively inexpensive M118LR, or make it, to punch paper and plates out to 1,000 yaeds. The Sierra Game King atop the same load will take any North American ungulate or African plains game out to 500 yards, sometimes more.
I’ve never seen a barrel that doesn’t shoot better after 200 rounds, but this gun shot far better than good enough right off the bat. Zeroing the gun with IMI’s M118LR clone, I was printing sub MOA groups on target by the end of the first box of 20. I cleaned the gun and, after another 100 rounds of shooting for fun over a couple of sessions, I got to measuring groups in earnest.
Federal Premium’s Edge TLR .308 175 Grain Bonded round produced surprisingly good groups, .8″ five-round groups at 100 yards. This is an accurate round with exceptional performance on big game. Hornady’s 178gr ELD-X Precision Hunter ammunition also shot .7″ five rounds groups, but with a higher extreme spread over the 20 round box than I would prefer (which is uncommon for Hornady). I wish they would lower the price a bit, because the 175gr TXC ammunition from Lehigh Defense shot .6″ five-round groups that also provided a single digit extreme spread over the entire 20-round box of ammunition. For store bought ammunition, that’s phenomenal.
If I were to pick any .308 Win loaded ammunition to take hunting and cost was no object, that’s the one. IMI’s 175gr also round shot .6″ groups, and at about $1.25 a round when purchased 500 rounds at a time. That is very hard to beat. All groups were shot with the aforementioned Nightforce scope at 20X, untimed, off of bags on a fouled bore.
The Bergara barreled action proved plenty accurate and perfectly reliable. No round failed to fire or eject. The bolt moves smoothly and locks up tightly.
This combination ended up right as I had hoped. Very accurate, perfectly reliable, powerful, maneuverable, and weighing in at 11lbs with everything, including bipod, sling and suppressor. It proved ideal for Hill Country and south Texas hunting and is also just heavy and accurate enough for long range days out to 1,000 yards. Beyond ringing steel at 1,000 yards with solid consistency, the 175gr SMK hammered deer from ranges of 30 to 400 yards and even rolled a great javelina at 370 yards.
Bergara has a keen eye to the demands of the shooter and modern hunter and responds quickly. The offering of their standalone Premier action and barreled action is yet another example of Bergara paying attention to the market, providing a great option for any shooter to create their own semi-custom bolt gun.
Specifications:
Bergara Premier Action
416 Stainless Steel
Short, Short PRC, and Long Action
Enlarged Bolt Handle
Dual Ejector and Sliding Plate Extractor
Nitride Bayonet Style 1/4 Turn Bolt Shroud
Spiral Fluted Body
Pinned Recoil Lug
MSRP: $899
No. 4 Contour
416 Stainless Steel Bergara Barrel
Barrel Lengths 20″ SA, 22″ LA
Threaded 5/8-24 with Thread Protector
Calibers:.308 Win, 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.5 PRC, 300 Win Mag, 7 PRC, 300 PRC
No. 5.5 Contour
416 Stainless Steel Bergara Barrel
Barrel Lengths 20″-26″
Threaded 5/8-24 with Thread Protector
Calibers:.308 Win, 6.5 Creedmoor, 22-250 Rem, 6.5 PRC, 300 Win Mag, 7 PRC, 300 PRC
No. 6 CURE
CURE™ Carbon Fiber Barrel with Cold Bore Technology™
Barrel Lengths 22″-24″
Threaded 5/8-24 with Thread Protector
Calibers: .308 Win, 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.5 PRC, 300 Win Mag, 7 PRC
No. 7 Contour
416 Stainless Steel Bergara Barrel
26″ Barrel Length
Threaded 5/8-24 with Thread Protector
Calibers: 6 Creedmoor, 6.5 Creedmoor, 6 GT