AllOutdoor Overview: Bergara B14R Metal

Half a 12 months in the past Garand Thumb invited a fan who claimed he might hit a soda can 700 yards away with .22lr. This impressed my pals and I to aim this problem ourselves. I reached out to Bergara they usually lent me this Bergara B14R to make use of it as an excessive lengthy vary (ELR) platform in our personal 700 yard soda can problem. Let’s take a look at this candy .22lr coaching rifle.

Bergara Protection on AllOutdoor:

Final June my pals tried to shoot a soda can 700 yards away. My pals Kythe and Kevin used their Vudoo Gun Works rimfire rifles. I solely had my Ruger Precision Rimfire and that was lower than the duty of ELR particularly on a soda can 700 yards away. I’ve heard nice issues in regards to the Bergara B14R so I used to be excited to strive it out on this extraordinarily troublesome problem.  My buddy Kevin was capable of hit the soda can. On one other vary journey, Kythe hit a soda can 700 yards away. We determined to lift the stakes on the 700 yard soda can problem and do it at evening. Extra on that later.

Bergara despatched me their B14R with an 18″ metal barrel. They thought the metal barrel can be higher for ELR taking pictures over their carbon barrel. You may positively really feel the burden of the Bergara B14R even of their HMR chassis. I used to be slightly disillusioned that the Bergara B14R receiver didn’t include any scope base or a picatinny rail. Nonetheless this was solely a minor inconvenience for the reason that B14R was designed to be a Remington 700 sample. So any 700 type scope base or chassis will work with it.

I already had plans to alter the chassis out since I like the power to mount evening imaginative and prescient clip-ons on my weapons. So after I acquired house I pulled the barreled motion from the HMR chassis. I made a decision to check the Bergara B14R’s compatibility by swapping the manufacturing unit set off for my Geissele Remington 700 set off.

I’m not accustomed to Remington 700 sample rifles almost as a lot as I’m with the AR-15 platform. After I pulled the Bergara manufacturing unit set off the barreled motion I seen the highest of the set off appears to be like nothing just like the Geissele. See that darkish grey hinged half? I assumed that was the hammer.

Upon my Geissele set off, it doesn’t have something remotely comparable.

I made a decision to strive the Geissele set off anyway and that half on the B14R set off is just not a hammer. The Geissele set off labored and I really like the sunshine set off pull.

Subsequent up was to place the Bergara B14R barreled motion into a distinct chassis. I opted for my Q Aspect Chick chassis. It has an optic rail and full size handguard. My buddy Kythe gave me a spare Q-Sert picatinny rail so I might mount my PVS-27 clip-on evening imaginative and prescient machine. I added an Odin Works MLOK ARCA rail on the backside so I might use my tripod and Atlas bipod.

The Geissele set off reveals properly within the Q Aspect Chick.

I mounted my Gen 1 Vortex Razor HD however it’s only 5-20x. The opposite downside is the Q Aspect Chick optic base is a zero base. If I’m going to try to lob .22lr at ELR distances I want all of the elevation I might get my palms on.

Kythe had a spare Eratac adjustable inclination mount however it’s for 34mm scopes whereas my Vortex Razor HD is 35mm. I reached out to Athlon Optics they usually have been sort sufficient to lend me their Ares ETR UHD 4-30×56 which has a 34mm tube and better magnification which is able to turn out to be useful when attempting to shoot 700 yards away.

Right here is the Athlon Ares ETR UHG mounted within the  Eratac mount. This mount is designed for ELR shooters and begins at 25 mils of elevation. The mount has a cam that provides 5 mil increments all the way in which as much as 45 mils of elevation.

I set the Eratac on the lowest setting, 25 mils, and proceeded to try to zero the Athlon Ares ETR UHD to the Bergara B14R. I knew I’d be utilizing sub sonic .22lr ammo to try to shoot 700 yards so I used SK Customary Plus as my break in load.

As a result of immense quantity of elevation I dialed the Athlon Ares ETR UHD all the way in which to the underside. I nonetheless needed to maintain beneath by 9.5 mils to hit this metal plate 100 yards away.

Subsequent up was to get muzzle velocity of the ammo I plan to make use of so I might enter it into the Garmin Synapse ballistic app after which add it to my Intuition 2x Photo voltaic watch to spit out the ballistic calculations for lobbing sub sonic .22lr out to 700 yards. I used my Bullet Seeker to measure some SK Customary Plus. The usual deviation was not nice.

My buddy Kythe gave me a field of SK Lengthy Vary to check out they usually proved to be much more constant than the SK Customary Plus ammo. 

I ended up taking pictures about 90+ rounds of SK Customary plus and seen the teams shrink. See the goal beneath. These have been the teams shot out of the Bergara B14R at 100 yards. The massive group within the center was my preliminary group utilizing SK Customary Plus. I ended and tried taking pictures some metal targets after which returned to strive the teams once more. That’s the group on the best. Now I’ve shot over 100 rounds and the group shrunk nearly in half. The third group was with the SK Lengthy Vary ammo and that’s the smaller group on the left. Not too shabby at 100 yards out of a .22LR Bergara B14R coach.

With the bullet and gun knowledge entered into the Garmin Utilized Ballistics app, the watch vary card tells me I want 57.6 mils of elevation to land at 700 yards utilizing SK Customary Plus.

Bergara B14R Prepared For A Evening On The Vary

Other than the scope that is the setup I used to try to shoot a soda can at 700 yards at evening.

Taking pictures one thing as small as a soda can 700 yards away is hard sufficient. Then add the complication of attempting to do it at midnight is one thing else. To make it “simpler” we used 16oz water bottles as a substitute of soda cans. We figured an additional 4 oz of water is just not going to make it simpler to hit it with .22lr at 700 yards at midnight. We eliminated the wrapper and inserted a chemlight within the water bottle. This can assist us purpose at it utilizing our evening imaginative and prescient clip ons.

To identify the misses of our .22lr rounds we used my Vectronix JIM LR cooled thermal spotter. It’s delicate sufficient to see .22lr kick up filth all alongside our backstop even at evening.  Here’s a video I compiled of the movies we captured that evening.

Each Kythe and Kevin have been capable of hit their respective water bottles. I used to be not as lucky. The Bergara B14R danced throughout the water bottle with some occasional shut calls. I’m impressed with how moderately shut it acquired to the water bottle. I used to be simply inside <0.5 mils of the goal.  We wished to strive taking pictures this problem at evening in hopes there can be much less wind than once we tried it within the day time. We have been proper, there was considerably much less wind.

I used to be slightly bit disillusioned that I used to be unable to attach with the 700 yard water bottle. So I got here again to the vary on a distinct day. I made a decision to try to redeem myself by taking pictures a extra affordable ELR goal. We now have a silhouette set at 470 yards.  I made a decision to strive utilizing my Vortex Razor HD. I wanted 27 mils of elevation utilizing SK Customary Plus. Sadly I didn’t have sufficient elevation to comfortably purpose at this goal. It might require me to dial all of the elevation I’ve left and nonetheless maintain close to the underside of my scope reticle. Add to the truth that and we have been experiencing 6-8 mils of windage. I’d be holding off course exterior of the scope. So I switched again to the Athlon Ares ETR UHD. Under is the sight image from the Ares ETR UHD.

This time I pulled out a 50 rd field of Eley Match ammo. I’ve had this field for years. the wax coating looks as if it dried up.  However with the assistance of my buddy Kythe recognizing I used to be capable of make a lot of hits on the metal goal 470 yards away.

Remaining Ideas On the Bergara B14R

The Bergara B14R is a superb rifle in .22lr. I really like that it’s Remington 700 sample so equipment for it are plentiful. It really works nice as a coach since you possibly can set it up precisely like your centerfire rifle when you wished to.

Because of my pals who’ve gone down the precision .22lr rabbit gap. They warned me that I must season and break within the B14R barrel. My pals really helpful to shoot no less than 100 rounds to interrupt within the barrel. Ideally with the identical stuff I plan on utilizing for the extra exact and correct pictures. That’s the reason I broke the barrel in with SK Customary Plus. It has an analogous lube because the fancier .22lr precision rounds. Positive sufficient I might see the teams shrink after the primary 100 rds.

Whereas I used to be unsuccessful at hitting the water bottle at 700 yards, it’s clear to my pals and I {that a} hit that far on one thing so small with such an inaccurate spherical comes right down to luck. It does take ability to ship the bullet and land it within the neighborhood of a soda can or on this case a water bottle 700 yards away. On the subject of the 470 yard metal goal. I do know I hit a lot of occasions which was confirmed by my buddy Kythe who helped me to identify utilizing my JIM LR thermal spotter.

The Bergara B14R retails for simply over $1,000. You may simply purchase their barreled motion for much less and avoid wasting cash on the chassis of your selecting. The magazines are proprietary however you should buy extra for round $40 every or get the third celebration ones for increased capability. I plan to proceed testing this rifle to see which ammo it likes finest. However to this point it likes the great things. For extra info on the B14R go to Bergara’s web site. For extra info on the Athlon Optics ARES ETR UHD take a look at their web site.

Because of Bergara for sending on this rifle and Athlon Optics for sending of their scope.