September 18, 2022 – We routinely receive requests for review of a the Spanish made Bergara rifle. In particular a from a local UPS driver who has a great deal of firearm knowledge and appears to be very fond of the brand.

Bergara B-14 Ridge Rifle

The center of gravity

The Bergara receiver is fabricated from carbon steel, with integrated lug seats and lug tracks. The front of the receiver extends to cover the top of the recoil lug, locking it in place and preventing rotation.

The rifle was received with a 20 MOA downward canting aluminum Picatinny rail. For folks who don’t need this type of long range shooting offset, 600 yards+, beneath the rail the receiver top is drilled and tapped to the Remington Model 700 scope base pattern with 6-48 fasteners.

I have seen reference to the Bergara being a Remington Model 700 clone. Not sure where that originated as, other than being a cylindrical receiver bolt action, there are many structural, form and dimensional dissimilarities.

The receiver is tubular with a round bottom, which makes for solid, stable stock to receiver pillar bedding. Bergara indicates the pillars are solid epoxy, however, running a magnet over the pillar tops suggest there is also metallic form.

The Bergara Performance Trigger is slick. The subject gun was set to 2 lbs 4 oz within the 2.2 lbs to 4.4 lbs range of adjustment; crisp, consistent and no creep. An excellent trigger contributes a great deal toward making the Bergara easy to shoot accurately. Not a big deal, but the stock must be removed to make trigger adjustments.

Stock and hardware

The molded synthetic stock is well made and properly reinforced to manage recoil and to return to the same state after a round is fired. The barrelled action mounts to pillar bedding, the barrel floats in the barrel channel.

The trigger guard  and floorplate are fabricated from aluminum alloy. Make emptying surplus rounds after all of those 1 shot kills a snap. The floorplate is opened by depressing the button at the rear of the floorplate.

Always good to have an inch pound torque wrench when working with firearms, for reassembly and when installing scopes. After photography was completed, the trigger guard assembly was reinstalled with 55 inch pounds of fastener torque as this can effect accuracy.

The Bergara’s Ridge Rifle’s metal pieces are finished in Graphite Black Cerakote. It seems, as a polymer-ceramic compound, in addition to high abrasion resistance, it is also waterproof and has high lubricity properties.

Additionally, Cerakote also can be applied to basically any type of substrate including polymers, wood, stainless steel, aluminum, etc. and provides a uniform finish when material types are mixed.

Bergara made barrels

Bergara is a notable precision barrel maker and they certainly installed a good one on the Ridge Rifle. At 22″ in length, the barrel is 1.260″ at the receiver and 0.714″ at the muzzle. Fabricated from 4140 chrome moly steel, Bergara lists the subject rifle as having  a #5 taper barrel.

Bergara barrels begin as straightened bar stock, then are deep hole drilled, honed rather than reamed to minimize tool marks, button rifled to less than 0.0002″ groove diameter consistency, and finished with high temp stress relief. sounds like a match rifle barrel.

The 5/8″-24 muzzle threads are a standard with this taper barrel and a common standard for muzzle devices. The Bergara was shot with only thread protector in place, with a brake and with a silencer during range sessions. Very simple change outs.

Dual lug bolt

Other than both being dual lug bolts, the Bergara is quite different from a Remington Model 700, an arbitrary but relevant comparison to a well known standard.

The Bergara bolt body diameter measures 0.702″ compared to the Remington at 0.696″. The lug width is the same 0.440″, but the lug length is significantly greater for the Bergara; 0.584″ compared to 0.440″ for increased strength against bolt thrust. The span across the lugs is 0.995 for the Bergara, 0.985 for the Remington.

The Bergara, like the Remington, has a spring loaded plunger ejector, however, the Bergara has a sliding extractor, rather than the Remington’s spring steel fixed extractor. The large Remington bolt face pictured is for a 7mm belted magnum, the only reason it is larger. Both rifles are push feed. Both rifles have a 1.062″x16 barrel tenon.

What I take away from this is that the Bergara is stronger at key points that see pressure and stress. I have never broken a Remington extractor or had one fail to extract, so I am ambivalent to that issue.  Where the Remington has a bit of bolt slop and wobble, the Bergara is a very slick running bolt. Both rifles have 90° lift.

Safety and shooter accommodations

The two position thumb safety is as in common use; forward to fire, back to off and it won’t go into safe position unless the action is cocked.  The red indicator at the rear of the bolt shroud shows when the action is cocked.

The stock has a SoftTouch finish gives the stock a better feel than hard poly and the surface is non-slip all over, holding up even when wet or cold.

The buttstock has geometry appropriate for a sporter. The pistol grip is more swept than a target stock, which facilitates shooting from numerous positions rather than a fixed rest or bench. Drop is minimal, both comb and heel, to provide good cheeks support while keeping line of sight at scope level. The recoil pad is effective, one with interior structure in a resilient enclosure.

Super performance

Bergara has a sub MOA accuracy guarantee, with the only stipulation that quality factory match grade ammo be used. As the price of ammunition is spiraling always to an new all time high, I shot both match and non match ammo to see how well both would work. I refrained from using handloads.

The Bergara put up some pretty impressive groups. Not only were the groups small, but shift in point of impact was minimal, rifle suppressed or not suppressed, 140 grain or 120 grain ammo. Shooting to quantify shot to shot precision, bullseyes were used only for point of aim reference and no attempt was made to zero each round.

Overall?

Comparatively speaking, in today’s market, the Bergara Ridge Rifle is a moderately priced product. Subsequently, some of the frills are not present; no jeweled or fluted bolt, the use of aluminum pieces rather than steel, Cerakote in place of black oxide. However, overall the rifle is of very good quality and much of what I referenced has come to pass on even pricey showboat brands.

The accuracy is outstanding, the action is slick, the stock is very good in form and fit and finish is quality. So, exceptionally nice rifle.