Hang with me as this will be a large post and I want your all's opinion.
As some of you may have read in my last post I was stuck between a Bergara wilderness ridge in 300 win mag or a Savage 110 high country in 300 win mag, Well I didn't get neither as the title suggests, One night I told myself if you go with Bergara again go with the premier series so I bought the highlander that next day. My previous Bergara before this rifle had EXTREME accuracy issues so bad Bergara ended up having to refund me since they could not figure it out after 5 months of working on it. Their ammo choices where slim due to the ammo shortage but they ran 4 or 5 different brands threw it and it wasn't making the cut.
My previous Bergara rifle experience had me skeptical about buying from them again but I just hear nothing but good things about them (usually). So I figured what the heck going with the premier series there shouldn't be no issue.
Fast forward 2 weeks when I receive the rifle right out of the box the rifle barrel is canted to the right in the stock but not touching, it's still free floated and it's not that bad but it's noticeable, I called Bergara and spoke to Camaran (who I've been dealing with since the beginning of my Bergara experience) he says that it is normal since it is a fiber glass stock and they don't bed them and that as long as it is stilI free floated and doesn't touch the stock it will be good to go, so at that point I mentally get over the fact the barrel isn't straight in the stock and go get my rail and rings mounted (warne rail and rings) and have sportsman's mount the scope and bore sight the rifle (I will eventually buy all the equipment to do this myself, I'm a E-4 in the army with wife and baby so money isn't exactly abundant to support my newly acquired taste haha). I run out to the local gun range here in Fairbanks, Ak beyond excited to shoot my new set up, I get setup and start shooting at 50 yards then back the target out to 100 yards. The first 7 rounds thru the gun it ran great but round number 8 I went to extract the shell and the bolt wouldn't slide back I had to pound the bolt with my palm to open the bolt to eject the shell, I shot it a handful more times after that each having to pound the bolt back with my palm, I then decided to inspect my brass noticing the scratching on the brass so I knew there were burrs in the chamber or atleast I suspected it, With a sick stomach from having issues with a $1500 gun out of the box I ran over to my local gun smith to have him look at it and he took some 400 grit sand paper and a dowel and polished the inside of the chamber with a drill then he finished polishing it with another tool I forgot the name of and cleaned the gun, handed it back to me I gave him $20 and out the door I went, fast forward another day due to it getting late on my the previous day, I get back out to the range really wondering if my $1500 rifle is going to function the way that it should, get set up and fire the first round off….. go to open the bolt it slides back but I still have to exert more effort than normal to cycle the bolt back, at that point I know I still have a hidden burr in the chamber somewhere but decide I am going to stay out on the range to finish sighting in the rifle since it's 10x better extracting a shell than the previous day, I put the next shell in and go to squeeze the trigger….. click…? Well that was interesting I eject the shell and it had a light firing pin strike, I put it back in and try reshooting the shell, nothing so I decide I was on paper enough at 100 yards to start ammo testing to see what ammo groups the best out of it and to try some diffrent ammo to see if it has any duds in it, (I wish I had a reloading press to make my own loads but I do not at the moment so I'm stuck with shooting factory ammo) the ammo I was able to find over the course of 5 months was: 180 gr Remington core-lokt, 180 gr hornady superperfomance, 180 gr nosler accubond, 190 gr Barnes vor-tx LR, 180 gr Federal Barnes TSX, All ammo besides the Barnes LR and the Federal Barnes TSX shot poorly (2-3" groups at 100 yards) the Barnes LR shot right at a inch-ish and the Federal Barnes TSX shot right at .75" center of hole to center of hole, I shot ALL ammo with 3 round groups with 3 min between each shot and after each ammo cleaned the gun. (I really expected the Nosler Accubonds to do nice but they only produced a 1.5-2" group). Out of all the manufacturers ammo I shot: The nosler, Remington and Barnes LR had several more light primer strikes, (really frustrating but it's Sunday so I can't call Bergara until Monday) so I take the TSX ammo and attempt to sight it dead on at 100 yards but can't get it to hit dead center on the bulls eye it is either a .5" low of the bulls eye or 1" high so I stick with the 1" high at 100 yards and call it a day. I am planting on going back out to the range this coming weekend, I don't have a cronograph to see my muzzle velocities so I'm going out this weekend to shoot at 300 yards and see how low I am then play my ballistic calculator to see what my velocity is. I also forgot to mention the scope I am running is a Vortex Viper 4-16x44 BDC reticle. In your all's opnion is there anything I can do to get the .75" group smaller? Bergara is sending me a different firing pin and heavier spring to upgrade my stock one but that won't change anything besides HOPEFULLY being able to count on the gun to go boom. Im going to see this weekend if it shoots .75" consistently but I have to be carful because I only have 24 rounds of the TSX stuff left and the ammo shortage here in Alaska is horrible, what other factory ammo should I try to see if it shoots better or consistent .75"? What would you all do? Would you send the gun back or keep it thru hunting season? I plan On seeing what happens this weekend and then trying to get some more factory ammo to shoot. All comments are welcome, thanks for reading this far! If you have a 300 WM highlander what shoots the best out of yours? Have you had issues like me?
