Bolt won't close on bergara with factory ammo

[bomberodevil]

I do not have a Bergara, but a few months back bought a new Rem 700 5R in 6.5 CM and while breaking in the barrel I had problems with Nosler 140 BT also. I had 4-5 boxes in 2-3 of the boxes NONE of the rounds would allow bolt closure. The other boxes...everything was fine. The rifle shot various brands fine, i.e. Hornady, Winchester, Federal, etc. with no problems. I emailed Nosler about it and was totally ignored.

I'm more concerned that you presented a legitimate issue to Nosler and were completely ignored than I am about the issue in the first place.

 

[dennisinaz]

I can't agree with this while heartedly......
A nice sharp reamer should slice thru the metal cleanly....without distortion to original specs....once the reamer gets gulled it will still cut but not necessarily clean cuts....could easily take or leave metal...once it is worn out it could physically tear metal microscopically and not be seen.....
A sharp knife even a razor will cut you cleanly...a jagged edge will still cut...just hurts worse.....at least rhe sharp on goes thru faster before you realize it.........

You obviously don't chamber barrels. That's not how reamers work. They are honed as they wear down to keep them sharp. Most production shops use carbide reamers these days too.

 

[338 dude]

After pulling the stock and scope to try and get the best view possible without a bore scope, I think this is exactly what the problem was. I didnt think to clean a brand new rifle but have learned my lesson. The plan was shoot 1 round then clean for the first 5, then after every 3 till I burned through 40 rounds.

I cleaned it today, and there was crap all in the chamber, looked like exactly what you said, that thick packing grease that metal products often have slathered all over...can't remember off the top of my head what its called.
Surprisingly filthy bore for a rifle that's never been fired.
Got it all cleaned up, looked down it again and to the naked eye ( young eyes I might add with better than 20-20 vision) it looks just fine. I'm sure a borescope would reveal tooling marks and more but I would think a burr large enough to cause the scraping seen on the bullet pictured would certainly be visible. So my conclusion is Susqutch nailed it, grease in the chamber pushing case off center just enough to contact a single land, compounded by the extremely long bearing surface of this particular factory loaded ammo.
Still need to get dies for 6.5cm, but as soon as I do I'll load up some dummy's and check it all out

Cosmoline?

 

[338 dude]

S

second time within a week I've heard of this issue with a Bergara rifle and factory ammo. The other one was with Hornady factory ammo I think.

I posted about a friends brand new Bergara the HMr pro and a 65 Creedmoor would not fire with three different boxes of Hornaday ammunition it was sent back to Bergara and after about 10 days we got it back and it works just fine I don't know what they did

 

[birdiemc]

Cosmoline?

Yes that's the word I was searching for a year ago

 

[birdiemc]

I posted about a friends brand new Bergara the HMr pro and a 65 Creedmoor would not fire with three different boxes of Hornaday ammunition it was sent back to Bergara and after about 10 days we got it back and it works just fine I don't know what they did

If my wife will ever box up HER rifle and send it back, they'll fix it, then I'll be able to tell you exactly what was wrong with it.

 

[Bill_Wallace]

I hope it's ok if I resurrect an old thread, but I have a similar, if not the same problem as birdiemc. I have a B-14 Hunter in 308 Winchester that is very very accurate with Lapua 167g OTM Scenar ammo and feeds perfectly. It printed a 1 inch group at 200 yards with this ammo with a Burris 2x7 Fullfield E1 hunting scope I scalped from my 1980 Browning BAR (which I bought new), also chambered in 308 Winchester on top of a new DNZ Products "Game Reaper" one piece scope mount and rings for the B-14. I re-installed the old Leupold 2x7 Vari-X II back on the BAR that I had originally installed on it.

Anyway, I have a mix of Remington, Federal and LC83 brass that has been sized and trimmed to 2.005. I loaded a mixed small amount of those brass with Hornady 150 SST #30302 with COL 2.75. Most of these hand loads loaded and shot perfectly in the B-14. However, some did not. The hand loads seem to feed ok, but I could not close the bolt on some of them. So, I culled out the leftover empty brass that that would not function and the ones that did function by running the empty brass through the action. What I noticed was about 80% of the LC83empty brass functioned normally. About 50% of the Federal brass functioned and same with the Remington. The Federal and Remington brass came from two different lots because the head stamp fonts are not the same. I separated them accordingly. There were no signs of indented rings on bullets from touching the lands.

Now, the BAR functions fine with any of this brass and the Lapua ammo. I think the BAR's chamber tolerances are little greater than a bolt action (maybe?) Someone mentioned European CIP vs SAAMI specs. Well, the BAR is made by FN in Belgium. Would they not conform to European CIP or SAAMI? If a EU maker was to market and sell to the USA, would it not make sense to use SAAMI? I use an RCBS small base sizing die for the BAR and a Redding FL Bushing die for the B-14.

So, I concluded that either the brass is out of spec and/or the B-14's tolerances could be tighter, as some previously discussed this. BTW, I did clean the chamber and bore prior to shooting, but I do not have a bore scope. I will try cleaning the chamber again with Kroil before the next round of tests.