The rifle I won was the B-14 Timber Rifle in 30-06. With my poor lungs and legs I don’t think I will be hunting much. One year from retirement if the good Lord sees fit. Looking at retiring to Idaho from California. I paid just over $150 to upgrade and get the Bergara B-14 HMR rifle in 308. I figure I could spend some time reloading for it and get into the long range shooting hobby. Now I got to start saving for some good glass. What can you tell me about this rifle?

I have two hunting rifles both Browning BARs. One in 270 Win and the other in 7mm Mag. I chose the 308 for target and hunting. Both Brownings were purchased used years ago.

The Bergara's owner’s manual talks about barrel brake in. It says for the first five shots clean the barrel after every shot. For the next 50 shots clean the barrel after every 10 shots. Does just running a brass brush down it work or is it the wet patch with solvent, then the brass brush, then the clean batch to dry it?

This is the one that is coming.

https://www.bergara.online/us/rifles/b14/hmr-rifle/

Thanks
Roy

Umm, precision rifle barrel cleaning is a … controversial subject.

I will be curious to see what the responses are, but although I am a believer in cleaning most of my rifle barrels well, I rely mostly on chemicals to do the work, and have virtually given up on metal (bronze) brushes. I occasionally use nylon brushes, but even that’s limited.

In any event, I would not consider running a bronze brush through the bore by itself as “cleaning,” much less for the purposes of breaking-in the barrel. It’s been a long time since I’ve tried a break-in regimen, but if faced with the task I’d use a good solvent on a patch and possibly a nylon brush followed up by clean patches for the purpose.

That looks like a very nice rifle, BTW.

If i wanted to comply with Bergaras recommendation I would patch the bore with good ol Hoppes no. 9 then a nylon brush. Then run patches until they come out clean.
Sweets is good too.
YMMV

Thanks everyone .

I have one and other than breaking an extractor (which Bergara CS promptly replaced) I've enjoyed it a lot. For the money (especially your amount) it's a blast.

I followed the directions for breaking it in using a Boresnake and rodding with patches. I'm no competitor or anything, but it shoots pretty good.

Barrel break in is generally considered the process which smooths out the tooling marks made during the process of cutting the chamber in the barrel. Better made barrels have fewer and smaller tooling marks, which results in a shorter break in process.

There are likely as many break in processes as there are rifle owners. No one method is the absolute best. My cleaning process, generally:
- Run a couple patches wetted with a non-corrosive copper cleaner down the barrel. Inspect each patch carefully for traces of copper. Copper may show as a streak on the patch (removing copper laid down onto the bore) or small flecks of copper (bits torn from the bullet by the tooling imperfections).
- Run a dry patch down the barrel to remove some the copper solvent. Check the patches for copper traces.
- Run a couple of lightly wetted patches down the bore. Use your preferred barrel cleaner/lube/solvent/protector. Check the patches for copper traces.

Cleaning intervals can vary by a shooter's whims. Cleaning after each of the first 5 shots makes sense, and I do that. After the first 5 shots you can reduce the cleaning interval. Could be every other round. Or could be after every third round. Or after every fifth round. IMO a quality barrel should have its chamber's tooling marks pretty much removed or smoothed out by 20-25 rounds.

Another thing that occurs during the break in process -- less carbon fouling. Your first patches will likely come out pretty black after just one shot. Somewhere between rounds 5 through 10, the carbon fouling caused by one round should decrease to very little.

Understand that most barrels continue to develop slightly faster muzzle velocities until 100-200 rounds have been fired. This is different than chamber break in.