Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/812511
it is honed and polished with diamond-tipped bits to remove tooling marks. I inspected this barrel with a Hawkeye borescope and, while not the mirror finish Bergara advertises, the bore was scoured impressively. At worst, I could detect very light diagonal scratches on the lands. The grooves were perfectly smooth, as is to be expected in a button- rifled barrel. What the Hawkeye didn't show was the groove diameter deviation Bergara maintains; it's less than .0002-inch. You need a precise air gauge to measure that, as Kenny Jarrett once showed me at his shop. Finally, Bergara stress-relieves each barrel via high heat to realign steel molecules stressed after the button rifling. Whether or not this works is uncovered in the shooting, and it certainly seems to have worked with this rifle. While my aforementioned .240-inch group was my best, the little rifle also recorded the following three-shot groups: Winchester Match 140-grain .462- inch; Nosler Match Grade 140-grain HP BT .680-inch; Hornady 140-grain A-Max .700-inch. That is sub-MOA performance and impressively consistent with factory ammunition in a new, unseasoned barrel. After initial testing, I took another Hawkeye tour of the bore and found the expected fouling, including copper streaking. What impressed me was how quickly this cleaned up with Otis Complete Gun Cleaner bore solvent and fewer than 100 passes with a nylon Brownell's brush and cotton patches. That's the sign of a slick barrel. The tight groups it fired are proof that these Georgians are making an American rifle more than welcome in my Rocky Mountain arsenal. n The bolt face is recessed with a plunger- style ejector and blade extractor set in the right recoil lug, a push-feed system popular on many bolt-action rifles. The trigger is a Timney, meaning crisp, creep-free, and fully adjustable (four pounds as tested.) The side-mounted, two-position safety does not lock the bolt. The steel box magazine holds four rounds, staggered. It's accessible via a hinged aluminum floorplate. The rifle shipped with Weaver-style bases secured fore and aft. I topped them with a Leupold VX-III 3.5-10x40 scope with Boone & Crocket reticle clamped in Leupold aluminum QRW rings. A s tested, this 6 1 /2-pound Premier (7¾ pounds with scope) wore a 22-inch barrel of #3 contour with 1:8 twist, just about perfect for a hunting rifle chambered for a short-action round like the efficient 6.5 Creedmoor, which, with the right 140-grain, high B.C. bullet, will shoot flatter, drift less in the wind, and deliver more energy at 1,000 yards than most 180- and 190-grain .300 Win. Mag. loads. The barreled action is secured to the High-Tech Specialties stock via an aluminum bedding block and two bedding screws torqued to a minimum of 65 inch- pounds. That's all the higher my torque driver goes, and it wasn't enough to break the set. This secure attachment may have something to do with this rifle's incredible accuracy, but I have a hunch the barrel should get most of the credit. Barrels are a Bergara specialty. That was their initial product when they began manufacturing in 1969. Since then they have perfected the process with extreme straightening of the blanks to a deviation of less than .004-inch. After the blank is deep-drilled, 142 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S