Having trouble with Bergara Premier not detonating primers - help please

Bought a brand new Bergara Premier Approach in 6mm Creedmoor. Took it to the range for the first time this week and it shot lights out with Hornady factory 103 eldx (.327) and 108 eldm (.221) - three shot groups. Decided to try some handloads and all I had other than the spent Hornady brass is a box of new lapua small primer pocket. I've loaded for many 6.5 creedmoor rifles with the Lapua brass without issue. I tried healthy loads of R17 and R26 with CCI 450 primers. I've loaded tens of thousands of centerfire cases and use a Hornady hand priming tool so I can feel the primers seat - everything looked great. I tried 4 different loads, just 3 of each so 12 rounds total. I had 3 failure to fires. One of the rounds I was able to get to detonate the second try. The other two I tried 5 or 6 times and they wouldn't fire. Crater in the primer from the firing pin looked just as deep as the empty cases that did fire. Should I try a heavier bolt spring? Anyone know if the Bergara Premier uses the same spring as a Rem 700? I see Midway sells a heavy Wolff spring for $7. All of the factory ammo shot great, no failures to fire (12 rounds).

One interesting side note - this gun was brand new in the box (purchased directly from a wholesaler as I hold an FFL) and when I received it, I pulled the action from the stock to check it out and then looked down the barrel. The barrel was fouled and the boltface appeared to have quite a bit of brass case-head fouling on it. I scrubbed it with Boretech eliminator 2 or 3 times and even let it soak overnight to get all the copper out. I'll bet I pushed 20 patches through it that came out dark blue. Bergara must have shot this thing a bunch for some reason. Might call them next week to see if that's the norm for them.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Maybe something wrong with the primers you reloaded the ammo with? Maybe they were contaminated in some way?

Laelkhunter said:

Maybe something wrong with the primers you reloaded the ammo with? Maybe they were contaminated in some way?

Click to expand...

I considered that, but they were brand new out of a 1000 primer pack I just bought a few months ago. Stored inside, etc. I've never had a bad primer in tens of thousands of rounds so these would be the first 3.

Try jamming the bullets first. I'd also measure unfired versus fired brass and see how much they are blowing out in the chamber. Another thing to do is measure firing pin protrusion. Generally speaking excessive headspace, under size brass, light primer strikes (due to low protrusion or weak spring), or bad primers are what cause that problem.

Killertraylor said:

I considered that, but they were brand new out of a 1000 primer pack I just bought a few months ago. Stored inside, etc. I've never had a bad primer in tens of thousands of rounds so these would be the first 3.

Click to expand...

Maybe try to load about 10 of those same primers into a different cartridge, and just snap them in a different rifle than the Bergara. If you don't get misfires from them in a different rifle, I would suspect maybe some dirt inside the bolt.

Pic of your primer on dead rounds.

You might be sizing the brass to much.

It was new brass that he reloaded.

It was new brass but I ran it through the sizer first. I'll take the bolt apart and check the firing pin and spring and try some of those primers in my 6.5 CM lapua brass and make sure they snap. Thanks guys.

I figured it out - had a box of primers with some bad ones in it. I put primers in 6 more cases and cycled them through the gun and fired. 5 went pop, one didn't. Took the one that didn't and put it in 3 different creedmoor's I have and not one of them will detonate it. None of those guns has ever had a failure to fire. Primer is pierced almost all the way through now and it won't go off. Who'd a thunk.....

You may find that the reason the rifle was dirty is due to it being made in Europe. As far as I am aware all rifles made in the European Union have to be proof tested with a minimum of either 2 or 3 rounds.

Killertraylor said:

I figured it out - had a box of primers with some bad ones in it. I put primers in 6 more cases and cycled them through the gun and fired. 5 went pop, one didn't. Took the one that didn't and put it in 3 different creedmoor's I have and not one of them will detonate it. None of those guns has ever had a failure to fire. Primer is pierced almost all the way through now and it won't go off. Who'd a thunk.....

Click to expand...

I think I would dispose of ALL of the primers in that box. It might be a waste of money, but you don't want your rifle to go click instead of boom at the worst possible moment.

Are you sure you had large rifle primers and not large pistol primers? I use CCI 200's so all my rifle primers are silver and Winchesters for my pistols so all of them are brass. I would definitely contact the manufacturer. Somebody shot the bejesus out it for some reason. There's a thread on this site someplace where someone is talking about a new rifle having a bent firing pin causing a similar problem to yours.

Killertraylor said:

Bought a brand new Bergara Premier Approach in 6mm Creedmoor. Took it to the range for the first time this week and it shot lights out with Hornady factory 103 eldx (.327) and 108 eldm (.221) - three shot groups. Decided to try some handloads and all I had other than the spent Hornady brass is a box of new lapua small primer pocket. I've loaded for many 6.5 creedmoor rifles with the Lapua brass without issue. I tried healthy loads of R17 and R26 with CCI 450 primers. I've loaded tens of thousands of centerfire cases and use a Hornady hand priming tool so I can feel the primers seat - everything looked great. I tried 4 different loads, just 3 of each so 12 rounds total. I had 3 failure to fires. One of the rounds I was able to get to detonate the second try. The other two I tried 5 or 6 times and they wouldn't fire. Crater in the primer from the firing pin looked just as deep as the empty cases that did fire. Should I try a heavier bolt spring? Anyone know if the Bergara Premier uses the same spring as a Rem 700? I see Midway sells a heavy Wolff spring for $7. All of the factory ammo shot great, no failures to fire (12 rounds).

One interesting side note - this gun was brand new in the box (purchased directly from a wholesaler as I hold an FFL) and when I received it, I pulled the action from the stock to check it out and then looked down the barrel. The barrel was fouled and the boltface appeared to have quite a bit of brass case-head fouling on it. I scrubbed it with Boretech eliminator 2 or 3 times and even let it soak overnight to get all the copper out. I'll bet I pushed 20 patches through it that came out dark blue. Bergara must have shot this thing a bunch for some reason. Might call them next week to see if that's the norm for them.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Click to expand...

i

I have same problems with Tikka. Switched to Federal Primers, the problem is gone

Killertraylor said:

Bought a brand new Bergara Premier Approach in 6mm Creedmoor. Took it to the range for the first time this week and it shot lights out with Hornady factory 103 eldx (.327) and 108 eldm (.221) - three shot groups. Decided to try some handloads and all I had other than the spent Hornady brass is a box of new lapua small primer pocket. I've loaded for many 6.5 creedmoor rifles with the Lapua brass without issue. I tried healthy loads of R17 and R26 with CCI 450 primers. I've loaded tens of thousands of centerfire cases and use a Hornady hand priming tool so I can feel the primers seat - everything looked great. I tried 4 different loads, just 3 of each so 12 rounds total. I had 3 failure to fires. One of the rounds I was able to get to detonate the second try. The other two I tried 5 or 6 times and they wouldn't fire. Crater in the primer from the firing pin looked just as deep as the empty cases that did fire. Should I try a heavier bolt spring? Anyone know if the Bergara Premier uses the same spring as a Rem 700? I see Midway sells a heavy Wolff spring for $7. All of the factory ammo shot great, no failures to fire (12 rounds).

One interesting side note - this gun was brand new in the box (purchased directly from a wholesaler as I hold an FFL) and when I received it, I pulled the action from the stock to check it out and then looked down the barrel. The barrel was fouled and the boltface appeared to have quite a bit of brass case-head fouling on it. I scrubbed it with Boretech eliminator 2 or 3 times and even let it soak overnight to get all the copper out. I'll bet I pushed 20 patches through it that came out dark blue. Bergara must have shot this thing a bunch for some reason. Might call them next week to see if that's the norm for them.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Click to expand...

If that was the norm... I would expect it to be cleaned! More likely a return for probably NOT FIRING CONSISTENTLY WITH RELOADS and they tested it with factories and resold it