I would imagine that other people may be having this issue so I thought that I would share my findings.
I started doing a break in procedure with a light load of H1000 and some 175 Gr Sierra matchkings in my Bergara B-14 Ridge in 300 win mag. Got through most of the rounds but I noticed that the firing pin was cratering the primer pretty badly. And upon firing one round (I don't remember how many it was that I had fired), the bolt shroud broke off at the threads. I also noticed that the primer had been pierced. The shroud looked to be made of cast metal and very brittle.
I called Bergara and they said that they know of the problem and they had made a new bolt shroud and this time it was machined and not cast. They sent me one and I put it on and it indeed felt better made than the old one. So I started doing load work up and all seemed to be going well except for the part where the primers were still showing cratering. No signs of pressure anywhere else. Then I got a pierced primer but the bolt opened easy, the case was not stretched beyond normal means and the velocities were still with the other two rounds fired. The group was even good. I started to think that I had a bad batch of primers as on the next group I had another pierced primer but again all the velocities were good and no other pressure signs were visible. On this pierced primer, the back of the bolt shroud broke off.
I stopped what I was doing and took out the firing pin assembly and took off the bolt shroud to take a look at things. I looked at the back of the bolt shroud and I found markings of where the back of the firing pin assembly had struck the back of the bolt shroud and thus breaking the bolt shroud.
I got to wondering what could be causing this without being over pressure and came to the conclusion that the firing pin hole was made too large and allowing the firing pin to protrude too far out upon firing and piercing primers. The gas blowback through the pierced primer was pushing the firing pin assembly backwards and smacking the back of the bolt shroud.
As you can see, when the firing pin assembly gets blown back by the gas from the pierced primer, it goes back farther than the back of the bolt shroud. That little round piece above the red indicator is what was smacking the back of the bolt shroud.
I called Gretan Rifles and spoke with him about it and he said that this is a pretty common problem with Bergara rifles and that the firing pin hole needs to be bushed and a new firing pin installed because the Bergara firing pin can't be worked on.
The rifle shoots GREAT but this is a problem and needs to be fixed. I called Bergara but they gave me the normal run around about reloads but the guy was really nice and did in the end send me another bolt shroud. I will be sending the bolt to Gretan Rifles to get bushed and a new firing pin installed. Mr. Tannel answered up on the first call and was awesome to deal with. Real nice guy.
Just thought that I would post this here in case others came across this problem.
I started doing a break in procedure with a light load of H1000 and some 175 Gr Sierra matchkings in my Bergara B-14 Ridge in 300 win mag. Got through most of the rounds but I noticed that the firing pin was cratering the primer pretty badly. And upon firing one round (I don't remember how many it was that I had fired), the bolt shroud broke off at the threads. I also noticed that the primer had been pierced. The shroud looked to be made of cast metal and very brittle.
I called Bergara and they said that they know of the problem and they had made a new bolt shroud and this time it was machined and not cast. They sent me one and I put it on and it indeed felt better made than the old one. So I started doing load work up and all seemed to be going well except for the part where the primers were still showing cratering. No signs of pressure anywhere else. Then I got a pierced primer but the bolt opened easy, the case was not stretched beyond normal means and the velocities were still with the other two rounds fired. The group was even good. I started to think that I had a bad batch of primers as on the next group I had another pierced primer but again all the velocities were good and no other pressure signs were visible. On this pierced primer, the back of the bolt shroud broke off.
I stopped what I was doing and took out the firing pin assembly and took off the bolt shroud to take a look at things. I looked at the back of the bolt shroud and I found markings of where the back of the firing pin assembly had struck the back of the bolt shroud and thus breaking the bolt shroud.
I got to wondering what could be causing this without being over pressure and came to the conclusion that the firing pin hole was made too large and allowing the firing pin to protrude too far out upon firing and piercing primers. The gas blowback through the pierced primer was pushing the firing pin assembly backwards and smacking the back of the bolt shroud.
As you can see, when the firing pin assembly gets blown back by the gas from the pierced primer, it goes back farther than the back of the bolt shroud. That little round piece above the red indicator is what was smacking the back of the bolt shroud.
I called Gretan Rifles and spoke with him about it and he said that this is a pretty common problem with Bergara rifles and that the firing pin hole needs to be bushed and a new firing pin installed because the Bergara firing pin can't be worked on.
The rifle shoots GREAT but this is a problem and needs to be fixed. I called Bergara but they gave me the normal run around about reloads but the guy was really nice and did in the end send me another bolt shroud. I will be sending the bolt to Gretan Rifles to get bushed and a new firing pin installed. Mr. Tannel answered up on the first call and was awesome to deal with. Real nice guy.
Just thought that I would post this here in case others came across this problem.
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