Bergara B14 vs Weatherby Vanguard

Joel

Joel

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Thinking about giving Bergara another chance since they have new cocking piece/bolt shroud setups now and all.

But what do you all think about the B14 vs the Weatherby Vanguard?


Does one of them jump out at you for any reason in particular? Both 700 "style" actions, but the Bergara takes direct replacement 700 triggers. Vanguard has a 1 piece bolt, handle isn't laser welded on or whatever like the Bergara, and it comes with a decent trigger as well.

Besides that, any real differences, observations, preferences?
 
Some say the Bergara B14's are pickier about their ammo. That's been my experience with a B14 HMR in 308. Maybe part of it is my expectation to shoot sub moa as per the guarantee. I finally developed a 1/2 moa load for mine, but it wasn't easy. My Tikka T3 would outshoot it with standard hunting ammo, but the B14 will outshoot the Tikka with the right load. It's just fussy.
 
I have one of each currently. I would say the Bergara is much slicker to operate in general. It feeds, extracts, and ejects beautifully. Bolt lift is light and the floorplate/bottom metal has better "feel". The Vanguard isn't quite as polished in terms of operation. Nor is the factory trigger quite to the same quality. Factory stocks on both are uninspiring, which is a bit of a disappointment.

My Vanguard was always a "hunting accurate" rifle. 3 shot groups would be at or just over 1.5 MOA with Weatherby factory ammo or handloads (.257 Why Mag). I restocked it into a B&C a few years ago which improved it slightly, but for this season I removed the front pressure point to see if it shoots any better. I have a few other projects on the go so haven't had a range trip with it yet but hopefully soon.

The upscale Vanguards are about the same, you are paying for Cerakote finishes, fluted and threaded barrels, licensed camo patterns, etc. But many of them are really nice. I believe they've all retained the front pressure point as well, so that might be something to play with but if your rifle is a shooter I don't think I'd bother.
 
interested to hear how the Vanguard does for you in a regular S2 stock once free floated.

I too have had pretty acceptable yet "ho-hum" accuracy from them as they come from the factory. Heard opening them up does do good things.


Great North Guns said:
I wouldn’t call the Vanguard a 700 style action. For a hunting rifle I would pick the Vanguard but you didn’t specify your use case.
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Good catch, thanks. I dunno if I conflated it with the 700 because it takes 700 bases there, or was thinking of the 307 or what, but you're right.
 
We have fitted and bedded quite a few stocks to Bergaras and Howa. Customers seemed all very happy. We also had around ten Bergara barrels fitted to Rem 700, Howa, Tikka rifles in 223, 243, 308. They all shot incredibly well although some started at a bit over an inch groups but went down to well under 1/2" within around 30 rounds. The 1/8 Bergara barrel on my 22-250 T3 shoots around 1/4" just like two 223's that got barrels from the same batch.
Overall we have had Howa rifles since maybe 2007, I don't like them and try to stay clear also because you can hardly give them away in our area. We have one new Bergara rifle but have not shot it yet. I have been lucky with Rem 700 actions and like the design.

edi
 
Joel said:
interested to hear how the Vanguard does for you in a regular S2 stock once free floated.

I too have had pretty acceptable yet "ho-hum" accuracy from them as they come from the factory. Heard opening them up does do good things.
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Yeah, fingers crossed - the rifles are pretty different use cases. The Vanguard is a .257 for launching 100gr bullets at warp speed for antelope or maybe caribou, the Bergara is a .300 Win Mag bought for moose camp with 180+ bullets.

I have some reloads to whip up for the Weatherby but am also looking to re-mount the scope (currently a pic rail and 6-screw tactical rings - totally unnecessary, going with Talley lows) before it hits the range again. Also, it got a Timney trigger thanks to some holiday Cabela's gift cards so with that barrel free-floating and some spicy loads it should be able to deliver.
 
mikeyb said:
Yeah, fingers crossed - the rifles are pretty different use cases. The Vanguard is a .257 for launching 100gr bullets at warp speed for antelope or maybe caribou, the Bergara is a .300 Win Mag bought for moose camp with 180+ bullets.

I have some reloads to whip up for the Weatherby but am also looking to re-mount the scope (currently a pic rail and 6-screw tactical rings - totally unnecessary, going with Talley lows) before it hits the range again. Also, it got a Timney trigger thanks to some holiday Cabela's gift cards so with that barrel free-floating and some spicy loads it should be able to deliver.
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I have a few Howas and Vanguards with sporter barrels, never had one shoot better free floated, 90% of the time adding more pressure on the pressure point turned them into lazers. Nothing fancy, just a small patch of cork drawer liner where the pressure point is, and it was night and day.
 
Huh! Thanks for that suggestion, Hitzy!

Better to try that before permanantly altering/floating the stock


If the cocking piece/threads issue has been solved, is the cast Bergara action worse than the forged Weatherby action?
 
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I have worked up loads for two Bergaras and have owned a few Vanguards. The Bergaras were extremely fussy about loads, and copper fouling was extremely. The Vanguards were not overly fussy, and fouling wasn't bad at all. I would own another Vanguard, but never a Bergara.
 
stubblejumper said:
I have worked up loads for two Bergaras and have owned a few Vanguards. The Bergaras were extremely fussy about loads, and copper fouling was extremely. The Vanguards were not overly fussy, and fouling wasn't bad at all. I would own another Vanguard, but never a Bergara.
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The Vanguards have a hammer-forged barrel vs. Bergara's button-rifled barrel. I find in general hammer-forged barrels foul less, at least at first. Same experience with Tikka and Sako barrels - Wipe-Out and a bore mop cleans them up pretty well in 1 pass.

I haven't cleaned the Bergara yet but they are supposed to hone the bores as well which should reduce the fouling a little. I'll post an update on that shortly since it'll be on the bench for cleaning later today.

On the other hand, the first five shots from the Bergara with the cheapest 180gr Blue Box went into a far smaller area than a typical 3-shot Vanguard group with tuned handloads, so it runs nicer and shoots better (for now).

I have a hard-on for the .240 Weatherby Magnum lately as well, so I *might* just add another Vanguard to the rack and up my sample size to include a more recent example.
 
Mini-update - I wasn't going to prioritize the Vanguard project this year (new 6.5 to sort out and my .243 is the darling of my safe currently) but as it turns out I already have 30mm Talleys in the bin, so I remounted the scope (a Strike Eagle 4-24) which *just* cleared the barrel, so I'm going to dump 68 grains of IMR4831 behind 100gr Partitions and see what happens. You guys made me do it (that's what I told my wife when she wanted to go to the garden center).

On the other hand, the Bergara cleaned up really easily after a squirt of Wipe-Out. I left it for 2 hours, then ran a bronze brush, a mop, and then patches until clean (took about 6). I spent basically no time cleaning it up. Now to be clear, this is one of their CURE carbon-wrapped barrels so I'm not sure if the liner is treated differently than a regular Bergara barrel or not.
 
I recently bought a new vanguard S2 synthetic in 30-06 to play with. I've shot Tikkas for years but wanted to try a vanguard seeing as how much positive feedback was out there. I followed Weatherby's barrel break in procedure and was not disappointed. Right from the first 3 shot group I was impressed. This thing shoots better than any Tikka I have owned to date. Best group I had was just over 0.6 of a inch with a buddies hand loads. Factory ammo was consistently under a inch. I was shooting cheap federal blue box 180s and Remington green box 150s
I'll be picking up another vanguard in 243 or 25-06 to see if it is as accurate as this 06. Hopefully it will be just as accurate. For the price of the vanguard I think in today's day and age a fella is getting more for his money
Mike
 
A short while back, I picked up a couple of WBY Vanguard S2 Blaze. One in 270Win and the other in 300Win Mag. Call them my:) 'Flame Throwers' and they were a couple of those, 'just for the hell of it purchases'.
 
stubblejumper said:
I have worked up loads for two Bergaras and have owned a few Vanguards. The Bergaras were extremely fussy about loads, and copper fouling was extremely. The Vanguards were not overly fussy, and fouling wasn't bad at all. I would own another Vanguard, but never a Bergara.
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Yes, my bergara in 308 copper fouls like nothing I've experienced before. 40 rounds and you can visibly see the copper in the grooves from the muzzle with your bare eyes. Shoots well, but fussy about ammo if you care about accuracy.
 
mike t said:
I recently bought a new vanguard S2 synthetic in 30-06 to play with. I've shot Tikkas for years but wanted to try a vanguard seeing as how much positive feedback was out there. I followed Weatherby's barrel break in procedure and was not disappointed. Right from the first 3 shot group I was impressed. This thing shoots better than any Tikka I have owned to date. Best group I had was just over 0.6 of a inch with a buddies hand loads. Factory ammo was consistently under a inch. I was shooting cheap federal blue box 180s and Remington green box 150s
I'll be picking up another vanguard in 243 or 25-06 to see if it is as accurate as this 06. Hopefully it will be just as accurate. For the price of the vanguard I think in today's day and age a fella is getting more for his money
Mike
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If .6" at 100 is your best group, and it is better than any of your Tikka groups, you didn't find good loads for your Tikkas. I have owned four Tikka rifles, a CTR, two varmints, and a tactical, and all shot sub 1/2" at 100m for five shots with my handloads. It was rare for a group to reach 1". I have also owned three Vanguards, and loaded for a few more, and they were all sub 1", but the Meateater only shoots sub moa with one load out of seven loads that I tested. The majority of loads were 2"+ ,for three shots.
 
I have an HMR 22” 1:8” in 6.5CM. It was very similar load development to my match CM rifle. Which I believe is because of the nature of the caliber. (I’ve found a lot of .264/6.5 calibers very easy to develop with multiple accuracy nodes.) The 90gr screamers I developed for coyotes shoot .360” at 100m in the HMR. Is that decent enough…? Yes, the action and bolt are not polished high end stuff. But they work well. As for the claim above that the barrel fouls, I haven’t seen any of that at all. That might just be the nature of the powder used.

The Bergara is an excellent above grade starter for target use. For hunting, my opinion is that they are higher end stuff. I liked my HMR so much, I just got a Premier Pro model. It has a better action, a fluted bolt, and the same excellent stock. We’ll see if the barrel performs similarly. Im confident that it will.

I’m quite busy until mid June, so that’s when I’ll start load development. BTW, it’s also a 6.5, but it’s a SA magnum (PRC).

YMMV

EDIT: To the OP, sorry I have not tried a Weatherby. So I can’t compare the two for your original question. But I hope my experience with the Bergara will at least give you my opinion.
 
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Vanguard is built by Howa for Weatherby; they are very good rifles. Two examples of Bergara rifles I have seen and handled have been Lac-luster IMO. I'm not sure of the price point currently for these rifles, but Howa have been good value; Bergara maybe a bit over priced. Both work.
 
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