Bergara is an interesting company. It kicked off during the muzzle loader boom a couple decades back, and they were known for their precision black powder barrels — the blanks were machined in their factory in Spain, and turned locally in their Georgia based facility. When that craze died down, they transitioned to making proper centerfire barrels as OEM parts for other manufacturers using the same barrel supplier and doing the chambering over here. Not content with just making barrels, they slowly transitioned into custom rifles. Now, with years of experience under their belt, they’re finally bringing a production rifle to the market. One of the first examples: the Bergara Heavy Tactical Rifle . . .
The problem with most “precision” rifles is that there are very few parts that are legitimately made in-house. Barrels from one supplier, a stock from another, and the action from another well-known shop. Not unlike the AR-15 market, actually. The Bergara rifle appears to follow this trend at first glance, but at its heart the gun is 100% theirs.
The guts of the rifle — the action and barrel — are manufactured in-house. As with their previous lines, the barrel blanks come in pre-drilled and the shop in Georgia cuts, profiles, and chambers them specifically for each rifle.
The actions are also their own creation, a version of the common Remington 700 action with some added special sauce (the model shown here has a Stillers action for demonstration purposes). The result? A rifle that seems to be all that and a bag of chips.
The Heavy Tactical costs a cool $5 grand, but the accessories are extra. Bergara has teamed up with Dead Air Armament to provide the manufacturing muscle for their new line of silencers, so it only makes sense that the flagship “tactical” rifle is designed to accept a direct thread version of their latest and greatest sound moderator. It’ll cost extra, but the thing works like a charm. The words “repeatable zero shift” come to mind, something the law enforcement folks will most decidedly appreciate.
We’ve been promised one of these guns to review sometime soon so stay tuned.