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Penrod B-14R is back

I've noticed that my B14R has a lot of cock-on-close and it makes closing the bolt less smooth than my centerfire B14. I womnder if it's something inherent to the function of this design. Does yours have exhibit cock-on-close?

Perhaps you are feeling the bullet being fed into the rifling?

 
Perhaps you are feeling the bullet being fed into the rifling?

It does do that also, but even without a round it still has a significant bump during close. I can see the cocking indicator cam rearward as the striker piece engages the sear. It functions fine, and if you run the bolt fast you don't notice it much. I've read about trigger timing on R700 pattern rifles, and from what I can tell my action has a decent amount of this cock-on-close camming. It's plenty accurate so I'm not going to complain, just curious if they're all like this.
 
Been reading these post as they were being put up. I just got a steel B14R and bone stock it’s shooting .277 average at 50 yards with r-50sc. Mine has a considerable amount of cock on close. Pretty disappointed with that aspect since I’m used to custom br actions with properly timed triggers. I bought this to shoot in some prs this summer and the bolt closing so hard sucks trying to stay on target. I’m still trying to figure out how I’m going to add weight in the front to get this thing balanced out. It is very rear heavy. If anyone has any suggestions let me know. At this point I am not replacing the factory stock. Maybe later I will if I get into the prs thing more serious. I am using 40 in on my action screws and haven’t had no reason to try anything different. So far I have been very impressed with the accuracy of mine. Talk about crazy stuff it shoots Remington lightning bolt.99 cents a box junk in less than 3/8 every time I’ve shot the stuff. Soon as it warms up a little I will move out to 100 and more yards and see how all the ammo does. The range at my house is 285 yards and has a concrete bench. The farthest I’ve shot rimfire is 200 yards at some matches at Williamsport. The wind really moves these little buggers a lot. 285 should be interesting. To the op if you look up how to tune a Harrel’s tuner there is a few ways described on rimfire central. I highly doubt your tuner is in the optimal spot until you go through the steps. The sequence of settings is very simple and tunes you right down to the exact click. Maybe you should try it and see if your groups tighten up more. And maybe you are in the right spot but only one way to know for sure.
shep
 
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Been reading these post as they were being put up. I just got a steel B14R and bone stock it’s shooting .277 average at 50 yards with r-50sc. Mine has a considerable amount of cock on close. Pretty disappointed with that aspect since I’m used to custom br actions with properly timed triggers. I bought this to shoot in some prs this summer and the bolt closing so hard sucks trying to stay on target. I’m still trying to figure out how I’m going to add weight in the front to get this thing balanced out. It is very rear heavy. If anyone has any suggestions let me know. At this point I am not replacing the factory stock. Maybe later I will if I get into the prs thing more serious. I am using 40 in on my action screws and haven’t had no reason to try anything different. So far I have been very impressed with the accuracy of mine. Talk about crazy stuff it shoots Remington lightning bolt.99 cents a box junk in less than 3/8 every time I’ve shot the stuff. Soon as it warms up a little I will move out to 100 and more yards and see how all the ammo does. The range at my house is 285 yards and has a concrete bench. The farthest I’ve shot rimfire is 200 yards at some matches at Williamsport. The wind really moves these little buggers a lot. 285 should be interesting. To the op if you look up how to tune a Harrel’s tuner there is a few ways described on rimfire central. I highly doubt your tuner is in the optimal spot until you go through the steps. The sequence of settings is very simple and tunes you right down to the exact click. Maybe you should try it and see if your groups tighten up more. And maybe you are in the right spot but only one way to know for sure.
shep
Dang, you hit the B14R lottery!
Post some groups.
 
Mine has a considerable amount of cock on close. Pretty disappointed with that aspect since I’m used to custom br actions with properly timed triggers.
It's not a super complicated thing to pull that cocking piece out and buzz some off the front of the engagement surface. At least with cock on close you can do something about it... if you had too short of a cocking piece engagement surface, it isn't like you can add material back to it. ;)
 
Unfortunately they are discontinuing the R50 sc
 
It's not a super complicated thing to pull that cocking piece out and buzz some off the front of the engagement surface. At least with cock on close you can do something about it... if you had too short of a cocking piece engagement surface, it isn't like you can add material back to it.
Orkan
I thought about this but what about heat treatment ? How can you tell if it’s through or surface tempered , If it’s surface hardened you can/will cut through it .
 
Orkan
I thought about this but what about heat treatment ? How can you tell if it’s through or surface tempered , If it’s surface hardened you can/will cut through it .
Almost all cocking pieces I've seen have been through hardened... not just surface treated. If the cocking piece was just surface hardened, then I'd view that as a great opportunity to get a proper cocking piece in the rifle while destroying the old one happily. You could always get it heat treated again after cutting.
 
Pics of this "cocking piece trim"? Not picturing it
I don't have one handy... but it's not hard to imagine. The bearing surface on the front of the cocking piece... that angled bit... thats what engages the sear on the trigger.

If you have cock on close, you just peel that engagement surface back a bit, and it won't cock on close anymore. Yet don't go too far, or you'll advance the timing and your bolt will get tossed down a bit when you go to close it. I don't mind about 10 thousandths of cock on close. Its when you start getting upwards of 20 that it really becomes a problem.

... and realistically, if this is something you don't understand then you shouldn't be messing with it and you should find a qualified smith to handle it.
 
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Oh, and another thing... if I had a $1000 rifle shooting the way @25wsm claims, I would just live with the cock on close. Or at the very least I would by a NEW cocking piece to modify and leave the original alone.

When things come together like that, you don't go modifying ignition timing without a backup plan. Changing it could cause it to come out of tune pretty easily.
 
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Also , KOD , any updates ?
Hey, haven't shot the PB-14R in a long time, any rimfire actually in a long time except my pistols at short range. Been shooting a lot of AK's lately. Here are a few targets I have shot. Did shoot at 245 and 244 on an IR 50/50 target shooting SK Rifle Match. Found a good spot on the tuner but could be better I guess. I'm happy with the consistency and performance. I'm glad I had the work done and would do it again if needed. I cancelled my Deuce order so now I have an XLR Envy PRO chassis here. I'll be putting the PB-14R or the CF B-14R in it.

PB-14R SK Rifle Match IR5050 244 9X 12-13-20.jpg
PB-14R SK Rifle Match IR5050 245 8X 12-5-20.jpg
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PB-14R Various ammo Tuner 75 11-16-20.jpg
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PB-14R RWS R-50sc 1-10-21 .310 and .365 Tuner 75 and 100.jpg
 
Pics of this "cocking piece trim"? Not picturing it
I just happen to have mine in pieces at the moment.

You can see the sear engagement on the shiny part of the piece I milled. Carbide end mill had no issues cutting it.

My Huber had .070 additional cock on close. with the old style cocking piece pictured (unmodified) it put the spring in coil bind and bolt would not close. The new style has 3 less coils on the spring and did not coil bind.

I still wanted to set the Huber for zero additional cock on close & hoped it would smooth the action closing cycle to be less disruptive on barricades etc.

Warning - Bergara doesn't sell jack shit for these. That's right they offer zero replacement parts. Per them, parts are for warranty only WTF!!
So I placed an add on here and bought one of the old style cocking pieces that Bergara had sent replacements for. I did not want to attempt modification without plan B.

I set it to zero additional cock on close......................but the idiots at Bergara have the action timing so screwed up it was a waste of my time to set it correctly.

The cocking piece gets dropped of the bolt cam before the lugs have hold of the ramps in the receiver, hence the big speed bump on close.

When you close the bolt it un-cocks about .060-.080 before its on the lug ramps & then re-cocks the .060-.080 when you cam in on the ramps.
It does it to a lesser extent when you open/cock it after firing.

The only way I see to fix this would be to tig weld the cocking ramp in the bolt & re cut a steeper ramp shifted over to delay release of the cocking sear for about 15 degree more bolt close.

It's a shame really, with a little thought during engineering this could have been a much smoother running action.

Adjusting cocking piece on these B14R's is a waste of time unless it's so bad your close to coil bind.

Edit warning: When you shorten the cocking sear you are also shortening the striker travel & you risk light primer strikes. It's not shown in my pictures, but I removed the striker from the cocking piece & milled the face of the cocking piece so the striker would thread in deeper to regain the striker travel. i.e. I now have the same striker fall as before cutting the cocking sear for the Huber.

As Orkan said; if you're not sure what your doing don't try it.

IMG_6008.jpg

IMG_6009.jpg
 
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Thanks for the details , the way things moved and measured I questioned what all cutting the cocking piece would affect and how
 
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Bergara doesn't sell jack shit for these. That's right they offer zero replacement parts. Per them, parts are for warranty only WTF!!
Foreign companies just don't understand American shooters.
At this point, there's no reason to believe they ever will.

Great post @357Max. I guess I should have taken a closer look at bergara's mechanism before suggesting that course of action.
 
Follow up on my cocking piece questions from my thread on hard closing/cock on close.


Bergara confirmed that they won't send any parts out, even sell them to me. they told me they didn't have parts and also wouldn't send them if they did. (Basically would just pull off a complete rifle to work on mine)

At this point I'm kind of at an impass, either send it to them and I'm sure they would just swap parts until it "seems" like less force required, or just live with it.

I'm gonna shoot it some and make my mind up, if they notice I've done any changes to the cocking piece or shroud I think the won't cover any parts in the future.
 
Follow up on my cocking piece questions from my thread on hard closing/cock on close.


Bergara confirmed that they won't send any parts out, even sell them to me. they told me they didn't have parts and also wouldn't send them if they did. (Basically would just pull off a complete rifle to work on mine)

At this point I'm kind of at an impass, either send it to them and I'm sure they would just swap parts until it "seems" like less force required, or just live with it.

I'm gonna shoot it some and make my mind up, if they notice I've done any changes to the cocking piece or shroud I think the won't cover any parts in the future.
The solution to your problem comes in the form of a RimX. ;)

Give me a call and we'll get you setup. Several in stock.
 
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@Kisssofdeath Looking forward to hear your thoughts on the XLR Envy and see some pics :) Thanks for the informative thread brother!
I put the B-14R CF version in the Envy. The Envy is a lot lighter than the factory stock. I'll what happens then probably move it to the PB-14R. I can say now that all the mags I have (6) seat and eject perfect. That's not the case with the MDT XRS, some do and some don't.
 
Kod , how is it going ? Tuner setting found ?
Hello, I'm still using the same tuner setting as before. Been laying off the 22 lr shooting and shooting other guns. Plus the new house build is keeping me busy. These are old photos, it's 70% bricked now. I can get 300 yards from the top of the hill shooting down. Other than spending money I'm fine, how about you?

IMG_20210522_162358.jpg
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This is in Abingdon, VA, it's about 35-45 minutes east of Bristol. NASCAR fans will know where Bristol is. Abingdon is a little over an hour away from where my wife and I are from. Much better than the 5.5 hours now.
 

Something like this target see what it scores consistently
I was just introduced to the Bullet Pro 150 target at the LGC, and I really like it. When people use a standard score card, it's very easy to evaluate
how your doing in real time. I don't mean it has to be BP 150 but a standardized ring size seems very desirable. I don't have a shadow graph to view the targets but with dial calipers it looks like the ID of the smallest circle is .38" and it's OD is .50" The maximum possible score is 3000 pts.
One shot per bull allows for a much better read on the wind too. I took one target to my UPS store and had them reproduce them on
.0145" thick card stock. The bullet holes print much better then on regular .0035" note book paper.

I'm really shocked to hear people having issues with their B14Rs.... my all steel version has worked great. I even pulled my Vudoo out of
my MDT LSS gen2 chassis and installed my Trigger Tech Diamond 4 ounce trigger. It caused zero issues. I don't enjoy the factory trigger
bc I prefer them in the 4 to 6 ounce range like my Annie's have. All the same, she shoots fine with it set to 2 pounds 4 ounces.
I was however willing to modify my trigger in January of 2022 with a long nose spring plunger and that lowered the weight to 11
ounces and it provided an adjustable sear engagement too. Cost was $20.00 and 20 minutes of time. It's an easy modification with
a drill and tap at home.
You don't even need to take the trigger apart. Just drill, tap and install. The plunger cost $4.56 and is basically a set screw with a
4.5-pound spring loaded nose. It is shown next to the dime in image #5. I got the one with the nylon locking element to prevent
it from moving. It has a #6-32 body ( .138" OD ) and is about .62" long. It is shown installed in the last photo.

I took the opportunity to cover the Vudoo, Lapua and Ivanhoe logo's on the target and add some lines for information that was useful to me.
Stuff like: Gun, scope, wind, temp, ammo, mirage, etc.
 

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Hey TY.... KOD,

Did you ever get the Penrod sorted out? Can you recommend a high quality plug? Yours looks very clear !!
I had my tuner bored to fit my .860" CZ MTR barrel. Then I had a FAUX muzzle brake with blast ports that didn't go through. The allowed me to move my tuner from gun to gun with ease. I just had to keep the tuner DOPE for each gun. On my faux brake the holes were only about 5/16" deep and simply for appearance's sake. If I did it again, I would get the tuner and see how deep Harrel / Ezzel bored the hole. The new adaptor would basically be an inch long thread protector that the tuner could clamp onto.
 

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Hello! I lost my Bolt Head Spacer. Who can tell me the dimensions of this part? I want to pick up a similar one. Bergara refuses to sell it to me. Thanks for the answer!
 
The original shim type detail has a ground thickness of .0625" It's OD and ID are stamped but held to a close tolerance of
.4905" ID and .6735" OD.
The multi layer roll pin has a diameter of .123" at it's highest point. Possibly a Spirol brand pin.
The rear of the front of the bolt section has been ground and stepped. It has a diameter of .480" under the shim and then
reduced again to .449". The image is an old one but it should help convey what I mean. Mine obviously has the older square
cut groove. The step height is taller than the shim thickness by about .010" put the rear section of the bolt assembly has
a slight counterbore to accommodate it should you want to reduce your shim thickness.
 

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The original shim type detail has a ground thickness of .0625" It's OD and ID are stamped but held to a close tolerance of
.4905" ID and .6735" OD.
The multi layer roll pin has a diameter of .123" at it's highest point. Possibly a Spirol brand pin.
The rear of the front of the bolt section has been ground and stepped. It has a diameter of .480" under the shim and then
reduced again to .449". The image is an old one but it should help convey what I mean. Mine obviously has the older square
cut groove. The step height is taller than the shim thickness by about .010" put the rear section of the bolt assembly has
a slight counterbore to accommodate it should you want to reduce your shim thickness.
Thank you!
 
Hey TY.... KOD,

Did you ever get the Penrod sorted out? Can you recommend a high quality plug? Yours looks very clear !!
I had my tuner bored to fit my .860" CZ MTR barrel. Then I had a FAUX muzzle brake with blast ports that didn't go through. The allowed me to move my tuner from gun to gun with ease. I just had to keep the tuner DOPE for each gun. On my faux brake the holes were only about 5/16" deep and simply for appearance's sake. If I did it again, I would get the tuner and see how deep Harrel / Ezzel bored the hole. The new adaptor would basically be an inch long thread protector that the tuner could clamp onto.
Hi Shawn hope all is well with you. After 16 months we are finalizing getting settled in but still need grass. I keep hoping fertilizer prices will drop. I'm slowly getting back to rimfire.

The PB-14R shoots very good. It, the V360 and the Anschutz's all shoot about the same. When you say "plug" are you referring to a scoring plug?

BTW, if you never answer back I can understand why.