Bergara BA13: The ultimate scrub gun?

A scrub gun must be a short, pointy, light rifle with open or red dot sights and simple classical stock design. You don’t want anything that’s going to get snagged or caught up on tight, clawing scrub. Rifles with long barrels, huge scopes, thumbhole stocks and bipods need not apply. Ranges are mostly 5-50m. Calibres are best at .30 or bigger.

With the opportunity to hunt pigs and deer in thick scrub, and with plans for sambar, I was obliged to consider another rifle. Where I hunt, sambar have a minimum calibre requirement that excludes the .243 Win. In open country, I am totally confident in my .243 Win for dropping game with carefully placed shots. In the scrub, however, I appreciate the need for more authority and picked up a .308 Win. It has the extra energy sought after, with a lot of good factory ammo available for that calibre.

A single-shot rifle maximises compactness and pointiness, offering no disadvantage in firepower. However, for those hunters wanting a repeater, an ideal scrub gun would be one of the lever actions. In pushing through thick scrub, expecting fleeting close encounters at any moment, it pays to have a round in the chamber.

I avoid carrying cocked rifles with the safety on, so an ideal solution is the manual cocking available on many types of single-shot rifles and the lever actions. It is the safest, and fastest, method of carrying a firearm ready for a split-second opportunity.

With a preference for single-shot rifles, it was these considerations that led me to the Bergara BA13 in .308 Win, fitted with a Sightron SRS-2 red dot reflex sight and using Hornady Superformance ammunition. Bergara, Sightron and Hornady are distributed in Australia by Herron Security & Sport, along with a wide range of other products and brands.

Rifles do not come any more compact than the Bergara BA13. With an overall length of 80cm, the bare rifle weighs 2.9kg. Fitting the Sightron SRS-2 only adds another 35g to the rig.

Another useful feature for scrub and mountain hunters is that the BA13 is a take-down rifle. Without the need for any tools, the rifle can be disassembled into three pieces in a matter of seconds. If you are fighting your way through some particularly thick scrub or scrambling about on steep slopes, the BA13 can be taken down and stowed in your backpack to give you two free hands and no slung rifle flapping about awkwardly.

Initially, I was resigned to losing significant velocity and energy to the Bergara’s stubby 16.5“ barrel. Many sources have tested velocity loss with reduced barrel length and the reported result is generally about 23fps per inch of barrel length. So, for a nominal 150gr .308 muzzle velocity of 2820fps from a 24“ barrel, I could expect to get 2650fps from the short Bergara BA13.

My choice of projectile was 150gr to get the best blend of velocity and weight. I generally aim for the high shoulder, or hilar, shot that ensures anchoring game on the spot. For this shot, the higher velocity provides greater hydrostatic shock to the animal for emphatic knock-down and good internal bleed-out. As I considered the various choices of factory loaded 150gr projectiles, I began to appreciate the clear advantage of Hornady’s Superformance loadings.

Hornady Superformance gives 100-200fps extra velocity over other brands in all calibres. It achieves that with a progressive propellant burn that is tailored to each calibre and projectile. Hornady state there is no significant increase in pressure, recoil or muzzle blast. I have to say that, off the bench, the Superformance gave a clear impression of more ‘zing’, associated with the higher muzzle velocity.

Chronograph data shows a tight standard deviation and low spread for Hornady Superformance ammo, which contributes to fine accuracy. And, better yet, Hornady Superformance .308 Win loadings have about 14fps velocity loss per inch of reduced barrel length. When combined, those factors result in the Bergara BA13 having pretty much the same muzzle velocity as standard factory ammo from a 24“ barrel. That higher muzzle velocity generates significantly higher projectile energy which, when combined with the Hornady SST projectile’s excellent terminal ballistics, delivers emphatic kills on deer and boars.

I tested the difference in delivered energy for Hornady Superformance and standard 150gr .308 Winchester ammo from a Bergara BA13. Also .243 Win and .30-30 Win muzzle energy for comparison. In simple terms, the Hornady Superformance delivers 20 per cent greater energy than standard .308 Win ammo in the Bergara BA13, and 33 per cent more than my Merkel K3 in .243 Win.

For initial testing, I fitted a Zeiss 3-9×40 scope to better access the accuracy of the Hornady Superformance ammo. However, I then switched over to the Sightron SRS-2 reflex sight. This is a compact sight, made of aluminium, that imposes a red dot in the line of sight through the 25mm 1x optical glass lens. The red dot covers 2 MOA and enables fast target acquisition and shot placement. The 2 MOA illuminated dot is fine enough to allow accurate shot placement out past 100m as well.

The SRS-2 is powered by a CR2032 3V lithium battery which gives about 300 hours of operating time. The unit will automatically power-down after five hours of inactivity. The SRS-2 is rated for Magnum handguns, so a .308 Win rifle poses no problem for it. Sighting adjustments are in 1 MOA clicks, which is fine for a scrub gun. A button provides 10 choices of intensity for the illuminated dot.

In my field testing I was more than happy. The Sightron SRS-2 red dot makes for fast target acquisition and the short Bergara BA13 is unimpeded by thick scrub. When I chanced onto game, the rifle came up well to my shoulder and I thumbed the cocking lever to fire as the red dot settled on the target. It makes for very quick shooting.

And, being a single-shot rifle, there’s no significant disadvantage either. When chasing game in thick scrub you would be lucky to get a second shot on target, even if you were armed with a semi-auto.