Was not looking to replace my existing coyote rifle, but seen a slick Bergara Ridge in 6.5 and snatched it up. This is a pretty nice rifle. Its short, light and well put together for a mid priced rifle. The safety and bolt are very easy to find and the gun feels nice in your hands. The trigger is adjustable, but I would guess its at around 4 pounds and is very smooth and breaks clean. Plenty light enough for a hunting rifle so I left it be. The only thing I would change is I prefer a magazine over the floor plate. I plan on changing it out as soon as I can find one. Put a 3x12 Zeiss Conquest on it. Pretty nice scope, but it falls considerably short of the Victory series. This will make a nice back up gun and good little deer rifle for the kids.
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I took it and sighted it in today at the range. I zero'd at 40 yards. This put it around 2" high at 100. There was a rambo type guy with an AR going pew, pew, pew a few benches down so I couldnt really concentrate on groups. Ill work on that another day. I will say the 95g Vmax does not look like it is going to shoot very good out of this rifle. I threw one group and it was prolly 1.5". There was some clay pigeons on the burm at 200 yards and busted 2 of them in a row and called it good for today.
It was 1pm so I grabbed my call and made a few stands. First stand a cat came and it was an easy poke at 150. Kilt him good, no major damage. The next two stands spit out a coyote a piece. They ran all over me like I was a kindergartner. I couldnt stop them to save my life. I did manage to get them both kilt with running shots. The second was at around 200 running straight away. The Texas heart shot rolled him up. Not a good test of its killing, but they both bit the dust.
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The 95g Vmax is cruising at 3300 and is fairly flat shooting for the bullet size. Its pretty much dead on out to 300, and still on fur at 400. I dont worry as much at the 400 mark because when shooting off sticks its a crap shoot at that distance anyways. Its not as good as the 250 and will not be replacing it any time soon. Unknown distance is a big deal when coyote hunting. No time to range. I want a gun I can just put on the shoulder and squeeze one off, if its a 100 or 300, or anywhere in between. As you can see the 6.5 is a pretty flat shooter considering the big bullet its pushing. Its lacking the shock value as the speeds are not quite what I like.
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I took it and sighted it in today at the range. I zero'd at 40 yards. This put it around 2" high at 100. There was a rambo type guy with an AR going pew, pew, pew a few benches down so I couldnt really concentrate on groups. Ill work on that another day. I will say the 95g Vmax does not look like it is going to shoot very good out of this rifle. I threw one group and it was prolly 1.5". There was some clay pigeons on the burm at 200 yards and busted 2 of them in a row and called it good for today.
It was 1pm so I grabbed my call and made a few stands. First stand a cat came and it was an easy poke at 150. Kilt him good, no major damage. The next two stands spit out a coyote a piece. They ran all over me like I was a kindergartner. I couldnt stop them to save my life. I did manage to get them both kilt with running shots. The second was at around 200 running straight away. The Texas heart shot rolled him up. Not a good test of its killing, but they both bit the dust.
The 95g Vmax is cruising at 3300 and is fairly flat shooting for the bullet size. Its pretty much dead on out to 300, and still on fur at 400. I dont worry as much at the 400 mark because when shooting off sticks its a crap shoot at that distance anyways. Its not as good as the 250 and will not be replacing it any time soon. Unknown distance is a big deal when coyote hunting. No time to range. I want a gun I can just put on the shoulder and squeeze one off, if its a 100 or 300, or anywhere in between. As you can see the 6.5 is a pretty flat shooter considering the big bullet its pushing. Its lacking the shock value as the speeds are not quite what I like.
