I never got to shoot a large amount of 22’s when I was younger, I kind of skipped towards centerfire stuff. So it has been very refreshing in the last year or so to revisit a good spread of rimfire rifles, and today I’m here to tell you about yet another one; the Bergara BMR.
The BMR
The Bergara Micro Rimfire (BMR) is a bolt action rifle in a synthetic stock, it utilizes either a five or ten-round detachable box magazine. The model I tested here is all steel, but there is also a carbon fiber barreled version. The BMR seems to have been designed with the competitive rimfire shooter in mind, and as such competitions rage across the countryside it should come as no surprise. It features an eighteen-inch barrel, threaded 1/2-28 at the muzzle and came with a steel thread protector installed. The magazine is released by a paddle type lever at the front of the trigger-guard, very reminiscent of centerfire competition rifles. It also utilizes a bolt-release similar to many centerfire competition rifles, built into the left rear of the bolt raceway.
The trigger on the BMR was outstanding, I was surprised at how clean and free the sear dropped. There was little left to do other than get this handsome little rifle to the range.

Optics Selection
If this BMR shot as good as I’d hoped, I wanted to give myself an edge with a great scope to go on top of it. I have a bunch of good scopes, but was torn as which one to use. I would feel almost silly mounting a two or three thousand dollar scope on a rimfire rifle with a street price between five and six-hundred fifty dollars (depending on what features you order). I ended up using my Vortex Gen2 PST 3-15X44, and I’m glad I did because they are a perfect match for each other.
I mounted up the Vortex into a one-piece mount and leveled it up on the BMR’s 30 MOA scope mount. A quick and dirty boresight job was all that was left before heading to the range. I also added a bipod to aid in steady shooting while I zeroed the rifle.
Time to burn some powder
With a fine selection of ammo from Federal, Winchester, and CCi in hand, I made my way out to the dry desert where I intended to shoot. My boresight had put my point of impact a foot or so high, so after making a few adjustments the rifle was hitting right where I wanted it to. Within the first few shots after confirming my zero, I was absolutely in love with this rifle. I was picking out smudges on my steel target, and covering them up with shiny lead circles. I could quite literally aim for the previous impact, and hit the same spot with amazing consistency. After leading up the steel at fifty-yards, I decided to take it out a bit further.
I know that there are plenty of people who shoot their 22’s to some incredible distances, but I figured that for my purposes a 22 would not really be utilized much beyond a hundred or so yards, and certainly not beyond two-hundred.
Shooting targets at two-hundred yards quickly made me reconsider my envelope. Even with some wind on the range, I found hitting pop-can sized targets pretty repeatable at the two hundred yard line. I knew that I was going to need to try some additional tasks with this little rifle, there were definitely some varmints that could use some diet pills.Continue Reading Here…