Lightweight rifles are great for a hunting rig you plan to carry all day or when covering a lot of ground. A lighter-than-average rifle can offset the weight of other essentials like optics, water, food, etc. It will also offset how much money is left in your bank account. That’s because lightening the load often requires special materials like carbon fiber, titanium or magnesium, and special design considerations like skeletonizing and smaller components. What’s great about the Bergara B-14 Squared Cima CF is that its design and weight split the difference between your traditional hunting rifle and ultralight rigs that look like some parts or materials were deleted. It does use carbon fiber, but it doesn’t try to be ultralight at the expense of skeletonizing or titanium, nor at an unreasonable expense to your credit card.
Bergara is known for making great rifles with smooth actions that shoot accurately, and I was eager to check out this new rifle because the carbon-fiber stock and carbon-fiber barrel meant it was going to be light. But how light is it? Unadorned like a fresh cut Christmas tree, the Cima CF comes in at 6 pounds on the nose. That’s light, but it’s not ultralight. It’s not supposed to be. Fully outfitted with a Leupold VX-5HD 3-15X44, a sling and a Harris bipod, the setup tipped the scales at 8 pounds, 10 ounces. That’s good. In comparison, a synthetic stocked CZ 600 Alpha succumbs to gravity at just over 7 pounds, 1 ounce.
The Bergara Cima CF is not trying to be a tactical wonder gun, nor a precision race rifle. It’s an attractive gun with the lines and feel of a classic sporter-style rifle. That said, right away you will notice the heavy profile, proprietary CURE carbon-fiber barrel; it’s tough not to. Visually, it has the crazy-cool carbon fiber weave that we all know and love. It’s what’s inside, however, that makes this barrel unique: a stainless-steel mesh within the structure that works to dissipate heat. It of course has a steel inner barrel that is capped by a radial ported, steel muzzle brake. I appreciate the action, it’s a Rem 700-esque style that doesn’t look like it had a fight with a Dremel tool just to shave an ounce here or there. To that end the Cima CF uses the same scope bases as a Model 700. Fluting on the bolt looks great and probably does shave an ounce or so. To save more weight the Cima CF opts for a hinged floorplate rather than bottom metal with a detachable magazine. I like this because there is nothing to lose or forget. If you lose your hinged floorplate you have bigger problems than having lost your ammo.
The stock is the lightest I’ve encountered, coming in at 18 ounces. That’s light, really light. To put it in perspective, that’s just a fraction of an ounce more than what a box of 6.5 Creedmoor ammo weights. The process to make the stock is resin transfer molding, or RTM for short. It infuses carbon fiber with the necessary resin, but without excess resin that can add weight while compromising strength. In addition to being light, the Cima CF’s stock is stiff. The fore-end shows only minimal deflection with significant pressure. That’s something you can’t achieve with a typical polymer stock, which is also heavier. Traditional sling swivel studs are included, one at the back and two on the bottom of the fore-end. Most of the stock is a natural finish, meaning the carbon weave is visible with a nice satin or matte finish clear coat, with just a bit of splotchy type camo to break up the pattern.
Another similarity to the Remington 700 is the dual locking lugs and 90-degree bolt throw. It does, however, use a Savage-style extractor and plunger ejector. A Bergara adjustable trigger provides the fire control and was one of the nicest out-of-the-box triggers I’ve tested. Our sample’s trigger pull weight was 1 pound, 14 ounces with no perceptible creep, a clean break and just a small amount of over-travel. The two-position safety does not lock the bolt closed. The benefit is you can work the action to load and unload the rifle while it is on “safe.”
The classic sporting configuration of the Cima CF is comfortable and familiar, and it looks great. To find out how it shoots, I mounted the Leupold onto the factory rail (not included) with Leupold rings. This would be a great scope for this rifle in most applications. It’s fairly light with a great magnification range for most shots you’d want to take with this rifle and the .308 Win. cartridge. Ammunition used included loads from Hornady, Nosler and Remington. Details are in the table below. I didn’t have time to shoot the Cima CF suppressed, which is too bad, as I think it most likely would have shot even better. I will do that before hunting with it.
Overall accuracy was good. It wasn’t precision-rifle good, but that’s not what this rifle is designed for. This isn’t your next PRS or NRL Hunter setup. It’s a lightweight sporter that is more than accurate enough for most hunting situations. That said, it turned in some good groups with all of the ammunition tested. There did seem to be some tendency for the groups to open up a bit as the barrel heated up, but nothing too egregious. Again, this isn’t a high round count rifle, so it’s moot anyway.
Overall, the rifle was very comfortable to shoot, the muzzle brake works surprisingly well, and the bottom of the fore-end was flat enough to provide stability when shooting from a bag or a pack.
Is the Cima CF perfect? Of course not, nothing is. The stock, though ergonomically shaped, is pretty slick when wet. A little bit of shooting in Oregon’s wet coastal range had me wishing for just a bit of texture on the fore-end. While the two sling swivel studs up front are nice, it would be nice to have a couple M-LOK slots there instead. Also, it would be great to have a couple push-button QD sling swivel cups embedded in the stock. That said, I admittedly don’t know how much that would raise the cost or how difficult those things would be to include using their RTM manufacturing method.
Reducing ounces ends up reducing pounds, but it also reduces the balance in your bank account. Fortunately, the Cima CF walks a reasonable line between weight reduction and cost. No, it’s not the lightest rifle, but it’s light enough to notice, and to make a difference. By eschewing a goal of being ultralight, it keeps the Cima CF from being ultra-expensive. Sure, the $1,849 price tag isn’t cheap, but you can spend way more than that on a rifle that is only a few ounces to half a pound lighter. This Cima CF is going to spend time as my blacktail walking rifle this season because it’s light, pleasant to carry, is comfortable to shoot and it’s accurate enough to get the job done.
Bergara Cima CF
- bergara.online/us/
- Type: bolt-action centerfire rifle
- Caliber: .308 Win. (tested), 6.5 Creedmoor, .22-250 Rem., 6.5 PRC, .300 Win. Mag., 7 PRC, 300 PRC
- Magazine: internal w/M5 hinged floorplate; 4-rnd. capacity
- Barrel: 20"; CURE No. 6 carbon-fiber; 1:10" RH twist; threaded 5/8x24 w/Omni muzzle brake
- Trigger: Bergara Performance Trigger; single stage; adjustable, 2 lbs.-4 lbs. pull weight
- Sights: none; drilled and tapped for Rem. 700-pattern bases
- Safety: two-position toggle
- Stock: straight comb; carbon-fiber w/ SMC Carbon Mini Chassis; adjustable LOP 13.5"-14.25"
- Metal Finish: Sniper Grey Cerakote
- Overall Length: 40"
- Weight: 5.8 lbs.
- Accessories: 1/4" stock spacers (3)
- MSRP: $1,849
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