I am considering buying a new rifle in 7mm PRC - and have been considering either the Fierce Mountain Reaper or the Bergara Premier Series MgLite.
The specs seem close as well as price; any thoughts on pros or cons of these two rifles would be appreciated.
Ooh! Those are two of the best rifles on the market. I’m excited for you.
I just got the MG Lite in 7PRC last week and I’m excited to shoot it, but I have shot this same barreled action in several Bergara Premier Series rifles.
Extremely tough decision, but if I had to pick one… I’d go MG Lite. Ask me again tomorrow and I may give a different answer. Tough call.
MG Lite wins for reliability of build quality, smoother action, and better customer service. My gripe with the MG Lite is the long barrel lengths which make it not suitable for suppressor use, and no customization options like you’d get with Fierce.
However, the Fierce Mountain Reaper is one of my favorite guns. Mine is extremely accurate and works great. The design is the coolest looking gun in the industry. My only gripe is the stickiness of the titanium action.
Oh, man! Somewhere on the archives of this forum. I said if they ever came out with the MG lite in 7PRC, I’d get one.
Had no idea they were coming out with this model. However. no one’s ever mentioned it. because of that. I ended up Is an element in 7PRC and quite happy with it.
I do have MG Lite in 6.5 CM. When I purchased it, all the other 6.5 I had in the safe got sold. I love that gun!
In terms of the barrel length, ended up putting a k-sized suppressor on it and it works well for what I do with it. The only complaint I have about that gun is I don’t like the adjustable cheek piece. It’s uncomfortable, and does not allow me to use muffs. Should be easy to replace however.
No direct experience with the mountain Reaper. But my other Fierce guns have been absolute tac drivers.
Question for Jim. So I just rewatched the vid on Sig Cross a year later. Concentrating on the bad things identified. Stock collapse, Safety selector, finicky on ammo, Rust?
So that being said if I wanted to go to that style of rifle, would you stick with Sig Cross, or go to Fierce Mountain Reaper? or Bergara Mountain Light? Seekins Precision Havak Hit or Hit Pro? Also not sure what caliber I would choose. I have a Tikka Lite Veil Wideland in 6.5cm, Fierce Carbon Rogue in 7prc, Seekins Precision SP10 (AR10) in .308, Daniel Defense DDM4 v7 Pro in 5.56. So ultimately maybe I don’t need another caliber unless I go with the 22CM.
All of my rifle shoot MOA or Sub.
Yeah the Cross is awesome but isn’t available in anything other than 6.5 Creed and 308. There is the new 300 win mag version but it’s heavy and expensive.
Thanks for the quick response … I really didn’t expect an answer back from you for at least a week. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and your family!
Thanks
Larry D.
You wrote “My gripe with the MG Lite is the long barrel lengths which make it not suitable for suppressor use…” why is barrel length a factor for using a suppressor?
I have a banish 30 which should work for any .30 caliber or less bullet - why is the length an issue?
Sure moving through the woods on a mountain with a 22 or 24 inch barrel you would not want another 9 inch addon to your barrel but once targeting an animal it only takes seconds to add the suppressor.
Please share your thoughts.
Larry D.
Oh yeah it’ll screw on and work. I was just meaning the unwieldy length.
However, I thought the MG Lite barrel was longer than it is. Because of the short forend, I thought it was a 26” barrel, but it’s actually 22”. So I take back my initial thought.
Yes - today, when comparing both rifles again, I saw the barrel length is 22" on the Bergara.
The Fierce Reaper specs state a 24" barrel for the Long Action cartridges; but, if you build your weapon using their rifle builder it provides the option to select a shorter 18, 20, or 22 inch barrel.
The rifle builder is a pretty cool feature Fierce provides to its customers.
The reason I asked the question earlier is that I am fairly new to suppressor use so wasn’t sure if length of barrel negatively affected the suppressor’s ability to dampen the recoil and noise from the rifle. I did a little research and found from several sources barrel length is only an issue when traveling through terrain.
I figure with the folding stalk on the mountain light, that even with the full 9 inch suppressor on the rifle it would still be shorter folded than most straight stock hunting rifles when travelling or even stalking.
I have not seen one up close though so am only speculating at this time.
I am leaning hard toward the Bergara Mountain light - all things being equal (on paper) the features that come standard on their stock/chassis is an edge better in my opinion. Also, Bergara has a super reputation for excellence.
How is your new rifle shooting?
Haven’t had a chance to shoot it yet but that’s definitely coming up in the next few weeks. Right now, I just exist to produce recoil pads, lol.
Well I pulled the trigger on the Bergara MG Lite 7MM PRC; and I will pick it up next week at a local gun shop.
The gun shop Armorer presented me with a proposal to put a picatinny rail and Mountain Tech scope rings on the receiver for mounting my scope ( Burris Veracity PH 30MM tube). I told him I would think about it as I have never use a picatinny rail on a hunting rifle. It appears that this is the new rage though.
I personally was thinking about Talley Scope Mounts when the question was posed.
Since you have mounted Burris Veracity scopes on your rifles what rings did you select?
Here is an update to my last Post.
I have always used traditional rings on bolt action rifles.
With this experience I initially was reluctant to go with a Scope Rail/Ring combo mounting solution due to a lack of understanding why this combination is being so widely used.
After waiting a few days for a response from more educated shooters in the forum - I dropped back and did some research seeking answers to my questions.
First, I re-watched your YouTube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-wAHb2bKMQ&t=199s&ab_channel=Backfire) on the B14 Crest and in there you say you use Talley Medium scope rings with the Burris Veracity PH so that answered one of my questions. I will probably get a set of these once I am sure about which scope, I want to mount permanently.
It was interesting for me to discover the reason why so many use the Rail/Scope Ring combination. There are several good reasons it makes sense. It increases Optics flexibility (i.e. the ability to easily swap optics on and off of your rifle), and it allows you to optimize your elevation adjustment range (based on MOA (0, 20, 30, an 40) Rail CANT) important for reliably shooting extended ranges (beyond 400-yards).
I did come across an exceptional article on scope mounting. It provides an excellent explanation of canted rails and their usefulness. It explains that using ballistics for furthest distance to shoot in MOAs you can determine the amount of SCOPE RAIL CANT required.
So, a 7MM PRC ELD-M 180gr sighted in at 100-yards has a bullet drop of 29.3 MOA at 1200-yards. My Veracity PH has a total elevation adjustment range of 60 MOA. With my scope mounted at zero MOA do I have enough elevation range to dial in a 1200-yard target? Answer Most likely - NO. 29.3 MOA - 25 MOA = 4.3 MOA short
The formula from the article above shows that
Or (60/2)-5 = 25 MOA which according to ballistics I would not be able to dial up to 1200-yards unless I switched to a 20 MOA canted rail. Interestingly, with a 20 MOA rail I would have enough elevation adjustment range to achieve 45 MOA and by ballistics that would be 1500-yards. On paper it looks cool – but I will soon be testing this math on a 1000-yard range.
Cheers!
That math seems right. You haven’t bought the Veracity OH yet, right? Could be reasons to wait with Shot Show coming in just two weeks…. Just sayin’….
Yes I bought my Veracity PH scope about a month ago - and it is already mounted on my rifle.
I received a pretty heavy discount on it which is always nice too.
It is a really nice scope, and the glass is crystal clear. It is a little heavy though, so I may eventually need to find a lighter weight scope for high country hunting.
Thanks
Hey Jim I have been trying to decide between the mountain reeper and the mg lite as well. Are you playing on doing a video review on the mg lite?
Jim - you mentioned in the podcast that the MgLite in 7 PRC wasn’t shooting well. Would you say that it’s only the light weight gun issue or other things that are causing that? Leaning away from the 2020 waypoint and toward the Mglite/Mtn reaper in 7prc so hoping you can add a comment or two if you can before I place one on order. Much appreciated.
I have a mountain reaper in 7mm PRC and absolutely love it. My buddy and I both have the same rifle and they both shoot lights out.
I’ve achieved some quarter to half MOA groups but probably consistently around the 1-1.25 MOA group with five shots. I attribute this more to my lack of shooting ability than the rifle.
I’ve been super impressed thus far.
He was using Monstrum rings. I also used those on my 7PRC and the recoil sheered the aluminum rails off the bottom of the rings. After the first ~5 shots I couldn’t get a group and I was really confused. Then the entire scope fell off and thenI knew why it would group. I put decent rings on and now its a sub MOA gun. Lesson - don’t cheap out on rings - “Amazon” rings aren’t for hunters or percision shooters.
I am still having issues with the 7 PRC MG Lite and am working through it with Bergara. Can’t recommend that one until we get to the bottom of it. I’d go Fierce Reaper or the Sig Sawtooth that looks amazing.
The Monstrum rings were actually on my Sig cross.