Thread: Tikka T3/T3X Facts versus Fantasies

Originally Posted by Tahr

Too long for the standard T3 mag.

Correct, no use running loads the average bloke cant use . . .

Give me tikka or sako any day.
Bang for buck and generally pretty good out of the box.
Tried a few others and now got a cuboard full of the above.


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Originally Posted by Tahr

Too long for the standard T3 mag.

Originally Posted by Tentman

Correct, no use running loads the average bloke cant use . . .

CTR or AICS mags... the factory plastic is only fit for the bin or TardMe

Originally Posted by caberslash

CTR or AICS mags... the factory plastic is only fit for the bin or TardMe

Tentman is interested in how they perform in standard configuration with factory ammo.

In my experience the Tikka’s are probably the best in that price bracket for overall out of the box accuracy.
Sure there are exceptions from all brands , but when you roll the dice on a new unproven rifle my money goes on the Tikka ( again with the caveat of price bracket )
Also there is now a plethora of aftermarket parts and accessories for Tikka’s that you can just plug and play with .
I own four Tikka’s of different calibres and to be honest they would be the last to be evicted from my safe .

Originally Posted by Friwi

To bring a bit of water to your mill, from time to time I measure the runout of tikka factory chambers . The beginning of the bore is indicated dead true in the lathe then I proceed to measure the runout of the chamber.
This week I measured a 223 tikka barrel at 0.06mm.
I have seen worse in the past at 0.20mm on a similar tikka barrel.

The worst ever was an old pitted Brno barrel in 223 with a chamber runout of about 1.5mm. That was still shooting under 2moa at 100m with factory ammo.
So my point is that a slight runout does not mean that you won’t get acceptable results on target, but you can’t exploit the full capacity of your barrel if you start with a chamber which is not dead straight.

Buying and using a factory rifle, some improvements can be sometime be gained with a bedding, a recrown, and finding the right load / ammo that the barrel likes. But unfortunately you have to do with whatever condition of the bore / chamber you have .

A recrown can sometimes make a massive difference.

Nothing too far arwy with the crown

Originally Posted by Tentman

Attachment 283960

Attachment 283961

Nothing too far arwy with the crown

It looks "okish", but could do with a sharpen up. The old domed brass screw head and cutting compound trick would have it 100% very quickly.
Long boattailed bullets are very susceptible to any uneven crown damage.

I'm not too interested in "fixes" for this rifle, or claims of "my Tikka shoots x MOA groups all day", many/most Tikkas show quite acceptable accuracy, including this one but with a very limited range of projectiles. The purpose of this thread is to highlight that some Tikka's will/may have issues so don't doubt yourself or your shooting.

Many/most guys I see at the range are not interested in pissing about with multiple ammos, loads, fixes etc, they just want a rifle that works. I was assisting an experienced hunter and champion shotgun guy at the range yesterday, two Tikka's, one 6.5 CM and a 308. The 308 had a replacement scope on it, the latest Swaro, very nice too.

Anyhoo it was literally producing shotgun patterns, an irony not lost on the owner, it just wouldn't group. After checking lots of other stuff more than once I took a look at the suppressor and sure enough it looked like it had some strike. We replaced the supressor with one of mine, and he requested I try it first. Bingo - 3 shots into about 35 mm, followed by 3 from him into about the same and just like that he was sighted in (and away to buy a new suppressor haha).

Nothing to do with it being a Tikka, but symptomatic of issues people strike.

Originally Posted by Tentman

I'm not too interested in "fixes" for this rifle, or claims of "my Tikka shoots x MOA groups all day", many/most Tikkas show quite acceptable accuracy, including this one but with a very limited range of projectiles. The purpose of this thread is to highlight that some Tikka's will/may have issues so don't doubt yourself or your shooting.

Many/most guys I see at the range are not interested in pissing about with multiple ammos, loads, fixes etc, they just want a rifle that works. I was assisting an experienced hunter and champion shotgun guy at the range yesterday, two Tikka's, one 6.5 CM and a 308. The 308 had a replacement scope on it, the latest Swaro, very nice too.

Anyhoo it was literally producing shotgun patterns, an irony not lost on the owner, it just wouldn't group. After checking lots of other stuff more than once I took a look at the suppressor and sure enough it looked like it had some strike. We replaced the supressor with one of mine, and he requested I try it first. Bingo - 3 shots into about 35 mm, followed by 3 from him into about the same and just like that he was sighted in (and away to buy a new suppressor haha).

Nothing to do with it being a Tikka, but symptomatic of issues people strike.

Drive you crazy with expensive shop ammo.

I dont really care, but I use the odd tikka occasionally and have shot dozens of 10rd groups with factory ammo from at least 5 different tikkas in .223 and .308 in the last couple of years and in my dataset the precision doesn't look too different to any other factory rifle, it's poor to average with most factory ammo and good with something the rifle "likes". Very very rarely "excellent".

I think the average group size across all the data i have is about 1.9MOA.

It's absolutely fine for hunting at conventional ranges on average, but it's silly to pretend that they're outstanding with every load.

Interesting attitude of wanting to shoot statistically relevant group sizes but not really being concerned about the rifle being mechanically sound before shooting said groups...

Im happy to use any brand of firearm as long as it functions properly, has the functional features i like and meets my precision requirements. I generally recommend Tikkas to people as they tend to have less inherent issues than other brands out of the box.

I haven't heard people saying Tikkas will shoot every load good.

Originally Posted by Roarless20

Interesting attitude of wanting to shoot statistically relevant group sizes but not really being concerned about the rifle being mechanically sound before shooting said groups...

Im happy to use any brand of firearm as long as it functions properly, has the functional features i like and meets my precision requirements. I generally recommend Tikkas to people as they tend to have less inherent issues than other brands out of the box.

I haven't heard people saying Tikkas will shoot every load good.

And I've never seen a 1.9 moa group (except when my can let go inside), but I haven't used factory ammo in living memory, and certainly not 10 shot groups....but I will now that I have a 223.

My T3 today. Stiff L to R breeze. 20 shots. 1.5 moa. 80 grn Targex that it’s sighted in for. 2910 fps.

None of these tests are a very accurate representation of factory rifles using factory ammo. They should be done with new off the shelf rifles using the same scope and ammo batch number and same shooter.
It's pointless using a second hand rifle that who knows how it's been looked after and all these rifles are tested with different scope set ups, and every shooter has different skill levels.

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