chrisw - Nothign wrong with your reply! thanks. I appreciate it!
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chrisw - Nothign wrong with your reply! thanks. I appreciate it!
After writing all that I don't think I actually gave any advise to improve your groups.
If you are not happy with your accuracy, this is what I would do.
1. Adjust the trigger as light as it will go. They can generally go low enough for the vast majority of users and have a nice clean break.
2. Loctite everything with blue loctite. The base, rings etc. Don't lap the rings. Could tell some stories about people lapping rings then having expensive scopes slide within their lap job rings damaging the scope.
3. Make sure the action is sitting in the stock correctly and that the action screws are nice and tight.
4. Make sure your barrel is clean. Proper clean, a bore snake does not = proper clean. Yes there is a lot of debate about this one, but just do it..once your rifle shoots well and you have a decent baseline then by all means do what you want, but imo testing real accuracy potential and dirty barrels do not go together. Fire one round from a clean barrel before shooting for accuracy.
5. Check the crown for any nicks, burrs, scuffs etc.
6. Ammo. Try a few different loads in your rifle and/or test a bunch of reloads.
If you cant shoot decent groups (with a good rest) after going through the above then id think you either have;
A dodgy scope, rings, or base.
Rifle is faulty.
Shooter needs more practice
You should not "need" any of those things you listed to get a reasonable degree of accuracy assuming all the peripherals (scope etc) is working and holding a zero as it should, and the ammo is not something it particularly hates.
I guess its more trouble shooting then modifications..but anyway.
Head shots - I’m not a fan as it’s too easy to get wrong. I have taken a few at less than 100m, but I wouldn’t dream of trying it with any of my rifles at the ranges you mention. It’s too easy to mess it up and cause suffering and there’s no point when the vitals are so much bigger. Please leave the trick shots alone and go for the vitals instead.
shooting a deer brain sized target cosistantly at those ranges should see you shooting for nz at the olympics
At those ranges. You're far more effective if you aim for the base of the neck.
or the animal
If you intend to put your tikka into a dpt chassis, the titanium recoil will NOT give you any advantage and might actually not fit the chassis as well as the current pressed in stainless lug. Also bedding the chassis will probably not improve anything either. I would shoot it as it is before ruining something.
Pretty much all the essentials have been mentioned precedently:
- properly clean your barrel before you shoot your rifle for the first time, and if you have time do a very quick break in by shooting one or two shots and cleaning . Repeat the cycle a couple of time ( you can adjust your scope closer to zero as you do so). And then start shooting for 3 shots groups.
-most tikkas tend to shoot well to very well most good factory ammos ( federal blue box or fusion, Winchester deer season, hornady precision hunter... among plenty of others) I would start to shoot one or two boxes of factory ammo to see how the rifle behave and if accuracy and recoil meet your expectations. It will also help you to get used to the rifle.
-good rings ( optilock )and a descent scope .
- actions screws on the chassis can be torqued a bit higher than the synthetic stock ( around the 50inch/pound ).
Once accuracy has been proven with factory ammo, get an accurate reload established and Spend your time on the range not in the workshop trying to fiddle with things which might bring unwanted variables.
I wasted a lot of ammo shooting and cleaning between shots trying to sight one of mine in untill i tried it dirty shoots mint dirty does about a 10" group clean :(
You won't need any mods to get it shooting good enough groups on the range.
For hunting, out to "average 500M max shots", you need to make it easy to use.
There you've got to have:
Stability of zero (real optilock rings are the best for hunting and for 500m you won't need an extra base or rail - they are just vandalism to tap into the action).
Ease of use in scope (Field of view, eyebox, solid reticle, rock solid click adjustments, stability across power and parallax adjustments, light gathering and robust construction) None of this can be measured by tighter groups on paper.
Ease of use in stock. Get advice and experiment with adjustments on the stock so that it adheres to fundamental position principles and fits you, yourself. If you're strong enough to carry it and manipulate it through the scrub, the chassis stock may well be easier to shoot well than the factory plastic.
Give some thought to your rangefinding system and beyond 300m you'll want to take wind into account (even with the winmag) so what equipment would you need for those ?
To open another round of wise advice from the lads, I'll ask whether you're planning to use a bipod for some of the longer shots ?
Hey bagheera,
I already have some fusion 1 miles, aswell as some 1/2 decent harris bipods. Id love to get some with less shit poking out. like some tier ones, at some point anyway.
There wont be alot of long distance hooting, but having the ability to do so would be perfect.