Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Weatherby VG vs T3 vs RAR

LOL ....and I hit the power ball 5x

Getting this back on track

Tikka T3... light, accurate and trouble free ..best trigger of the trio and barrel

Weatherby Vanguard..heavy,consistently accurate ..needs trigger IMHO factory 2 stage is not my cup of tea













Ruger American...Machine made and that is not very impressive,too much effort to cam the bolt,lousy trigger,great magazine design and otherwise a great value. Ruger ended up with the best gun at that price point over the Savage and Mossberg entry level stuff.

Oh, you're not getting off the hook that easily by changing the subject. Good try!

Still waiting for you to tell us which is the "cosmetic" shroud and which is the baffle.

When in doubt, change the subject!

$380 rifle
$100 Boyd's stock
$300 SWFA 10xMD
$50 Mounts
$40(?) Mag ass gaskets

$870 puts the package $170 over the cost of a Tikka SL.

Now, do I agree that its a steal and a half, especially for a 1:8 223? You bet your ass. Ruger had to somewhat reverse engineer a Tikka because I think it shares a lot of the same design features. They have second mover advantage up one side and down the other. Eventually someone will get one to shoot as well as a Tikka, there's no denying that Tikkas shoot.

Business decision-wise, I give it to Ruger and its a proven good call. Schit, if I were still in college I'd do a thesis on it.

As a dedicated hunting rig, I'll take what's listed in Reply #1 over anything else mentioned in this thread, including the Kimber.


But I do like my T3.

When have I ever said the shroud was anything but a cosmetic feature. Your baffle comment has me baffled, have you shown me visual evidence of a ruptured cartridge case in a Tikka ? No you have not , but you have mentioned plastic,triggers ad nauseam.

Show me a pic of a bolt shroud on a T3 blown off by a ruptured cartridge case.

$380 rifle
$100 Boyd's stock
$300 SWFA 10xMD
$50 Mounts
$40(?) Mag ass gaskets

$870 puts the package $170 over the cost of a Tikka SL.

Now, do I agree that its a steal and a half, especially for a 1:8 223? You bet your ass. Ruger had to somewhat reverse engineer a Tikka because I think it shares a lot of the same design features. They have second mover advantage up one side and down the other. Eventually someone will get one to shoot as well as a Tikka, there's no denying that Tikkas shoot.

Business decision-wise, I give it to Ruger and its a proven good call. Schit, if I were still in college I'd do a thesis on it.

As a dedicated hunting rig, I'll take what's listed in Reply #1 over anything else mentioned in this thread, including the Kimber.


But I do like my T3.



I would have to replace the factory trigger with a Timney

If I did get the American, I'd likely leave it stock. It looks like most of them shoot pretty well right out of the box, so I can't see adding weight and money to it. The SWFA would be nice, I'd opt for the 6x myself, but neither is an option since they won't export to Canada.
If I was looking for a rifle that was going to see a lot of heavy duty use, the custom route would be a nice option. Right now though I'm just looking for a decent, all-round beater rifle, something that'll do whatever I need to with a minimum of fuss.
If this Vanguard shoots well now, then I'll scope it and try to be happy...if I can't be happy with it, I'll look for a Howa locally. The local gun shop just moved location and is reopening today, so I have to stop in and see what they have. Never know
what might happen...

The only change I would make on a Howa/Vanguard it would be the trigger. My brother snagged an absolutely beautiful 300 wby mag blued with the deluxe stock from gunbroker for 5bills delivered. It has a great trigger and stock. I have never seen a rifle line that was so trouble free aside from the trigger.

Bottom Line after all the banter back and forth is this,
IN the event of a ruptured case in the Tikka T3 how will the Tikka handle the Gas?
Is it safe?
This is of major concern to me as I recently bought a Tikka Superlight 270 Winchester and have liked everything about the rifle . Till now. Now I am concerned about the safeness of the rifle.

Let's be clear about the Vanguard trigger. The issue was limited to the original Vanguard, which had a truly terrible trigger. Lots of people, including me, complained about them for years. The standard cure was to drop in a Timney and make a small cut or dremel out a small channel inside the stock to allow for the greater forward travel of safety lever arm, or whatever you choose to call it. The Timney is an excellent trigger that updrades to a three-position safety on the original Vanguards.

The S2 Vanguards have -- wonder of wonders -- a very Timney-like, three-position safety.

Yes it is a vast improvement over the first go around...I just do not like 2 stage triggers

Hmmm, looks like someone did the carve-out-the-underside-of-Tally-rings treatment there, which appears to nicely get around the chitty screw issue with factory rings. Please share some info on your modifications. Inquiring minds want to know.

16bore handles that and it is very nice. That said I would use optilocks only on a Tikka and have.

Yeah, I'd like to know more about his modifications.

Re. optilocks, I'm not crazy about any ring maker who can't be bothered to supply their product with decent screws. Penny wise, inch-pound foolish.

Ask him

Decent screws really? You have to use a carbon steel allen wrench or torx wrench(current production) and I can guarantee you will not have an issue. I don't like ringmarks on my scope and I like them to stay in place.

Just a little nip and tuck. There's a post around here with the story on the mods, but "MY STUFF" isn't working on the iPhone.

Next project is drilling vent holes in the bolt. Was going to monkey with 2.5" 223 mags but what a pain in the ass.

I've had a 7mm08 and 7mmRem Mag T3's for almost 10 years now, and have fired hundreds upon hundreds of rounds through them, including what my nephew and son have shot. They both wear the original T3 rings and plastic shroud. We've killed countless animals with them as well, never one single solitary problem of any kind, any form or fashion out of either of them. They're ridiculously accurate.

The schittty shroud and schittty ring problems are way overblown IMO, unless a guy likes to torque rings with a cheater pipe.

Read your quote above... you wrote, "There is no problem with gas traveling up the leftside bolt rail since there is a precise fit between shroud and the receiver."

First you write that the shroud is cosmetic, then say it stops gas moving rearward! Which is it?

i am not going over this again ever. The Bolt shroud is cosmetic, name how many times you have seen one blown off because of gas traveling up the left lug raceway ? If this is such an issue where are all the pic's? Oh I know....................there are none.


P.S. I don't believe your little story about the 5 tikkas or the trigger issue you had with one. Not even a little.


Now time to putt your azz on ignore

Or reads stuff on the innerweb and imaginary pretends to own said equipment like one of my ignored posters.