Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles tikka t3, nothing short of amazing!!!

I just bought a tikka T3 lite in 30-06 from our very own highridge1 in the classifieds. scroured around my reloading stuff, found a few federal cases laying around, I prefer win brass, the only powder that I had on hand that looked like it would work for some hasty handloads was RL 15 seated the bullets to abouta thata mucha cobbled together some loads with 155 nolser custom, 168 amax, 125 btip, and 168 SMK, all shot MOA or less with the 155's and the AMAXs in the .5 MOA range, when I first got the gun the trigger was 3.5#'s a screwdriver an allen wrench and 2 mins later the trigger was breaking at 36oz. honestly with the gun being so light its limiting factor is how steady I can hold the darn thing, if I am not on top of my game I can't get it to shoot in the .5's hell maybe the thing could shoot even better with someone else steering the thing. recoil is not bad at all actually,

for years I eyed the tikka's and read the internet hoopla, I convinced myself all that plastic sucked and just couldn't be lived with, until I finally broke down got one figuring I would dump it if it was a dog. and man am I hooked this thing shoots like a varmint rifle. the rifles are very well thought out and extremely well fitted together, I am very impressed by the fit and finish, simply put the barreled action fits the stock better than any factory rifle on the market period. people seem to diss the factory scope mount setup I like it, the scope fit into the rings perfectly, the whole gun gives you the feeling that everything is made "just right"

I thought skinny free floated barrels where supposed to be load finacky, here is 5 groups with 3 different bullets the average is .558, everything I have fired has went into MOA or less, that includes 150 btip federal factory load, and 125 btips

Nice! Another Tikka fan is born..

-jeff

The T-3's are the Bomb. I took a fat 7-pointer with one in .30/06 Saturday morning. I am now coveting one in 6.5x55

"All that plastic" becomes a quickly faded memory after the groups start proving it's metal....

You will not be disappointed with the 6.5x55 in the Tikka T-3 either. First handload I developed was H4350/130 Scirocco II's @ about 2900. Dirty, clean and in between it loves to keep printing .50- groups. It's impressed me!!!

Kev

Yeah, a lot of work to get them running right....

I pickup up a .270 for my Dad and mounted a Leupold 6x42 in a one piece "dednutz" mount (absolutley beautiful by the way) and grabbed a box of Fusion ammo. Took a whole three rounds to get it sighted in. His first group at 200 was dead on and a touch under an inch. I tried to convince him is was some top-secret handload I had developed for him but then he saw the box. I really dont see myself even going to the effort to handload unless I want to something a 1/2 moa hunting load will not do which is not to likely.

The best I could get with my new T3 in .338 Federal was 1 1/4" using Federal Fusion 200 gr. ammo. I wasn't shooting my best that day and I think reloads will make all the difference!!!

Well I can not agree with you more... I purchased the same package here with in the last two months. I also am a died in the wool Walnut & blue guy but I really wanted something that I did not have to worry about getting soaked and I was impressed by what I read about the gun.... Then I shot it and I was really impressed then..... First load I tried would shout under .5 inch with 165 gr blastic tips....

I took it this past weekend hunting and scored the pig below...

Sako, nice piggy. Mind sharing the particulars on your camo?

Sorry for the de-rail...

Yep, another one! If you could cross a Kimber with a Tikka you would have a rifle that would be in high demand! Now would that be a Timber or a Kikka?

I am the first guy to like tradition in rifles, walnut blue is pretty much all I own, this is my first factory rifle with a plastic stock, I still don't care for the clip, I like the regular staggered internal mag, because its easier to take a shell out that did not get fired and put it back in the guns mag. I don't like plastic, I am very much traditional, but the problem with that is its harder to mass produce an accurate rifle with some of those features, I like the way the tikka has that molded in the stock recoil lug, pretty nifty idea I think, the single stack mag, is easier for the rifle and nothing special has to be done from caliber to caliber to get good feeding, its a simple system that works, being such a light handle rifle sure don't hurt anything