Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Tikka CTR or Browning Hells Canyon LR

I haven’t heard anyone say anything bad about a Tikka CTR but how would a Browning hells Canyon LR compare to one. Mainly punching paper out to 1000 and used on lope hunt occasional yote rig. Looking at 6.5creed or maybe a 6 creed in the Browning

Looking for any pros/cons. Thanks

Also good scope recommendations

My buddy picked up Hells Canyon and I’ll shoot it on Saturday. I have two CTR’s, one of which I’ll bring along, to do a quick comparo. I’ve never cared for Browning anything, but said the same for Tikka until I bought the CTR’s. My CTR’s are scoped with Bushnell LRHS’ and I believe my buddies Browning is scoped with a Vortex Razor Gen II. I shoot my CTR’s (mostly the 6.5 Creed) well past 1000m. For a cheap, turnkey rifle, it’s tough to beat shooting factory Hornady ammo. Both of mine are bone stock with a 2 minute trigger adjustment.

Sounds good. Interested to hear review on them. Thanks

Hi Jerrad, I did shoot the Hells Canyon this weekend. It was a 1.5 MOA gun with my buddies load. Pretty good. I didn’t care for the stock or the trigger. His came with a 26” barrel which I wouldn’t buy. I didn’t check throat or mag coal as I lost interest pretty quickly. A good shooting rifle, but I think you can do better for the price. My .$02.

I have a couple of CTR'was well and I was at a sponsored shoot using Browning Hells Canyons and Swarovski glass. Both version of the HC, regular and McMillan stocked version. Nice rifles but the mag box length is the limiting factor. Fits factory ammo (130 gr Prime) But not much room left to seat bullets out farther. Factory triggers were heavy. I prefer my Tikka's CTR and the new T3x lite with the M+ mag which lets you seat your bullets out farther

Ed

Heres my two cents on it...

The Tikkas are great. The trigger out of the box is awesome. Smooth bolt. Accurate. Lightweight. I own a few now, and have owned others in the past. The only issue I've ever had with Tikkas is their speed. I had a 260 and 7mag and now have a 6.5manbun and all of them have been SLOW. Everyone said RL19 was magic in the 260... yeah okay, about 150fps slower than expected. I finally milked 2700 out of it with a HEFTY dose of H1000. Like, crammed the bullet on top of a case full of powder. The 7mag I could never get close to any book velocities, I got 150s running at 3050 at one point. I've got a 30-06 that will shoot 150s almost the same though. Let me clarify that I'm not necessarily a speed freak, I just don't see a reason in burning a ton of powder for 280 or less velocities. If I wanted to shoot at 7-08 or 280 velocities, I would've bought one of those. Its like buying a corvette and governing it at 55mph... whats the point? I digress...

I recently purchased a Browning Long Range Stalker in 7mag to give them a shot. I figure its a HC LR minus the flutes, cerakote and camo stock... I'm okay with that. I can get my own cerakote in the future(and in the color I want).

The trigger leaves a little something to be desired - in stock form it was heavy even with the screw removed. I bought an MCarbo spring and installed that... now its not so bad. It had a slight amount of slop in it that shaped up the more I've used it. Timney is making a trigger for it now, too. The stock is fairly solid, and these are bedded(not pillar, but still a nice touch). The action is just as smooth as my Tikkas. One thing to note - the website is WRONG on some of the twist rates. It lists 9.5 or something for the 7mm, when its really 8. Also, nice touch.

I didn't work up any handloads beforehand, save for two of each of different powders to see how velocity was between them. Otherwise, I bought a box of Federal Premium 160gr NABs, and a box of Hornady Precision Hunters for break in. It shot the ABs into less than an inch... it probably would've been smaller however I had 5 hours of sleep and was heavily caffeinated, so I was shaky. It shot the precision hunters into a little over an inch. I'm sure with rest and not being heavily caffeinated, I could've gotten the ABs under .75 and the hunters under an inch. The Federals shot about 150fps faster than the box, and the precision hunters about 50-75fps faster... not surprising considering the extra couple inches of barrel. All of the ABs I shot were within 5fps of each other surprisingly. Also, it shot about like my 243 - that is to say really soft. That muzzle brake makes a difference and I certainly appreciate it at the bench. I may even leave it for hunting - I typically hunt alone anyhow, and the hunts I'd carry this 9lb rifle on aren't hunts that I'll be covering a ton of ground, so no huge risk of jumping an animal.

I'm confident that with handloads it will be at least a .75 gun, if not better. I'm sure BravoFoxtrots' buddies rifle will shoot better once he gets a load it likes.

You know buying the Tikka you're not gonna go wrong, but if you really like the Browning, I wouldn't hesitate to buy it.

I’m still kicking around what I want to buy. I’ve owned a bunch of Tikkas no CTR’s but have scoped a few in for guys and got on paper and left the rest up to them. I did handle a Browning last weekend at a store feels nice.

Is there anything else in that price range that I should give a good look at. I’ve thought about the Christensen arms,cost a little more than the above two and have heard both good and bad.

I did pick up a scope Nightforce SHV 4-14x56 which will be heavy and big,but price seemed good and have been wanting to try a Nightforce for awhile. And I’m really not worried about weight on this particular rifle. Will mainly punch paper at the house

Thanks for the feedback so far. Jerrad

The CA Mesa I handled felt really nice. Its definitely above the Browning offerings in workmanship... ultimately, with the way sub $1000 guns shoot nowadays I couldn't justify spending that much... maybe if I were a competitive shooter, but then I'd be looking into something 100% custom.

The new Savages look interesting too. I handled a few at the sportsman show awhile back... might be worth looking into. Options are good, right?

I also ran across some Sakos on sale at a few places.

sighted in a buddy's 6.5 Creed Hells Canyon LR with Hornady factory 140 ELD-M, little over .5" groups. Rifle is a shooter !!!


The trigger is excellent, crisp, broke at 4#. You can adjust it to about 3#.

Jard and Timney both make GREAT drop in triggers for the Xbolts. I did read where the Timney took a "little "fitting"

I would not hesitate a second to buy one. They were kind of hard to find. We found one on Cabeles site, he ordered it and it was shipped to our local store in a week. GREAT VALUE too !!!