Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Tikka bolt operation

I took a new to me Tikka T3 Superlight to the range to being load development today. The Tikka has upgrades such as the steel recoil lug, steel bottom metal and steel bolt shroud. I was usoing factory ammo and the firepin was not striking the primer. Everything felt good through the trigger, there was a solid click when the trigger broke, but no ignition. I tried 3 times, and then looked at the cartridge and there was not a firing pin strike all. Things looked normal with the bolt. I did notice that bolt does not close all the way now. Maybe it didnt before. When you rotate the bolt to closed, it stops at about 4:00 instead of turning all the way to 5:00. The first thing I am going to do is take the bolt down and make sure it is free of packing / shipping grease inside the bolt etc. It was 40 degrees out and I suppose that could stiffen things up some.

Anybody have thoughts on why the bolt doesnt rotate completely to close and the bolt handle is sticking a bit? My wife took the truck (with the gun inside of it) to some state land to take the dogs for a walk or else I would have a better description and maybe have it figured out by now.

Love to hear some thoughts.

When you take it down, disassemble it over a clean flat surface.
One that will catch and let you recover anything that comes out.
It's possible there is a metal flake or other manufacturing crud
in there. If you find a likely culprit, you have an idea.

Open it where you miss it galling out, and you will always wonder
what happened.

We bought a kitchen faucet, I installed it and...No water.
Long story, lots of frustration and profanity.

Thought it was manufacturing crud in the check valve.
Some green plastic shavings. (No green plastic in the thing!)
Put it back together without the valve.
It worked. (Thought we knew what had been wrong)


Next day, found another valve on the floor.
Some asshat had put two in, one each way!

One thing I noticed is that when I took the shroud off, a smalll spring came out. i do not see that happening on any videos showing how to replace the shroud. It is in correctly? It is installed in the shroud and pushes against the firing pin assembly..

i am thing the answer is a long screw in the talley rings. i have the short screw in the wrong spot

The spring keeps tension on the shroud to keep it from rattling and moving back and forth. The screws would definitely keep it from working right. Read the owners manual and make sure you disassemble and reassemble it correctly.

T3 oh T3x?
My T3s don't have a spring. In their plastic shroud.

Sounds like the bolt is hitting something that is preventing it from camming over all the way.

I have to look at my T3x to see if an extra long mounting screw would protrude into the lug recess.

I have seen this on a Tikka 595 when the scope mount screw was too long. I bet this is the issue.

I agree, this is a good thing to check.