Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Tikka T3X Varmint .223 magazine

I have the above mentioned rifle with the heavy barrel. It is much more accurate than I am, a pleasure to shoot and shoots good groups with most any factory ammo. What I find very frustrating is the cartridge doesn’t always feed and I end up hand feeding a single cartridge after each shot.

The bolt passes over the cartridge and re-inserting the magazine (Tikka magazine) more often than not doesn’t correct the issue.

Any suggestions on how to correct this issue will be appreciated as my patience is wearing thin because of my inability to fix this. Seems simple, but not for this old man.

Rant over!

Your barreled action may not be sitting down all the way in the stock. I've seen this issue when guys do not properly install the action into the stock because of the weird recoil lug they have. That would be the first thing I checked. To me it sounds like the magazine is not up high enough, so the bolt rides over the cartridge.

If you can't figure it out, I guess you could always sell it to me. I bought my 22-250 varmint model because the owner was having similar issues and he also said it was not shooting well. Paid $500.00 for a like new varmint model.

Load the mag up with empty brass. Heat the lips gently with a heat gun till the cartridges rise up a bit

I'm with BSA on this one. Pull the action out of the stock and look at the lug. Make sure there isn't a burr on the lug from it not seating properly. If there is replace the recoil lug. If all is well try laying the barreled action in your lap and lowering the stock onto it to feel it drop into the lug.

Will do. Thanks

Standard capacity Mag or extended capacity?

Maybe a Mr. Obvious question but what is the overall length of your cartridges?

A Tikka .223 magazine will reliably feed cartridges at 2.285" but that's right on the borderline. It will accept cartridges a smidgen longer and they can be pushed down into the mag, but the nose will hang up, especially the second one, and not feed.

I was trying that just yesterday in my .223 since the optimum length for a particular bullet exceeded the mag length and I was shortening it in .005" increments to find a max OAL that didn't affect reliability.

I pulled the action and removed the recoil lug. The lug was fine, but I noticed a bump in the base where the lug fits. I smoothed out the plastic, inserted the lug, action and torqued the two bolts.
I cycled five cartridges just fine. Problem solved and thanks for the suggestions.

Good deal. I figured the action was not sitting down in the stock like it should be. I'll bet it shoots better now too, even though you said it was already shooting good.