Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Tikka recoil

I have tried to learn to shoot the 300 Win Mag, and never have learned to tolerate it. But I have a T3 in 300 WSM and it doesn't seem so bad.

300 magnums that weigh under 8.5 pounds ,suck.

I should mention that Mountain Tactical has 3 or 4 after market wood and laminate stocks in the $300 - $350 range. They appear to have a quality recoil pad on them.
As I alluded to above, a Limbsaver ($38) pad is the quick fix to a robust cartridge.

I put a limb savor on my TikkaT3 lite 300 WSM and the recoil is very tolerable to me. Frankly, I put limbsavors on most of my rifles because they really do work.

Not sure this is the best philosophy, especially going with a lighter rifle unless you plan to keep distances short. Might be better to shoot a light rifle MORE to maintain proficiency.

Do you plan to shoot from prone?

I had three Tikklers in 300 mag and the recoil from prone is more than I wanted and I wouldn't call myself recoil shy.

Jason

I bought a .243 T3 Lite through a special deal at cost, and loved it so much that I got another one in .300 Win. It is not very pleasant to shoot from the bench, so I put on one of the pre-fit Limbsaver pads. It made a pleasant difference, especially when in field shooting positions. At the bench, I still put a PAST shoulder pad on. AS someone else mentioned - the Tikka in .300 mag does jump. I also replaced the factory rings on the .300 with Talleys - the factory ones have worked fine on the .243 but came loose on the .300. The screws that come with them are soft, too.

I've shot my biggest mule deer (about 180") with the .300 and never noticed the kick.

I had three T3 rifles in 300 mag... 300 WSM T3 Lite, 300 Win T3 Lite, and 300 Win T3 SuperLight. Never had a problem shooting from a bench using a limbsaver. Prone is a different ballgame though.

Sorry folks, I mistook the Limbsaver for the Graco BreakO Mercury type recoil reducers that install inside a buttstock. Makes it a bit more difficult to install in a synthetic stock rather than wood, but if it can be done they do work. Add a shock absorbing recoil pad and muzzle break and even the most horrendous recoiling monster becomes tamed. Well maybe not the .577 Tyrannosaurus - but you get the idea.

When my friend and I would shoot our big bores off the bench back in the day, rifles with muzzle energies running 4,500 to 7,500 ft lbs it was always exciting to have the entire shooting bench slide backwards under the recoil. I soon learned to never lean forward into the rifle, but remain upright or slightly to the rear before positioning the stock against my shoulder. That way recoil didn't work against me in straightening me up, it just shoved me, my stool and the bench back.

Only impacts I had that were worse were a headlong flight off a motorcycle that broke my shoulder, wrist and shoved a finger up into the palm of my hand, and a two-year old colt that decided to take me through barred barn doors while I hung on his neck with the halter half buckled (I held on and we made firewood that day. The colt was my best friend afterward.). Then there was the head-on wreck that destroyed my county pickup - oh and the train wreck in Indiana that buried me under a Saddlebred horse. If you can avoid stuff like that, do so.

Ron, I really appreciate stories such as that. In my first job I worked with a farm manager who had been a horse breaker for the U.S. Army Remount Service, a competitive show jumper on the Army team, and later a stunt man in Hollywood standing in for such notables as Ronald Reagan. He served in WWII in Europe. He walked a bit funny, his knees were shambles and he was as grumpy and gruff as as bear with hemorrhoids. Last I heard he was still alive at age 93. Kids like me are honored to learn a craft from men like that, when they all cross over we will loose a wonderful source of wisdom and history.

As for me, I have enough suture lines to mimic a confused road map, but wouldn't trade the adventures they resulted from for anything.

They make a lot of difference because the Tikka factory pad is very hard!

The LimbSaver pad tames quick kickers better than any brand I know. I have a Tikka in 300 WSM with a Limbsaver pad, and I can shoot 40 rounds in a tee shirt from the bench without getting my shoulder very sore.

I wouldn't want a Tikka in a 300 Win mag., to me they just cross the line of my tolerance.

The downside to the Limbsaver is they get sticky if you get copper solvent on them, so be careful when cleaning your rifle to not touch the pads.

Everybody handles recoil different. I use my Tikka T3 lite .338 Winchester mag for almost all my hunting. With a limbsaver pad I have no problems and I really like the weight of the rifle for hunting.

My wife has a T3 Lite in 270 WSM. I handle recoil fine and I will be the first to tell you that the factory pad on a bench is NOT PLEASENT. It won't "kill you" but it really takes all the fun out of shooting. We slapped a limbsaver on there and now it's a fantastic rifle that will have a place in my safe as long as I'm still breathing. The factory pad is basically a plastic honeycomb with a 1/8" thick piece of rubber stretched over it, in other words it' simply looks like a recoil pad but really doesn't do much.

Critternator - from all these posts I can only assume that the Tikka, Savage and Ruger (All Weather section) engineers went to the same school of stock design. Perhaps a crash course in human ergonomics would help. Same with recoil pads...they've read all the same cost accounting memo's i.e. use only the least expensive material as they're HARD pads. One would think they'd read the Pachmyer or Limbsaver proposals and not the one from the Stone Masons (LOL). RAR rifle pads are quite a bit better. Homesteader