Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles New Tikkas

New models look nice but priced high. I'll stick with the Sportsmans Warehouse models for now.

The Tikka is less picky, but the Montana is no slouch with loads it likes. If I were drawing up a lightweight .223 from scratch on paper, it'd have everything the Montana offers other than it'd be 1/8", so it's hands down the one I'd keep.

I like the stock; what is it?

If Sportman's warehouse had a brain, they'd beg for a 1:8 260 SuperLite.

I would certainly pick one up!

Grab some T3 Lite synthetic take off stocks...

The stainless fluted T3 Hunter is available in 260 (8" twist) for 2015. It's part of the Sako Select program. I ordered a bunch. We'll have them on the shelf for $769 -- that's why I said those prices were high earlier in the thread. Sell your wood take off at a decent price and you'll have your SuperLite 260....

Damnation...

An edge filled Sako Compact would be interesting.

They're doing a 6.5x55 in the same set up...

That's for the LA only haters. 260AI would be a heck of a sleeper, fun to spend others money.

Tag

SAS,
Are those full stainless or blue with stainless barrels?
Thanks!

I bedded it in the take-off from my T3 lite (which I re-stocked in a B&C Medalists). Sanded down the Euro chit and gave it a back-yard, Krylon job.

20 minutes with a soldering iron will make the eurochit checkering grippy as hell. Those stocks stipple as well as STI or Glock frames.

Maybe not quite this color, but tempting...

How hard is it to do that nice of a job on the "checkering". I hate how slippy mine is under the ejection port. I hand carry my rifle most times and you have to really hang on to it. I tried the hand skins and did not like them. No problem they peeled off anyway.

Tag

Tag +1. Almost think I would rather see a 6.5 Creedmore than a .260, but hey.....

i'm sure that's a stock photo, but on the off chance it's not can you give me the color combination?

Stippling is easy peasy. Take a soldering tip, chuck it in a drill and grind it round. You want shallow "craters", not deep. Pointed tip goes in too deep and will essentially perforate your stock. If you want smaller diameter craters, reduce the diameter of the tip. Key is round. Then once your iron is to temp, just lightly push the tip into the stock. You'll see the edges of the crater melt upward. The deeper you push, the more aggressive the grip will be. Start shallow with your first one and work deeper until it looks how you want. You want keep them pretty close and those edges will make quite a grip. When I did mine I found the material in the Tikka stocks reacted very similar to the material in STI grip subframes.

In cheap rubbery plastic stocks it seems the edges of the craters somewhat "melt-over" and they are not as sharp.

You can practice on the inside of the barrel channel where it'll be hidden from view once you reassemble. Just don't monkey around where lug is or barrel sits.

It goes pretty quick. Took about 20 minutes and a cup of coffee to do the one you see. I just hit the existing "panels". I imagine a fella could get pretty creative if he wanted.

You won't find a better grip


@Petro- stock photo. Just occurred to me that a fella with a pile of Tikkas could play stock swap all he wanted since the inlet is the same for all calibers. Can't say that's a bad deal.

Why? I thought one of the reasons behind the Creed was to fully utilize the SA length. Since Tikkas are on long actions, 260 should be fine. 6.5x06 might be finer.