ballistically challenged Tikka T3 Lite 30-06

[gillettehunter]

I have a couple of the Tika T3 lites from several years ago. One is a .270WSM and the other a .300 WSM. Because of the clip I can't seat bullets out near the lands. So the bullet is always going to jump unless I treat them as a single shot. I have found that the Barnes TTSX bullets like to jump. My .300 WSM will shoot a 1 1/2 inch group at 300 yards w/ the TTSX. Only rub is the copper fouling. Accuracy starts to decrease after as few as 12 rounds. Clean it again ants back to where it should be. You might try some TTSX's and see how they shoot in your rifle. Might make a difference. Good luck. Bruce

 

[MajorSpittle]

It's more likely your ammo. Inch groups are good but I do not think 1/2 inch is going to be a deal breaker. My tikka that I had in 243 was a 3/4 inch shooter untill I shot cheap factory ammo in it. Then it shot 1 1/2 groups.

I really disagree with this. I have shot group after group out of my 7mm Rem Mag with cheap Federal AMMO. All getting around 3/4". Cheap ammo can shoot sub MOA consistantly, I have seen it. Federal Premium ballistic tips shoot about 1.2 inch groups with that rifle Winchester Silver tips also shot about an inch +.

Now if I was trying to shoot 2" groups at 400 yards I would definately seek something with a ballistic tip and consistant powder that is designed to be Uber accurate and find what my rifle likes.

I am just trying to find what my gun likes, at 100yards I doubt there is .2" variance in grouping that could be traced to the ammo quality. I think harmonics/bullet stabilization with the rifle is the biggest limiting factor of accuracy here and not the quality of the rounds and I am troubleshooting a > .5" variance here.

 

[JeffP40]

That one group does look promising. One thing you still need to try in my opinion, is cleaning. #9 does squat, there's nothing in it any longer that takes the fouling to clean steel. Use at least sweets, shooters' choice, mt extreme, wipe out, or bore tech. You have to get the copper out of the imperfections in order to let the next bullet continue to "lap" the barrel.
One thing about bench shooting. The rifle may like to be held tight, or loose on the bags. Somteimes free recoil groups good, sometimes a firm grip works. Keep trying.

 

[MajorSpittle]

I will be trouble shooting 4 things next time at range to narrow down what the issue is. I will start by shooting the same way that grouped well last time to verify I have a known good method, then take away each variable and see when the group falls apart. I will take away ONLY the listed methodology for each group, all else will be the same as the reference method.

#1 Referrence group, From sled standing behind bench, each round hand loaded to chamber, 150gr fusion, barrel cleaned before each shot, 5 minutes between rounds and 15 minutes between groups.

#2 Take away hand loading rounds and use Magazine

#3 Take away cleaning barrel before each shot

#4 Take away letting barrel cool, will take about 90sec between rounds due to cleaning between shots. will continue on firing after group #3 without pause other then to clean barrel. This way first round will be from warm barrel.

#5 Shooting from sitting at bench off of sand bags.

That one group does look promising. One thing you still need to try in my opinion, is cleaning. #9 does squat, there's nothing in it any longer that takes the fouling to clean steel. Use at least sweets, shooters' choice, mt extreme, wipe out, or bore tech. You have to get the copper out of the imperfections in order to let the next bullet continue to "lap" the barrel.
One thing about bench shooting. The rifle may like to be held tight, or loose on the bags. Somteimes free recoil groups good, sometimes a firm grip works. Keep trying.

I don't want to change how I clean the barrel between rounds yet, but if I find that cleaning the barrel is what is allowing the tighter groups then I will definately get some good cleaning agent and try break in process if I can't get Tikka to take the rifle back and fix the issue.

Best case senerio is that just one thing is causing a huge impact on group size.

Worse case is that I find 2 or 3 things are causing modest variance that when combined create a large variance in group size. ie Chambering from Magazine, barrel temp, and dirty barrel combined cause a 1" jump in group size.

 

[JeffP40]

I agree with the "best case/worst case" scenario. It would be nice to find that one thing that gets it to shoot. When it comes to my luck, as in my 6.5, it seems to be the worst case.
Keep us updated, I am really curious.

 

[Sparkyaber]

Extreme novice here, just happened upon this thread while googling, about my tikka t3 lite. I have an almost identical problem, my first two shots are right on the mark, while the third is off in the toolies. Any where from about two to four inches. It seems the closer the first two rounds are together, the third is also closer, but still off. I have tried many factory ammunitions from cheap to premium, even some hand loads all the same results. Better ammo and the hand loads have better groups, but the third round is still off. I have planned the same sort of tests. Shoot two groups all on cold barrel. 10 min. Between shots. Next, three "warm up" shots that won't matter, just to heat things up. Then, two groups on hot barrel. One other idea from a co-worker, the difference in groups would be between hot barrel and cold barrel. I don't ever recall shooting two groups in succession . Will know more by this weekend . Hope to here your results this week.
Thanks for all your help.

 

[cummins cowboy]

I had a gameseeker once that I bought from camera land for like $60 bucks it was also a 4-12 model. it was a terrible scope, eye relief was so short it was tuff to use on my 17 hmr, the 17 hmr didn't shoot that great with it. picked up a bushnell elite 3200 3x9 and its minute of a golf ball everytime at 100 yards. getting rid of that *** pentax scope was the best thing I ever did it transformed the gun. I took the scope off and gave it to my 8 yr old and said here go play with it.

one thing to check is make sure your recoil lug is seated right and the action is in the stock correctly, which isn't always easy to do with a tikka because they fit tight. also I wouldn't tighten the action screws like a garilla.

 

[bruce_ventura]

...I have shot group after group out of my 7mm Rem Mag with cheap Federal AMMO. All getting around 3/4". Cheap ammo can shoot sub MOA consistantly, I have seen it...

I'll jump back in with a few comments:

I think your 7mm Rem Mag is unusual and has set your expectations too high for a factory rifle. Ammo may not be the problem with your Tikka, but you should at least rule it out early by testing with premium ammo. Because of the problems you've reported, I would recommend Federal Match or equivalent.

Feeding rounds by hand vs through the mag will only make a difference if the magazine feed is damaging the ogive or causing some other trauma to the round. You should be able to rule this out by inspecting rounds repeatedly fed through the magazine.

Have you inspected the muzzle crown? Any dents anywhere on the crown? Any nicks or burrs at the bore?

Some rifles like to be shot clean, others dirty. Are you cleaning the barrel using a good copper solvent? If not, you're not really getting down to metal. You should alternate between copper solvent and powder solvent until all patches come out only lightly soiled.

 

[MajorSpittle]

So I will give a quick update. I didn't have much time at the range today so I couldn't go through my troubleshooting process like I wanted but did shoot some groups trying a couple different things.

I have never had a rifle so sensitive to how it is held, but I have also not had a rifle as light as this before either. It seemed the more I held the rifle back into my shoulder the tighter it shot, unfortunately I didn't have a shooting coat so the more it was pressed against my shoulder the more inaccurate I was at holding the sight picture. The rifle does not like being rested in the rear "V" type holder of a shooting sled, it seemed if I made any adjustment left to right or up and down that moved the pressure point on the butt end of the stock it would show up in the group.

The rifle also seem to tighten up some when rounds hand fed to chamber but I saw no evidence of damage to round when loaded from magazine.

After I adjusted my shooting style my results were that I shot 2 three round groups that were ~ .65" group with Federal Fusion 150gr and one just under an inch Hornady SST 150gr. and another group should have been a ragged hole but I flinched on shot 3 and put shot 4 back in the same hole with the first two shots.

So my thinking is that I will get a B&C http://www.stockysstocks.com/servlet/the-601/Bell-%26-Carlson-Tikka/Detail stock will aluminum bedding and call it good. Hopefully it will be less sensitive, if not it still can't hurt.

 

[JeffP40]

My only experience with those type of rests was not good. A friend has a varmint type rest, not a lead sled, and I could not get a consistent hold with the rifle. It seemed to me that the buttstock would not return to the same position and settle in to the rest. Out of 4 rifles I shot that day, only one shot like it normally did. Granted, it was only one time, but I recall having a hard time getting a consistent reaction to recoil when shooting. It felt like the rifle recoiled differently each time, and the groups were not good.
I had a #1 in 223 years ago that also was finicky about how it was held. I could see a marked difference in grouping if I was not paying attention.
Maybe this particular rifle is female and only wants to be treated a certain way.

 

[MajorSpittle]

My only experience with those type of rests was not good. A friend has a varmint type rest, not a lead sled, and I could not get a consistent hold with the rifle. It seemed to me that the buttstock would not return to the same position and settle in to the rest. Out of 4 rifles I shot that day, only one shot like it normally did. Granted, it was only one time, but I recall having a hard time getting a consistent reaction to recoil when shooting. It felt like the rifle recoiled differently each time, and the groups were not good.
I had a #1 in 223 years ago that also was finicky about how it was held. I could see a marked difference in grouping if I was not paying attention.
Maybe this particular rifle is female and only wants to be treated a certain way.

Yeah, I might wear a heavy coat and cinch the rifle down with a shooting sling and see what it does. My hunting partner is having a custom M14 built up that should be ready by Wed. so I'll end up making one more trip to the range to help him get that gun ready for hunting.

 

[Sparkyaber]

I also shot this weekend, and probably not coincidentally, my best groups were with Hornady custom SST's 165 grain and fusion 165 grain. I tried shooting and leaving for 10 min. Did not make any difference. 3rd shot was off. I even shot a 4 round group with the first two rounds almost in the same hole 3rd shot off by 1.5 inches, and just for the heck of it I fired one more only to have it go right back into the first two holes, so close it looks like only 2 rounds were fired. I was chalking this up to it being in my head, until I read Spittle's post, I did notice that I was having a hard time seating it into the lead sled. My buddy said it felt really "loose" on the sled. I shot his 270wsm model 70 with federal fusions and had just over a one inch group on a rifle I had never shot before.
On one other note- Most of my groups were really close, most with the 3rd flier, with the exceptions of with two factory loads, Hornady Superformance 165 grain SST's and Remington premier core-lokt ultra 150 grain ultra bonded PSP. Both of these produced horrible groups. I actually shot multiple groups with both hornady rounds thinking there could not be that much difference between the two. Does anyone know what is the difference between the superformance and the custom from hornady?

My next step is to let a friend of mine who shoots almost daily take the gun for a week and see what he can do with it. This may or may not remove my human error factor.

 

[MajorSpittle]

Sparkyaber- My rifle is constantly putting rounds in the exact same hole also but then spitting a flyer out. My last two 5 round groups were 3 rounds in the same hole and two flyers, well one of the flyers on the last group was actually me flinching.

My rifle likes to be held tight and I am pretty confident that in the right hands it could one hole a 3 round groups with either the SST or Fusion ammo, I just think it is so light that recoil, heat, and harmonics raise hell with its accuracy so much that it is impractical to expect sub 1" groups out of it by setting it on sand bags and shooting it like your average rifle.

What I was shooting off of actually wasn't a lead sled it was an MTM rest ( MTM Adjustable Shooting Rest PSR30 FREE S&H PSR30. MTM Shooting Accessories. ) with a broken length adjustment lock for the rear tang holder that had to be set on a 2X4 in order to raise the rear of it so I could only shoot from a standing position behind the rest and I had to resetup the rest after each shot. Needless to say it wasn't the best but the rifle liked it better then my shooting bags ( Winchester Shooting Sandbag: Hunting : Walmart.com ) and it was shooting subMOA from it consistanly.

 

[mikeooa]

Tikka T3 lite 308 won't group! I too have a problem with my 308 not grouping, it is all over the place regardless of ammo or cleaning regiment, Does anyone have experience with re-barreling a Tikka? Help!