Tika T3

[BOWHUNTER45]

Yeah I know a couple guys who shoot all the time who own TK3'S and they call BS on the barrel problem as well ... Never heard anyone mention maybe it was the scope ? I do work on guns too ...free floating and what have ya ...I also had guys tell me the same thing about the barrels being shot out and found out it was the scope .. But i have wore out a barrel on my rem 700 .243 but your talking over 35 yrs of serious shooting ... like a 100 rounds a week when I was a kid shooting groundhogs in P.A  Thats why I started reloading at the age of 12 with my dads supervision .. because he got tired of loading 100 's of rounds for me and my buddies who all 3 of use owned .243's...yeah that was the good ol days .....

[hirshey]

I have several Tikkas with well over 1000 rounds thru them. no problems. 300WM, 300wsm and 308, 270, 30/06, 223, 22-250, 243. the 223, 243 and 22-250 are close to 5,000 rounds each, the 223 10,000. my BS meter is twitching.

Carl

That's fine, I'm just telling you my experience. Religious cleaner, 3 scopes and under 1000 shots and each round would group but not on target. You could shoot same grain different brand and they would be feet apart. Had a gunsmith look at it and he said the barrel needed replacing.

[hirshey]

Yeah I know a couple guys who shoot all the time who own TK3'S and they call BS on the barrel problem as well ... Never heard anyone mention maybe it was the scope ? I do work on guns too ...free floating and what have ya ...I also had guys tell me the same thing about the barrels being shot out and found out it was the scope .. But i have wore out a barrel on my rem 700 .243 but your talking over 35 yrs of serious shooting ... like a 100 rounds a week when I was a kid shooting groundhogs in P.A  Thats why I started reloading at the age of 12 with my dads supervision .. because he got tired of loading 100 's of rounds for me and my buddies who all 3 of use owned .243's...yeah that was the good ol days .....

It wasn't the scope... we tried a Bushnell, his leupold, and a brand new out of the box Nikon Pro Staff. We had two different people look at it.. one gunsmith and one guy that makes precision parts for guns with several patents on aftermarket parts and both said it was toast. We sold it on gunbroker advertised with the issue at hand and the guy that bought it used it for parts because he also couldn't get it to shoot with any sort of accuracy. I have no idea what happened, but the gun was donezo and Sako wasn't concerned with our problem... after weeks of not receiving any response and looking for replacement barrels we decided to cut our losses so he could get back to shooting. His A7 is equally a tack-driver and response time from Sako with any questions is much expedited. Just one person's experience.

[hirshey]

But in general, this got way off topic of the main point I was trying to make... which is the lag time or lack or response in total from Beretta (Sako's US supplier)  for Tikka products and the ridiculous expense of replacement parts unless you're fortunate enough to know a distributer. IF you are lucky enough to even find a new stock barrel for this gun (apparantly they are infrequently imported), they were going for between $600 and $500 before shipping... I don't know about you guys but I paid $570 for a new Tikka T3 Stainless Synthetic .270 delivered to my door on gunbroker... therefore $500+ dollars did not sound like a steal for a new barrel. Here's a list of just some of the part's prices from one of the main distributors... the bolt alone is almost half the cost of a new rifle: http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=0/sid=907/schematicsdetail/Tikka_T3

His model of gun was purchased new, but was manufactured in 2005 which was supposedly after the 2004 recall:
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=156955


In any case, he obviously still has faith in the barrel and products made by Sako, because he went out and purchased an A7... same barrel. I was just trying to highlight a few of the potential hazards with this rifle... cost of replacement and poor customer service... the mode of damage to the barrel was not supposed to be the highlight.

[Miles]

How many times did he clean the rifle in under 1,000 rounds?  You seem to mention his "religious cleaning" very frequently and it has me wondering if something else might be the problem...

[hirshey]

How many times did he clean the rifle in under 1,000 rounds?  You seem to mention his "religious cleaning" very frequently and it has me wondering if something else might be the problem...

Again, this was not my main point so I'm not going to beat a dead horse here... but he cleaned his rifle almost after every visit to the range... he was performing ladder tests, etc so to keep all the variables as close to the same as possible he cleaned it... I make a point of saying he did so only because I had a friend recently ruin thier barrel because they had never cleaned it. 

[BOWHUNTER45]

I have several Tikkas with well over 1000 rounds thru them. no problems. 300WM, 300wsm and 308, 270, 30/06, 223, 22-250, 243. the 223, 243 and 22-250 are close to 5,000 rounds each, the 223 10,000. my BS meter is twitching.

Carl

That's fine, I'm just telling you my experience. Religious cleaner, 3 scopes and under 1000 shots and each round would group but not on target. You could shoot same grain different brand and they would be feet apart. Had a gunsmith look at it and he said the barrel needed replacing.

Hirshey ...not picking on you but you said QUOTE - (each bullet would group but not on target ) If the bullets are grouping but not hitting the bullseye then the barrel is fine ....I am confused 

[BOWHUNTER45]

On a better note glad ya got rid of it ...plus you made a good choice getting the TK3 in a .270 ...hope ya get something big this season 

[grizzlyadams]

Finally got out this afternoon and shot my new 243 Tikka T3. Wow what a sweet gun. After getting it sighted in was shooting, no lie, 1/2" groups. Topped it off with a Leupold 50mm scope. Great combination and what a difference over my old Model 70 carbine 243.

I hear ya Roger. I have a T3 Lite in 300 win mag. Enviromentslists should love them. Mine is a paper saver! I punch through with the first round and each round after that hits the same hole, even without cooling. Can't see ever needing a different hunting rifle.

[Wea300mag]

Does anyone else think the butt of the T3 synthetic is a little noisy when bumped or rubbed against a bush or limb? I have a .243 and a 7mm and love the guns but they could have filled the hollow butt with some light weight foam or something.

[hirshey]

I have several Tikkas with well over 1000 rounds thru them. no problems. 300WM, 300wsm and 308, 270, 30/06, 223, 22-250, 243. the 223, 243 and 22-250 are close to 5,000 rounds each, the 223 10,000. my BS meter is twitching.

Carl

That's fine, I'm just telling you my experience. Religious cleaner, 3 scopes and under 1000 shots and each round would group but not on target. You could shoot same grain different brand and they would be feet apart. Had a gunsmith look at it and he said the barrel needed replacing.

Hirshey ...not picking on you but you said QUOTE - (each bullet would group but not on target ) If the bullets are grouping but not hitting the bullseye then the barrel is fine ....I am confused 

Different brands would group, but right, left, up, down feet apart from other brands of bullets. Like I said, no idea what happened but perhaps there was a chip/imperfection that occured in the lands which affected the bullet's flight. In any case, it was a good learning experience trying to problem-solve this issue.. I learned a lot about Sako and even more about the process of trying to fix a rifle; I've shot one of my father's guns, an old Remington .270, since I was 7 with never any issues so I certainly had a crash-course in troubleshooting.

[hirshey]

Does anyone else think the butt of the T3 synthetic is a little noisy when bumped or rubbed against a bush or limb? I have a .243 and a 7mm and love the guns but they could have filled the hollow butt with some light weight foam or something.

I noticed that with EyeGuard's rifle also... I wish they would make the soft touch stock an option like the Finnlight and A7.

[FALFire]

Does anyone else think the butt of the T3 synthetic is a little noisy when bumped or rubbed against a bush or limb? I have a .243 and a 7mm and love the guns but they could have filled the hollow butt with some light weight foam or something.

I noticed that with EyeGuard's rifle also... I wish they would make the soft touch stock an option like the Finnlight and A7.

It might help to cover part of the stock using horse wrap from any tack supply shop, ie: Dells Farm Supply. It goes on and comes off with ease and will prevent the noise from branches and such. I use it all the time on my AR's and bolt guns it's great stuff, super cheap and gives a great feeling grip.

[nontypical176]

Only thing I don't like about my Tika T3 300WSM is the noise.  The stock as mentioned above and the darned clip rattles with bullets in it.  Bought an extra clip...same thing.

[BuckHunter23]

I bought the 270 T3 Lite in stainless a few years back.  Striaght out of the box was shooting less than 1" groups.  I had never hunted before this, so needless to say, I was extremely impressed with the rifle.  Most likely my next rifles will be Tika as well.