I am not knocking the Tikka T3x action. It works well, but it is really built on a budget. In pre Trump days T3X were sold in large numbers in the US for well under the $1,000 price point (depending of course on the model etc). That’s far below the UK / European price of well over the £1000 price point.
By the time you take off retailer, distributor, export costs etc they are leaving the factory gate at $500 sort of price. So the cost of action is probably well under $100. It is a simple to make action, with few parts. The basic action and bolt are steel and machined to close tolerances. But all the ancillary parts are polymer.
Friend just bought a brand new one, with a laminate multi adjustment stock. I helped him set it up. It shot little tiny groups straight out of the box. Cost him £1,500 plus.
Adding new barrels, carbon stocks and all sorts of other pimping accessories still means that the action, which is the heart of any rifle, is still just a budget item.
Go and spend similar total money on decent good factory rifle, Shultz and Larsen, Steel, or second hand top end Sako, or an older well built Mauser based - TT Proctor etc and you will have a rifle that won’t shoot on paper an better.
But, and here it is a very big but, the whole experience is just so so much more tactile. Using a bolt action with properly hardened steel surface that glide across each other, loading rounds into a proper steel built magazine and then carrying and shooting a rifle that is built as one piece rather an accumulation from the parts catalogue is only something that you will understand if you appreciate and have used such things.
Twice in the last few days I have out in the woods since dawn. On one I carried my Ferlach built combination, this morning my 243 Heym SR20. Both are beautiful to use. Last week sights settled on a very nice buck, but he was a bit young so left him. A little while later a yearling popped out at sub 50 yards - but it was female. This morning two bucks over the boundary.
I know that carrying the Tikka wouldn’t have given me the same pleasure, and for me stalking is about escaping and part of this is using nice rifles.
- really?
