#T3

Tikka rifles are used by accomplished shooters in disciplines varying from big-game hunting to long-range competition shooting. They are known worldwide for their tremendous accuracy out-of-the-box, great ease of use, simple maintenance, and availability of parts for upgrades. If you are in the market of improving your stock Tikka rifle, a great piece to look at is new bottom metal specifically from High Desert Rifle Works. The High Desert Rifle Works Linear Bottom Metal is their newest product in a long line of quality upgrades to the platform. Established back in 2014, they have been crafting and tailoring products for Tikka firearms for years.

At the 2018 SHOT Show Industry Day at the Range, Tikka brought out a surprising new product: The company’s first rimfire bolt action rifle. The T1x, as it’s called, is based in part on the successful T3 and T3x centerfire rifles, but with a redesigned action suited for rimfire operation. The result is a svelte little rimfire that was one of the most fun guns to shoot at the 2018 Industry Day.

I love my Tikka T3x TAC A1 and I’m going to develop it into my preferred long range shooting rifle.

The Canadian Rangers will soon all get their hands on the newly adopted C-19 Ranger Rifle, developed by Sako and made in Canada by Colt Canada. The new rifle’s procurement is set to begin in 2017, reports the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which will inaugurate a three-year phase-in period that will be completed by the end of 2019, by which time any Ranger who wants one will be able to use the new rifle. From CBC:

A retarded blowback rifle extracts cases from the chamber while they are still under considerable pressure – over 35,000 PSI. Because of this pressure, the walls of the cartridge cases adhere strongly to the barrel’s chamber walls, while the head is forced back. Under normal circumstances, this would cause a catastrophic case head separation, therefore a successful retarded blowback weapon needs some kind of lubrication to free the case walls from the chamber and facilitate extraction at such high pressures.

At the 2016 NRA Annual Meeting, Tikka and parent company Beretta were showing off the new T3x rifle, an improved version of their T3 hunting and sporting bolt action rifles. The T3x is a system developed as a direct result of feedback from Tikka’s customers, and the representatives from the company present at the show were very proud of that fact.

The US trials that led to the adoption of the first standard issue military selfloading rifle are together one of my favorite parts of small arms history. Recently, Forgotten Weapons’ van Dyked and ponytailed founder and host Ian McCollum got a chance to handle one of my personal “holy grail” firearms, a T3E2 .276 caliber Garand rifle. His excellent video overview (including disassembly) is embedded below, and some further discussion on my part follows that:

Advanced Technology International (ATI) announced the company is now shipping the new T3 TactLite shotgun stocks.

I must confess an affinity for Tikka and Sako rifles for hunting.  I’ve hunted with a Tikka T3 in .300wm in Alaska, and it performed superbly.  Most of my hunting here in the lower 48, however, takes place in a high-alpine environment, where the hikes are steep, and usually my hike in is 4 or more miles.  My goal was to have a rifle that is accurate, lightweight, rugged, and adjustable.  I purchased a Tikka T3 Lite with this goal in mind a few years ago, but the stock left a little to be desired.  I wanted to be able to achieve a perfect cheek weld for consistent accuracy, as well as situations where I might be spending a long time looking through the scope waiting for a good shot to present itself.  I also wanted to test the T3 Lite out as a host for a chassis system.  I had been interested in retrofitting one of my rifles into a chassis for some time, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to try one out.

This video from Accurate Shooter shows the new Tikka T3 Sporter.