That’s what I’m wondering as well. According to the Tikka website all of their barrels are cold hammer forged. Maybe this came about after Sako bought them? As for the solids, I’d say that it doesn’t really make a lot of sense for a company to invest in making a rifle to shoot specific bullets when most people out there won’t be shooting solids with it. With that said, I doubt Sako is producing their rifles in such a way to fit those either, so it’s interesting that the Sakos did well and the Tikka did not. But I’m betting you had a before Sako owned Tikka produced barrel.
Correct... I traded a DD AR10 for the TAC A1... and became the owner of the nice 100 round T3X TAC A1.
I had a few TRG-42s for some time, and then picked up a TRG-22 as well.
I decided to see how the 6.5 solids would work in the T3X, and was horrified when it couldn't get a grouping under 18 inches.
I've been running the 160s in the 308 rifles, and they are same hole 3100fps rounds out of the factory TRG42 barrels once the load is dialed in.
The problem with the TAC A1 that I was trying to solve was loading some 2750 FPS rounds to reach out supersonically well past 1000 yards.
(If people aren't aware, the T3X suffers from heavy bolt lift with hot rounds. Which you might be able to mitigate using copper solids as they are lighter and easier to drive fast, let alone that they tend to have insane BCs.)
As far as the general conversation on solids: You see alot more of them now a days, so I'd say companies need to support their use. In so far a military rifles are concerned... there are LOTS of bullets that are not lead cored... and those need to be fired from barrels without significant deviation... and that's likely why the TRG's have consistent barrels.
Basically, the TRG have barrels that are on part with Bartlein and Proof from the start. What the current TAC A1 has, I just don't know.
I will say that the TAC A1 is being sold as a military / LEO firearm, and that they may have stepped up their game in order to be in that market.