I bought a Tikka T3x TAC A1 in 6.5 Creedmoor last week. I've been eyeing them for a while, and one of them showed up at my local Sportsmans Warehouse and I jumped on it.
Impressions so far
- Gun is heavier than my other Tikkas in X-Ray/Whiskey 3 but balances great
- Action is the usual Tikka butter smooth
- The safety is new to Tikkas. It has a little tab next to the main selector. Putting the safety one normally locks the bolt, but you can press the little tab down and cycle the bolt. This won't allow the gun to fire - I tried that with pressure on the trigger and bouncing the gun a few times. Neat innovation that allows both a locked bolt, but also safe ejections of a live round in the chamber.
- The stock comes with three QD swivel attachment points: 1) on the rear stock, usable from both sides, 2) in the center just above the trigger, and 3) a little M-Lok attachment that you can put anywhere on the fore-end. I put it all the way in the front on the left side, the way I like it. All of these also come with a loop for a (HK?) sling. I use QD attachments on FTW sling, so this works great for me. Having the option to fold the stock and attach the QD sling to the middle point really makes it easy to carry the gun across your chest without brushing it against bushes and such.
- it came with 2 Tikka CTR 10 round mags, and you can get another when you register. I had another Tikka CTR mag lying around, and it works great with that as well. The mags are single-feed and double stack, so much shorter than my usual AICS 10-rders. Unfortunately, you can't stuff another 11th round into them. The mag follower has a raised tip, probably to aid feeding, but it might make loading long COAL rounds an issue. Otherwise max COAL looks to be pretty long. One thing to note is that the follower comes out of the mag pretty easily if you tip the round backward - just have to figure out how to load rounds into it, and then the mag works great.
- feeding, ejection, etc was all super smooth. Mag rattles a little when seated, but doesn't fall out, and I didn't have any feeding problems despite rattling it. And it drops free smoothly.
- no extra picatinny rails, so I had to purchase some for the M-Lok forend. I got a set of polymer rails from Amazon, and they attached fine.
- trigger is a 2-stage trigger, which is also new to Tikka. I tried to adjust it down while it was in the stock through the hole in the magazine well, but it was really hard to do. So I finally took the action out of the stock. Turns out none of the attached allen wrenches is the right size - you need a really small one. Trigger adjusts down to the point where the second stage is almost imperceptible and you can just pull through it accidentally. I adjusted it up a little from there, so around 2.5 lbs. I've always wanted a 2-stage trigger ever since I shot one on an AI a couple of years ago, and so I love this trigger. That said some of my groups on the rage were stringing horizontally, so clearly I need to work more on trigger control on this 2-stage trigger. Might lighten it up below 2lbs next time I am out.
- gun shot amazingly well. First 5 shot group (shots 4-9 after zeroing) was 0.6", and the best of the day was 0.573". Worst was 1.4", but this was with lots of horizontal stringing late in the day, and I put it down mostly to my unfamiliarity with the 2-stage trigger. This is all with no barrel break-in and just one cleaning of the barrel, factory Prime 130 grain ammo. Velocity was a little low, at 2844 fps, but SD was 9.3 across 10 shots with an ES of 32, which is great for factory ammo. Speed will probably pickup a little bit as the barrel breaks in.
Overall, I love this gun. I am going to shoot the Tactical Supply PRS match this weekend with it. I'll probably use it to shoot Production class later in the year - need to find a cheaper scope first.
Impressions so far
- Gun is heavier than my other Tikkas in X-Ray/Whiskey 3 but balances great
- Action is the usual Tikka butter smooth
- The safety is new to Tikkas. It has a little tab next to the main selector. Putting the safety one normally locks the bolt, but you can press the little tab down and cycle the bolt. This won't allow the gun to fire - I tried that with pressure on the trigger and bouncing the gun a few times. Neat innovation that allows both a locked bolt, but also safe ejections of a live round in the chamber.
- The stock comes with three QD swivel attachment points: 1) on the rear stock, usable from both sides, 2) in the center just above the trigger, and 3) a little M-Lok attachment that you can put anywhere on the fore-end. I put it all the way in the front on the left side, the way I like it. All of these also come with a loop for a (HK?) sling. I use QD attachments on FTW sling, so this works great for me. Having the option to fold the stock and attach the QD sling to the middle point really makes it easy to carry the gun across your chest without brushing it against bushes and such.
- it came with 2 Tikka CTR 10 round mags, and you can get another when you register. I had another Tikka CTR mag lying around, and it works great with that as well. The mags are single-feed and double stack, so much shorter than my usual AICS 10-rders. Unfortunately, you can't stuff another 11th round into them. The mag follower has a raised tip, probably to aid feeding, but it might make loading long COAL rounds an issue. Otherwise max COAL looks to be pretty long. One thing to note is that the follower comes out of the mag pretty easily if you tip the round backward - just have to figure out how to load rounds into it, and then the mag works great.
- feeding, ejection, etc was all super smooth. Mag rattles a little when seated, but doesn't fall out, and I didn't have any feeding problems despite rattling it. And it drops free smoothly.
- no extra picatinny rails, so I had to purchase some for the M-Lok forend. I got a set of polymer rails from Amazon, and they attached fine.
- trigger is a 2-stage trigger, which is also new to Tikka. I tried to adjust it down while it was in the stock through the hole in the magazine well, but it was really hard to do. So I finally took the action out of the stock. Turns out none of the attached allen wrenches is the right size - you need a really small one. Trigger adjusts down to the point where the second stage is almost imperceptible and you can just pull through it accidentally. I adjusted it up a little from there, so around 2.5 lbs. I've always wanted a 2-stage trigger ever since I shot one on an AI a couple of years ago, and so I love this trigger. That said some of my groups on the rage were stringing horizontally, so clearly I need to work more on trigger control on this 2-stage trigger. Might lighten it up below 2lbs next time I am out.
- gun shot amazingly well. First 5 shot group (shots 4-9 after zeroing) was 0.6", and the best of the day was 0.573". Worst was 1.4", but this was with lots of horizontal stringing late in the day, and I put it down mostly to my unfamiliarity with the 2-stage trigger. This is all with no barrel break-in and just one cleaning of the barrel, factory Prime 130 grain ammo. Velocity was a little low, at 2844 fps, but SD was 9.3 across 10 shots with an ES of 32, which is great for factory ammo. Speed will probably pickup a little bit as the barrel breaks in.
Overall, I love this gun. I am going to shoot the Tactical Supply PRS match this weekend with it. I'll probably use it to shoot Production class later in the year - need to find a cheaper scope first.
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