You won't be sorry if you buy a Tikka T3. I shots like a dream. It has outstanding MOA or sub MOA accuracy out of the box. It's a smooth strong action, smooth crisp breaking adjustable trigger, stiff cold forged floating barrel, muzzle crown and more. I have a .300 WM for ELK the last 4 Elk I've shot with out to 300 yards brought it down quickly. The .30-06 I've had for just 1 season. Both I wouldn't trade for any other.
At one of the larger gun shops I go to the head man in their gun dept. told me flat out that they sell more Tikka T3s than "any other gun" of any type model or manufacturer. Now there are many reasons for that that many people have discovered.

Ditto!!!

Here is a pretty good Tikka Review
and pretty much on the mark as far as I am concerned. Enjoy


http://www.chuckhawks.com/critical_look_T3.htm

That just gave me all the reminders I needed on why I sold my Tikka T3 Varmint.

Good read!

I read that before I purchased a T3 a few months back. I wouldn't have been happy with it anyway even if it did shoot great. Water under the bridge

if being too light is a problem for any of the choices, attach a bipod to help bring the weight up.

For this one "review" aka obvious hatchet job, I've read at least 6-8 reviews by respected gun writers enthusiasts who disagree with and give a fair review. He's obviously got an axe to grind as he mentions none of the many features that make this one of the most accurate out of the box rifle made today.
I always know when someone is scaping the bottom of the barrel for supposed bad things to say about Tikkas when they start talking about "plastics". Just a few of the other manfacturers who make quality rifles, shotgun, handguns that include options of synthetic stocks and other parts from synthetic, composite, polymer and what "Chuck" would call "plastic".
Springfield Armory
Benelli
Remington
Glock
Beretta
Sako
Colt
FN
Browning
S&W
Heckler & Koch
etc.

A number of weapons systems the U.S. Military uses incorporate synthetic components including Kevlar, aircraft components, firearm stocks/parts, etc. etc.

More synthetics...Boeing is now building commercial airliners (e.g. 797) built primarily of composite materials (that includes polymers). Chemists can now develop synthetic materials that by weight are stronger than steel. So, please spare us the nonsense about inferior products including firearms that use some of these polymers for selected components to save weight and make them hold up better in extreme conditions. Come into the 21st century those who thinkengineered polymer / synthetics aren't a bigpart of firearms mix and becoming more as the parochical prejudicies against such advances of old-school gun owners fades away more each year.

I've never heard anyone use the twisted argument that a floating barrel is a sign of cost cutting. What a joke.

I stick to what I said, Tikka T3 sales consistently are at the top of all rifles sales in that market and hundreds of thousands of satisfied owners wouldn't keep coming back to buy more T3s if they were very good, accurate quality rifles.

I build rifles for a living and am a gunsmith and I call em the way I see em. The a-bolt is a much better design to start with and is combo of good design,features the others don't have,quality,materials,and workmanship. If you like tikkas-that's great,they are good rifles,just NOT as good as a-bolts!
By the way,I can give you a BUNCH of examples where people bring them(tikka) to me to "make em shoot".

He also bashes Sakos since they have a detachable magazine so I don't agree entirely on what he said and he has a right to his opinion. I like all metal in my guns as well and really hate guns that take shortcuts. I must be an "old school" gunowner since I don't buy crap or buy into the crap that passes for rifles these days.

Quote:

I've never heard anyone use the twisted argument that a floating barrel is a sign of cost cutting. What a joke

.

He probably grew up in a time where barrels were properly inletted in the channel such as the Browning hi-powers, Pre-64 Win 70's. Most custom smiths still stick to those procedures.Accuracy gunsmiths bed the action and float the barrel and it is a lot easier then proper inletting. 20years from now drag out your T3 lite and I'll drag out a pre-64 Model 70 and we'll see which one is worth more and then you can say Chuck was right.

The receiver on the Tikkas is reason enough for me to stay away. After looking at the one size fits all action and ejection "slit" I decided that as cheap as the gun was built is should be a lot cheaper than the price its selling for. Very cheaply built IMO....Im with OEH on this one. Looked like a very nice gun until I dug deeper.....brings new meaning to building "on the cheap". Again..if all you folks like your Tikkas..thats great and again this is JMO.