New Gun, info requested...
 

I am looking at buying another rifle. i currently have a 30.06, and a 7mm-08 (that doesn't shoot very well). I am considering a 308. I really want a 30 cal short action. Don't ask me why but the boring 308 just holds a special place with me.

I am considering a Tikka T3 hunter in 308 for about $600. (Wood stock is a must)

Question is, is the Tikka worth that? there are other guns around that price range, for about $75 more (browning) and of course the ruger. I know $600 isn't all that much, but buying another gun isn't something i NEED, just WANT so i want to make sure i am not in this same position next year at this time. any comments or suggestions? Gun or caliber?

Now if only Marlin made the XL-S in a Walnut stock for less i would scoop one up today.

Someone can correct me if Im wrong but I dont believe tikka makes an actual short action receiver , I think even their short action chamberings are in a long action receiver. I will save my opinon on tikka quality and just say check out the savage american classic or euro classic line , the stock is beautiful!

Not sure why you would want a 308 already having an '06 but check out the Browning Micro hunters. They are pretty sweet!

I have the savage model 10 7mm-08 and it won't shoot worth a damn. Tried a number of things and it's just not a good rifle for me. The only thing left is to take it to a gunsmith and have them find out why it won't shoot.

I am kind of concerned with the closed ejection port on the tikka. I am sure it works fine or they wouldn't use it, but it's enclosed on top. Seems like there is more room for failure to eject. Not sure thou...

Is you savage 10 a plastic stock? Ive had problems w/ the older inj. molded stocks because they were too flimsy, they would shoot ok if the frontbag was placed very far back but the wood stocks tend to be a little more stable, the american classic 7 mag I had, was very accurate accutrigger is very nice too. Again, a short action chambering doesnt make much sense to me in a long action rifle. How about the CDL model 700 or model 7 in 308?

All tikka's are the same action length, the stop is different and the mags are different. Ya know I'm not so sure but the 358 ruger that I bought is probably as good as any other non top of the line gun. It groups well, has good fit and finish, I do like the built in scope bases, trigger could be a bit better but except for tikka's it's better than most. The stock could use a palm swell and a bit of a cant but it's american made and that's worth something too. I've had 2 experience's with savage's, neither worth talking about, to be fair the 338 fed ER Shaw barrel I put on the one will group 1 1/8" day in day out, rain, shine (don't know about snow)and once in a great while it will do 3/4" but that's not the norm. I guess I would look hard at a ruger 77

the stock is walnut. Shoots 7.5" groups at 100 yards in a very non-consistent fastion. Just all over the place. Tried a different scope, same result. Tried diff ammo, close to the same result. very disappointed so far as i love the 7mm-08 but just don't trust it like i do my 30.06 which i can get groups under 1" at 100yards.

Im sure most will agree if you are getting 7" groups, there is something else wrong w/ the set up, than anything haveing to do w/ the manufacturer. Savage are know for excellent accuracy anyway. My savage ml does an 1". Are your action screws tight? do you use a front and rear rest? are you resting the forarm or the barrel on it? what kind of scope mounts are you using? I guarantee it is not the rifle that is causing 7" groups.

These are all great questions.. I sighted it in using a lead sled and then again with sand bags. I never rest the barrel on anything and am using the forearm on the sled or bags. I am using Talley rings (one piece rings) awesome product, but was using the package rings in the past. Results are same with both. Scope is a Pentax pioneer 1.

you bring up a very good point on the action screws. I have no idea what they are.. i like to shoot but don't know how to work on rifles. My action is QUITE TIGHT thou when you cycle it. Tighter than all my other bolt actions. It takes some umph to lift the bolt. Can you tell me where the screws are and how they should be? it could be this... but i need serious help!

they are the 2 large screws that hold the action to the stock. 1 is on the trigger guard, the other is just foward the magazine well. they must be tight. sorry if i you already knew the other stuff, i wasnt sure how much shooting knowledge you had, i was just making general suggestions, you sound like your shooting form is correct. good luck.

No need to apologize, they were great questions. I will have to look at those screws.

my action is quite tight thou so i am assuming they are tight, but will check. I would really like to get this gun shooting well.

Hmm, you know your action screws may be too tight, at least the rear one. savage action screws tend to run a hair too long for some reason. The bolt on my savage muzzleloader, which is the same action as the model 10, will not lift if the rear action screw is too tight , I bet if you back your rear action screw out a half turn, it would cycle perfect, also make sure your front one is tight also. it should be right in front of the magazine well, if you have a blind magazine (no hinged floorplate or det. mag.) or right under the floorplate hinge. I ground my rear action screw down a couple threads because I like my action screws tight. oh another thing, do you have the accutrigger on your model 10? if so, they come from the factory set at like 6lbs, but they are easily adjusted down to about 2.5 w/ the supplied tool, which im guessing you havent done since you would have to remove the action from the stock. The old triggers were pretty heavy and creepy too. but you can swap that out for a rifle basix trigger and would be a big improvement. Id be interested to hear how you make out , good luck.

Yep, its a blind mag, with accutrigger. i will see if i can back out the back screw ever so slightly. I am guessing that if its too Tight it could cause some accuracy issues.

When sighting in, i even had the range master try it and he couldn't shoot any better than me. He used the sled and has sighted in 1000's of rifles. he suggested scope but we tried that and same result with a diff scope and rings. I think its the action being way too tight.

I have a led sled too , i bought it to sight in slug guns. for regular rifles I like to use a front rest and rear bag, w/ the butt of the stock pulled tight to my shoulder.

BTW - .243 Win.

TikKa......................why not ?!?

I checked the action screws and they where not tight. Not loose, but not tight.. i was able to turn them in tight almost 1 complete revolution. I hope this is the answer. It would save me money!

you do know the 7mm-08 is just a .308 necked down to accept 7mm bullets right? :shrug:

Stock bedding?
 

Perhaps the bedding of the action in the stock is the problem. Hard to imagine a scoped, bolt action rifle shooting 7" groups at 100 yds. though.

Did someone hijack this thread ???

Yes i do, but with a rifle the won't shot i was going to put it away or get rid of it. then i could find a 308 or another 7mm-08. But like the 308 because i am having a hard time finding ammo for 7mm-08 these days.

The rifle has only been fired under 70 times in its lifetime. Unless it was bad from the factory, it's been taken care of.

I went to the .308 about 20 years ago for the shorter action/lighter weight, in a Ruger featherweight. It is a great round. I am looking hard at the new Winchester 70 featherweight. I found one at Bass Pro for about 700.00 on sale. It had the best fit and finish of anything up through about 800.00. You might want to look at that. The several I have looked at all had fantastic wood on them and flawless sharp cut checkering.

Hmm, that's weird about the Savage 10. They have a reputation for being very accurate rifles most of the time. I think something must be going on with yours. How does the crown look? Does it have any nicks? Run a q tip around it and see if it snags on anything. Also what about looking down the bore? Any issues you can see? Have you tried different brands of ammo? I had a Browning BAR that shot about like that until I found out it really liked Federal Power Shok and Federal Fusion ammo. If I used either of those the groups were pretty decent.

I've only shot one Savage model 10 but it really impressed me. It was one with a synthetic stock and a accu trigger. Didn't have the accu stock though. Now it was in a different caliber than yours as this one was in a .243 winchester. I shot it at 100 yards and it put 3 shot groups that were right around .75". I measured them with a tape measure and it was almost exactly 3/4" of an inch. I measured 2 different groups both were with different ammo but cheap soft point ammo. One was Winchester Power Points one was Federal Power Shok soft point ammo. When I did a 6 shot group I got one flier but I'm pretty sure it was me. The other 5 were inside of an inch and a half. Right under 1.5". So a .75" group for 3 shots and a 1.5" group for 5 shots seems very good to me consider I've never been able to shoot that well with any other rifle. This was also with a cheap Simmons Blazer scope btw. This rifle really impressed me as it just had a great feel and shot great. I've really never shot groups like that consistently at 100 yards with any other gun I've shot.

That combined with the majority of the posts I've read saying they are really accurate makes me think that something is wrong with your gun.

I agree. but what could it be? i will check the crown.. I also picked up some different ammo to try. The bad groups were with the winchester white box XP2 140 grain of the shelf ammo. I am going to try corelokt's once it warms up outside.

the gun has been cleaned well. i ran patches down the barrel until they were coming out clean using breakfree.

I really don't know what it could be. It may be something that just wasn't made exactly right on the gun or it may be something similar. Has it always grouped like this? You said it only has 60 rounds or so through it? Instead of just running breakfree patches down the barrel I'd try a copper solvent when cleaning it. I use Wipe Out patchless bore cleaner personally but there are lots of others out there too.

As for the ammo I'm not really sure. I see you say white box Winchester do you mean the gray box of Winchester Super X ones that usually say either soft points or hollow points? This is usually pretty decent ammo if that's what you mean. If it's some bulk stuff in a white box I'm not sure about it. However, I would try others too. I know with my rifle which is a Browning BAR hated the ballistic tips from Winchester and did exactly what you are describing. It liked the Super X soft points better but not that well. I then tried Remington core lokts and it also didn't group so well. I then tried the Federal Fusions and while the shots aren't always touching I can sometimes get them touching and it seems like I can pretty constantly keep it under a 2" group and usually around a 1.5" group. This is a lot better than shooting all over a 8" target as the ballistic tips were doing. I also found that the Federal Power Shok Soft Points for $14 a box at Walmart also shot well in it. I was surprised that changing to a different brand of ammo could make a difference but it seems to have.


Another big thing is are you waiting for the barrel to cool down between shots? If it's getting hot the groups are going to open up. Make sure you let the barrel cool after a shot or two.

I will say when I shot the 5 shot group at 1.5" I didn't let the barrel cool very much and it still shot that. I did have a 6th shot that was a flier but I think I pulled on that. This is something you have to keep in mind too. I've seen personally how groups can really open up once the barrel gets hot.

Overall, I'm not really sure that there isn't something wrong with your gun so you may want to see about having a quality gunsmith look at it or seeing if Savage will do warranty work on it. It's for sure not normal for that gun to shoot groups like that. However, these tips are something you can try yourself if you want to see if you can get it figured out on your own.

Just the normal XP2 Winchester 7mm-08 softpoint. Stuff they sell at walmart. And yep, i let it cool down. 3 shot groups about 45 seconds in between. The big issue is it is throwing the bullets everywhere. NO consitency at all like to the right or letf. always just all over the place. Ammo is my next shot at fixing. Using Hoppe's #9, break free and gun scrubber.

There you go! If you could turn your action screws 1 full turn, then it was way too loose. You also should find the accutrigger adjustment tool and adjust the trigger weight down to its lowest setting, which should be about 2.5lbs. You have to take the action out of the stock though which is no big deal, when youre done, turn both action screws 1 turn each until they are both evenly snug. Id also ditch the lead sled too, and use a front and rear bag instead. oh and you should wait much longer than 45 seconds for your barrel to cool down after the 2nd shot. just some friendly advice, good luck. BTW does the bolt lift and turn any easier now?

Bolt doesn't lift much easier, but what i noticed is it's more consistent now. Before you had to jerk it up, now its the same resistence all the way thru the lift. It feels different and better. The front action screw was the one that was looser than the back. the back went a 1/2 turn and the front was almost a full turn. Thank YOU for your help. I am looking forward to trying this gun again once it warms up.

i also noticed today that the ammo may have had a problem. NOT sure, but each tip of the bullet (the soft point) was tilted to the right. almost like all the bullets were dropped on the ground. This may affect how they fly but i am surprised neither myself or the range master noticed this. Not sure if this would affect accuracy however.

I'd go get some other ammo try try and see if that makes a difference since you say the tip of it is messed up.