hey guys,
i shoot a tikka t3 lite which is a great rifle.
it does however have one bad trait, it seems to mar the tips of my lead tipped nosler partitions from their normally cone shaped ends to a shaved off or kinked lead. as far as i can tell its happening when i chamber a cartridge but do not shoot it and eject it.
i'm curious if this is common, if its easily remedied and what it might cost to repair?
my other solution was to possibly switch to an accubond style cartridge instead.

I believe it is probably happening upon ejection and not during feeding. The ejector spring has sufficient force to have the tip of the loaded cartridge hit the front of the ejector port on the receiver.
Polymer tips will solve this problem it you're that concerned about it. I don't see it as a problem.

I have a Tikka T3 Lite as well and have noticed the same on some lead tipped rounds like Partitions and believe bronko got it right...the ejector spring is just a little on the strong side...don't I don't believe it is a problem either.

Try shooting some groups with the nipped Noslers, if they shoot good I wouldnt change anything, they are a great game bullet.

thanks for the responses guys. over the course of the summer i'll be spending plenty of time at the range to test these stub-nosed cartridges against ones that have never been cycled through the firearm.

I've noticed it too, but no issues with shooting that I know of.

If you chamber it... shoot it. Problem solved.

That's assuming you're at the range of course.

haha well at the range i definitely would shoot it!
where i really see this is when i load my magazine to walk a treeline or leave my blind, don't see anything and clear my chamber when i am getting back in the truck.
i do agree that its probably nothing but i just wanted to make sure it wasn't going to cause excessive bullet tumble or give my shot the same effect as the old sandpaper on the baseball trick.

Really the only way to test that would be to chamber and eject 3 rounds without firing, then do a 3 round group of those shells.

Then do a 3 round group of the same shells, without ejecting i.e. straight out of the box and see if there is a noticeable difference.

I watched the show "The Gun Nuts' last night and Dave intentionally deformed 5 lead tips. He fired a group with new tips and then another with the deformed tips. The deformed tips' group was twice the size of the ones that were not deformed. Now we are talking a 3/4" or so group up to about a 2" group. I don't think it is enough to worry about unless you are shooting long range.

yea its obv some issue with ejecting or loading it caus there would be no way for it to happen during the actual shot. I would say its minor detail nothing that bad. That tip is prob softer than others.