This thread has caused me to buy two tikkas in 223 (planning on buying another soon) and I've been very happy with the performance of them and the 223 cartridge on whitetail. My only complaint is that you have to take the rifles off safety to load or unload a chambered live round (it would bother me a little for my use only, but even moreso for my children to use). While that may not bother many, it bothered me and after much searching I found a post on another forum where a fellow hunter found a solution. "Elevatorman" posted this on the other forum:
"Does anyone have an exploded parts diagram or internal parts diagram of the Tikka t3x trigger?
I'm looking at my rifle and see no reason why removing the dumb bolt locking pin to make my rifle alot safer to load and unload while the sears still blocked from moving by the safety. Externally it only engages the bolt and has no safety benefit. Just wanted to review a diagram of the inner workings to be sure there's no internal role it plays and see the easiest way to pop her out with minimal disassembly. I'm positive there's no external safety benefit, Timney makes a replacement trigger lacking the bolt lock pin altogether. I'm 99% sure there's no internal connections. Just want to be sure.
From the outside pics it looks like pulling the circlip off the safety lever, sliding it out to the right, then pulling lock pin out, reassemble in reverse with the spring in its home too. Am I missing anything? I'm hoping it's removable. I'd rather do that so It can be put back vs grinding the top off.
Update:
This works perfectly. The bolt locking pins optional as far as a functioning safety goes. Took me 5 minutes to remove it, no permanent alterations, it can be put back in in 5 minutes if I ever decided.
Just pull the safety lever spring off, use snap ring pliers and remove the circlip off the safety lever, slide the safety lever out some (not all the way) remove bolt lock pin, push safety lever back and put the circlip and safety spring back on.
Now my Tikka operates just like my remington 700. No need to put a live firearm into fire just to load and unload it. Much safer. Not at all concerned about a bolt coming open walking, never has happened in 20 years and if it did I loose one cartridge."
I have recently made this modification on my two tikka rifles and will add a little more information: This modification is easy to implement with only the basic tools to remove the action/barrel from the stock and a set of precision snap ring pliers - for my first rifle I removed the trigger group as I thought it was necessary but was able to complete the modification on the second rifle w/o removing the trigger group from the action. Very easy and the bolt stop pin is not modified and can be re-installed easily. If anyone has any questions let me know and I will do my best to answer.
One final comment/clarification is that this modification in now way affects anything within the trigger group other than the bolt stop. Safety and trigger operation remains unmodified.
I haven't been on this thread past somewhere in the 400 page mark, so I apologize if this modification has been mentioned elsewhere - just wanted to get it out there for anyone that prefers to keep the safety engaged when loading/unloading.
Waylan
