Cutting a tikka barrel

Sled

WKR
Joined
Jun 11, 2018
Messages
2,265
Location
Utah
Anyone cut a tikka barrel that was shooting well and then it shot poorly after the barrel was cut?

My tikka roughtech 6.5 with a 24” barrel shoots really well but would like to make it more nimble and lighter weight by cutting it down to 18” (I shoot suppressed)


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I had the same question about a thicker profile barrel several years back. It did change the group size. I can't say if it's harmonics or a bad crown job but I had impressive groups at distance before. It's not horrible now but more of an moa gun. This was not a Tikka.

I have not shot my tikkas before cut and thread so I can't comment but they all shoot well. I can't complain.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2017
Messages
1,036
Is the Swede on the right? What kind of accuracy does that one have?

223. Was cut all janky just to see wtf lol. It was shooting around 1-1/4" with some random loads. Never really went any farther than that with it, before it got put on the back burner. Got other toys to play with lol.
 
Last edited:

TaperPin

WKR
Joined
Jul 12, 2023
Messages
3,229
Anyone cut a tikka barrel that was shooting well and then it shot poorly after the barrel was cut?

My tikka roughtech 6.5 with a 24” barrel shoots really well but would like to make it more nimble and lighter weight by cutting it down to 18” (I shoot suppressed)


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The only negative thing that I’ve heard from a reputable source isn’t really length related, but cutting threads with dull cutters creating a few ten thou of bore constriction. At first I thought that sounds like bs, but a gunsmith that slugs barrel bores when diagnosing accuracy issues says he’s seen it a number of times.

For some reason it’s always been in the back of my mind since hearing about it - and eventually I’ll get set up for slugging barrels because of it, just out of curiosity. Finding out how dull a cutter is too dull should be easy to figure out and replicate the issue on a scrap barrel.
 
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