The Raven: Unknown Munitions Tikka Clone action coming soon?

[Procision Arms]

@Procision Arms I have a couple questions regarding the reverse engineering of Tikka/Sako's GD&T and materials.

Without giving away too many secrets, how did you come up with your GD&T approach? I didn't really give this much thought until I heard the raven bolts are interchangeable with factory tikka actions. Clearly Sako isn't going to let you take a peek at their prints. I have a couple ideas how I would have done it, but I am interested to see how a professional organization did it.

Did you guys exactly replicate chemical composition, hardness, and grain structure to a tikka action or did you take it in a different direction? I know I have struggled with slight alloy differences between what is available in EU vs NA, and it can be a real headache.

It would be pretty difficult to discuss our approach without giving away too many “secrets”, but it was a long process with a lot of testing and retesting by a couple of pretty talented guys.

The metal composition is definitely one of the harder parts, we had to have a full mill run of custom material made.

I think the most important part of the project was that it isn’t a “copy” of a Tikka. It’s a receiver built around the idea of improving an already very good receiver with a couple features for the US market and backcountry hunters. We felt it was important to maintain compatibility with factory Tikka components to give customers as much flexibility and aftermarket support as possible.

 

[benconfused]

It would be pretty difficult to discuss our approach without giving away too many “secrets”, but it was a long process with a lot of testing and retesting by a couple of pretty talented guys.

The metal composition is definitely one of the harder parts, we had to have a full mill run of custom material made.

I think the most important part of the project was that it isn’t a “copy” of a Tikka. It’s a receiver built around the idea of improving an already very good receiver with a couple features for the US market and backcountry hunters. We felt it was important to maintain compatibility with factory Tikka components to give customers as much flexibility and aftermarket support as possible.

@Procision Arms Do you have some close up pics of the dust cover area? Couldn't really tell on the interview.

 

[Procision Arms]

@Procision Arms Do you have some close up pics of the dust cover area? Couldn't really tell on the interview.

Still under development, no pictures to share yet.

 

[atmat]

I think the most important part of the project was that it isn’t a “copy” of a Tikka. It’s a receiver built around the idea of improving an already very good receiver with a couple features for the US market and backcountry hunters. We felt it was important to maintain compatibility with factory Tikka components to give customers as much flexibility and aftermarket support as possible.

I get what you’re saying here. But saying it’s an “Tikka clone” or “Tikka custom” is totally fine. Folks are familiar with that vernacular from R700 platforms.

Stoked to shoot this thing. Collecting parts now while I wait.

 

[nm.otter]

The metal composition is definitely one of the harder parts, we had to have a full mill run of custom material made.

Fascinating. Were you looking for specific attributes that you felt the T3x lacked?

 

[Schmo]

Fascinating. Were you looking for specific attributes that you felt the T3x lacked?

From the podcast with them, the steel used in the Tikka is not something that is commonly available here, so they had to have a run of it made

 

[RockAndSage]

I get what you’re saying here. But saying it’s an “Tikka clone” or “Tikka custom” is totally fine. Folks are familiar with that vernacular from R700 platforms.

Stoked to shoot this thing. Collecting parts now while I wait.

Tikka on the streets, Ferrari in the sheets.

 

[Gstew1930]

Has the weight been announced yet?

 

[BBob]

Has the weight been announced yet?

Not for sure that I’ve seen or heard plus they’ll have two models. The light and a regular.

The regular will likely be close to a factory Tikka and the light probably close to the UM lightened Tikka’s I’d think.

 

[Tahoe1305]

Not for sure that I’ve seen or heard plus they’ll have two models. The light and a regular.

25oz no trigger is what I recall reading earlier. Think it was a target not final spec weight.

 

[BBob]

25oz no trigger is what I recall reading earlier. Think it was a target not final spec weight.

Careful now, the snipers hide boys are taking notes and will hold those responsible hands to the fire if they go even a smidge over the final target weights

 

[Procision Arms]

Fascinating. Were you looking for specific attributes that you felt the T3x lacked?

No, it’s just not a material that’s available here off the shelf.

 

[nm.otter]

Yours is a carbon steel alloy, correct? And the T3x receivers use a stainless alloy?

 

[Mik123]

Yours is a carbon steel alloy, correct? And the T3x receivers use a stainless alloy?

T3X has both, not just stainless.

 

[Procision Arms]

Yours is a carbon steel alloy, correct? And the T3x receivers use a stainless alloy?

yes, with a stainless bolt.

 

[nm.otter]

Caveat: I'm an engineer, not a metallurgist -- but I believe carbon steel gets a lot more from nitriding than stainless does. I'll take a wild guess that you might have been looking hard at friction coefficients.

 

[Marbles]

This!

Tolerance is just an acceptable range of values. The fit basis (clearance between parts) is what most people are thinking of. Ie if the holes allowed to be say 0.03mm to 0.1mm up on a factory action and the bolts allowed to be 0.0 to 0.03 down. It ensures a clearance of atleast 0.03 but some as high and 0.13.

If you tighten tolerances you could make the hole 0.03 to 0.04 up and the bolt 0 to 0 01 down. And all you have down is made the fit more consistent (0.03 to 0.05 clearance) and more closely match the tighter factory actions. The difference is just all the actions are consistent in feel. You jusy pick the optimum clearance and hold that consistent.

Tolerances are just an acceptable range fo functional values to allow for manufacturing inconsistencies.

Glad you said it, because otherwise I was going to.

Caveat: I'm an engineer, not a metallurgist -- but I believe carbon steel gets a lot more from nitriding than stainless does. I'll take a wild guess that you might have been looking hard at friction coefficients.

I have the same understanding, after quite a bit of digging, and to over simplify, nitriding stainless is generally cosmetic with loss of performance in some areas, nitriding carbon steel is an excellent idea. Having the bolt be stainless is also a great idea as having materials of different hardness reduces galling.

Or so goes my uneducated understanding.

 

[Kurts86]

Going for a custom steel is an interesting choice. I get trying to copy an existing design but getting custom metallurgy is a big headache and supply chain risk for marginal gains. I’ve worked at a tool steel mill where we poured north of 100 grades and lead times were often approaching a year. I’ve also had parts with custom metallurgy where you got 1-2 runs a year of steel in another country to support your entire supply base for new orders and spare parts inventory.

Recently the knife industry has had a lot of issues as one custom specialty mill erased the supply of SV90 and others.

The number of specialty grades of steel is huge but ultimately most are just slight tweaks of a relatively common grade to optimize a few properties. In my experience substitution of grades has little effect on an end product.

 

[RockAndSage]

I'll take a wild guess that you might have been looking hard at friction coefficients.

I think it's pretty cool they're looking at specialty steels, though what @Kurts86 shared definitely need to be taken into account.

That said, if the issue is coefficients of friction alone, a cheaper and more effective approach would be tribological coatings. DLC, TiN or similar nitride variant, Nickle Boron, hard chrome. Some selection of those, based on the performance or appearance properties desired. The trick is to do two interacting surfaces in different coatings, to really plummet the coefficients of friction (static and dynamic). Do the action/raceways in one, and the bearing surfaces of the bolt in another. They could get some big benefits by doing the same thing with the cocking lug especially, to reduce friction of bolt-lift and smooth it out too.

In particular, in a bolt gun, this would 100% eliminate the need for wet lube in the action - which is a massive benefit in arctic or sandy conditions.