Tikka 300 Win Mag bottom metal options

[Benny119]

I recently purchased a tikka T3x 300WM rifle. I was not aware how much the tikka magazine would restrict the OAL for this cartridge. This led me to research my options. I see redsnake and atlasworx both offer bottom metal that accept 3.715” AICS magazines allowing up to 3.600 OAL. The redsnake site says in a tikka without modifying the action you will only be able to get 3.500 OAL.

Does anyone have experience with these bottom metals? What the actual OAL that one can expect to reliably feed?

I see that mountain tactical made a bottom metal where the user needed to shave metal off the trigger housing. This allowed the mag to be seated rearward further allowing longer OAL. Is that item discontinued? Is there any other manufacturers making something like this?

Before anyone comments, I realize I will not be able to eject a live rounded seated to these lengths. Removing a bolt is not difficult and I do not mind.

 

[AirborneEScouter]

I did the mountain tactical bottom metal and trigger housing mod on one of my tikkas. I ultimately switched to an atlasworx bottom metal but both functioned fine and allowed for the 3.715” AICS mag. I believe it was also suggested you notch the feed ramp of the action for all of this to work correctly. I have hardly used that rifle to speak to its reliability but it worked fine with longer seated bullets on the bench for load development but again I never thoroughly tested it. I haven’t shot that gun in probably 3 or 4 years. One thing I didn’t like about either bottom metal was the magazine doesn’t seat very tightly and you get a bit of a wiggle - this may depend on the stock but I have this in a manners T4 and it was fairly annoying to me. I rebarreled that rifle so I’m not sure what you can seat a bullet out to with the factory 300wm barrel but might be worth getting a dummy round put together to see if you can get beyond the 3.5” or so that either the redsnake/Unknown/mountain tactical/atlasworx will limit you to. I don’t think the cost of making all these modifications is really worth it to be honest and like you I had buyers remorse of the original purchase when I learned of the limitation which led me down this path. I got buyers remorse X2 when I went through and did all the modifications. Factory ammo and loaded ammo inside of the limitations will still likely shoot just fine. The reloading rabbit hole can unfortunately make you think you need to do all these things but you really don’t
Edit - if you’re shooting the bigger and longer bullets like 215 Bergers, it may be more beneficial to load those out longer and get more powder in the case but my general comment is that I never felt like the work to do all this vs buy a rifle/action better suited to shoot the big bullets was a worthy investment. YMMV but that’s my 2 cents

 

[Benny119]

Thank you for the reply. What cartridge did you swap the bottom metal to use a longer magazine? And do you have any notes on what OAL you were able to feed?

I did write down distance to lands for a couple different bullets I’d consider trying for hunting. Berger 215 was 3.745 OAL and the Barnes 190LRX is 3.647 OAL. I did also load up some dummy rounds and 3.600 was about as short as I would want to shoot the 215’s (if they don’t mind the jump). If I could feed that length and the accuracy/velocity is there it would be worth the investment for me.

I’ve got about 65 of my 100 pieces of brass fired. Once I get all the brass fired I will try the 215’s at 3.600. I guess those results will determine if I proceed with new bottom metal.

 

[Benny119]

I would also add that I don’t have buyers remorse. This rifle is shooting amazing. I am just fireforming brass with powder jugs that are near empty. Without any load work up I have shot multiple groups under .5 moa. The smallest group being just under .3 moa.

I do regret buying the Ace Game version of the rifle. I had to put the 300 WM barreled action into one of my roughtech stocks in order to start messing with bottom metal options. The price difference between the ace game and a roughtech would’ve paid for the bottom metal and mag

 

[AirborneEScouter]

Buyers remorse is the wrong term for the initial purchase, but I do regret the modifications and apologies for putting words in your mouth.

The rifle originally was a 300wm with the lite barrel and I immediately rebarreled to a medium Palma in 300wm but my gunsmith chambered/throated (whatever the right word is) the barrel based on a dummy round I gave him to get to about 5 thou jump to lands from ogive on a 3.6” OAL so any measurements I rattled off would be apples to oranges for you

Sounds like you’re getting great accuracy which is no surprise with a tikka. Good luck with whatever decision you make and let me know if you are curious about anything else

 

[AirborneEScouter]

Here’s some pics of a 215 Berger at 3.6” in the magwell flush against the trigger housing/bolt pulled to the rear - with the magazine in, it moves the bullet ever further forward which is why that notch is required. It’s crowded in there. Also, a pic of the amount of play the magazine has (about .060” side to side).

 

[Gila]

I recently purchased a tikka T3x 300WM rifle. I was not aware how much the tikka magazine would restrict the OAL for this cartridge. This led me to research my options. I see redsnake and atlasworx both offer bottom metal that accept 3.715” AICS magazines allowing up to 3.600 OAL. The redsnake site says in a tikka without modifying the action you will only be able to get 3.500 OAL.

Does anyone have experience with these bottom metals? What the actual OAL that one can expect to reliably feed?

I see that mountain tactical made a bottom metal where the user needed to shave metal off the trigger housing. This allowed the mag to be seated rearward further allowing longer OAL. Is that item discontinued? Is there any other manufacturers making something like this?

Before anyone comments, I realize I will not be able to eject a live rounded seated to these lengths. Removing a bolt is not difficult and I do not mind.

I did the same thing…You can get the bottom metal to accept the 3.715” AICS however the T3x action will only accept a COAL of 3.5” without modification. I was only going to shoot 200 gr ELD-x so I installed the AICS bottom metal. I went through 6 mags and never could get the mags tuned to feed reliably. The T3x Lite went to a T3x Very Heavy. I went out and bought an off the shelf McGowen pre-fit with a fluted SS barrel on sale for about $400 in 6.8 Western. I bought enough brass and bullets to last the life of the barrel. I may buy another 300 but it won’t be a Tikka. If a person doesn’t handload, a long action cartridge shooting factory ammo with a COAL of 3.34” will work fine with factory mags….For handloading, the T3x action is good for a short action cartridge that you may want to load long like a .284 Winchester which shoots a 162 gr ELD quite well with a OAL of 3.1”.

If you don’t want to change calibers, I would just sell it and buy another rifle that will shoot the 300 win mag with a Wyatt’s box or shoots a LONG COAL,

 

[Benny119]

Here’s some pics of a 215 Berger at 3.6” in the magwell flush against the trigger housing/bolt pulled to the rear - with the magazine in, it moves the bullet ever further forward which is why that notch is required. It’s crowded in there. Also, a pic of the amount of play the magazine has (about .060” side to side).

Thank you so much for the pictures. That is the info I was hoping for.

And as far as your post earlier, no apologies needed. I don’t think you put words in my mouth. I just wanted to state that I’m still happy with this purchase. I can single feed the 215’s at the range for fun and if I can’t get the 190LRX to shoot at a reasonable distance I could go down to the 175’s and try them.

Thanks for the advice

 

[Benny119]

I did the same thing…You can get the bottom metal to accept the 3.715” AIC

Thank you for the input. Seems like either nobody is happy with the decision to change bottom metal to AICS or they just care to share.