Tikka actions vs Custom Actions

[Ringbill27]

I love every thing about a tikka expect the cartridge options, barrels twists and then recoil pad. Two of those problems can be addressed with a different barrel and the other is a $35 limbsaver.

 

[JohnJohnson]

I want KRG to finish revising their Midas two-stage for the Tikka. If it goes down below 2.5# it may change a lot about my future non-competition rifles. I just like nice two-stage triggers so much I've avoided Tikkas. Which is a shame since my father has a Tikka CTR (that I recommended to him) and I really like its bolt throw and all that.

 

[Nhenry]

Only other issue with .25-06 is brass availability. With .25-06AI you also have to either fireform brass or shoot standard loads to form and build up your brass over time.

I went down the path of necking down and trimming .30-06 brass and I wouldn’t do it again. You’re looking at either multiple steps down or one step and neck turning. It’s a lot of time and hassle to get average brass and it’s really easy to screw up the case necks.

I have some 25-06AI load data from Berger I can share too. It’s all based on 26” barrel, so you’d want to subtract ~200fps for 18” barrel.

Nosler and Norma make pretty solid 25-06 brass ready to load right out the gate and you can find it. The latter is stellar.

 

[Gila]

Other than 20 plus years wear on a T3 firing pin, never had any issues at all with my 270 Win and 300 win mag Tikkas. Conventional bullets fed and fired without fail at 3.34” and were extremely accurate. With the paradigm shift to long, heavy high BC bullets, long action cartridges tend to run up against the wall for COAL. Some 20th Century production rifle actions are slow to get behind the action length “eight ball”.

 

[DangerRanger]

I’ve had Curtis, bighorn, bat and defiance and now have sold them all and consolidated to 2 tikkas one for comps and one for hunting. Feed/ejection reliability has never been better. Lack of binding in poor conditions or when I do my job poorly is a major upgrade imo.

I shot a match a little while ago in the mud and rain and we used my rifle to guard a defiance from mud splatter, it was going directly on my bolt and action and it never skipped a beat on stage. I have no interest in going back

Fwiw I liked my customs too, aside from the bighorn. I just like these better as of right now. I’ve also noticed customs feeding really benefits from a great smith tuning them. My defiance was tuned by Alex wheeler and was much smoother and better feeding than other customs I’ve run