Tikka hard bolt lift after dry firing. WTF

[BBob]

Did it resolve / improve your issue getting some oil in there?

FWIW I’d use an EP grease or MilCom TW25 or the like over oil for best function.

 

[littlebigtine]

Did it resolve / improve your issue getting some oil in there?

It has improved. Still not as light as stock but will see if it improves. Ive ran the bolt and dry-fired about 200 times since lubing the crap out of it and it seems to be a positive trend.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

It has improved. Still not as light as stock but will see if it improves. Ive ran the bolt and dry-fired about 200 times since lubing the crap out of it and it seems to be a positive trend.

Did you hit those other areas I mentioned earlier too?

 

[littlebigtine]

Ive lubed and cleaned and lubed the inside of the bolt body and fire pin assembly numerous times and added a dab of grease to the cocking ramp.

 

[Lawnboi]

The cocking ramp is the main source of the drag. Grease on there helps. There and the lugs. Grease or oil anywhere else is not good.

Back when I wasn’t cleaning anything I must have gotten some carbon in there and galled the crap out of it. Ended up giving it a light sand with 1000 grit and lubed it well. Might help with your coated bolts to knock down the stiction of the coating.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

Ive lubed and cleaned and lubed the inside of the bolt body and fire pin assembly numerous times and added a dab of grease to the cocking ramp.

Back of the bolt lugs?

 

[SixStrings]

I was having this issue recently too, greasing the cocking ramp solved it.

I recently completely reassembled a rifle I that has close to 2000 rounds and probably 10 times that in dry fire on it. Never had any issues, but when checking function after reassembly I experienced the same issues described here: subsequently heavier bolt lifts after dry firing.

When lifting the bolt it felt like I was scraping metal off. I later checked the Bolt handle and it had been contacting the rear end of the receiver and had obvious signs of scratching/galling on it. Disassembly and reassembly of the bolt at first seemed to help, after about the 4th dry fire though I was back to square one.
After tearing down the entire rifle again, fearing there could be action screws or recoil pins from the scope mounts protruding into the action the issue was persistent.
I swapped parts with another Tikka and even with a different firing pin, different shroud, etc. there was no difference. Inserting the bolt from the other Tikka however showed no signs of friction whatsoever. So there was something wrong with the original bolt. Reading this thread, despite not believing that scraping between rear end of receiver and bolt hanlde could have anything to do with lacking grease on the cocking ramp, I lubed the cocking ramp and voilá, it's like new even after 100 more dry fires.
Come to realize now, very recently for the first time ever did I disassemble the bolt on this rifle and I must have wiped off some of the grease and grime from the firing pin assembly.
I still don't understand how this exactly makes sense, but at least the issue is resolved. Thanks everyone