Tikka Iron Sights Project Finished

[cal30_sniper]

It's taken me a while to finish this up, but I'm at a place where I've tested my designs and found them satisfactory for human consumption.

This all started a while back when I put in for one of the restricted weapon rifle tags in Utah and drew with a few years worth of general season preference points. I messed around with a few different guns in the safe, but pretty quickly decided to take Form's advice from another thread and try out a biathlon sight setup. I weighed a bunch of different attachment options, but ultimately decided to design my own setup. What I came up with is:

1. 11mm Dovetail that mounts to the factory T3X receiver holes
2. Clamp on front sight mount to mount a Williams Precision Muzzleloader Globe front sight

I've been messing with a T3X Drover in .308. I picked up a Rokstok, which ends up being the perfect height for the tall biathalon sight, but found the muzzle shoulder to not be thick enough for reliable muzzle device mounting with the oddball M15x1.0 thread this rifle has. I originally tried a lyman globe sight in the original dovetail, but between the limited inserts, small diameter globe, and low sight height, I decided to go ahead and design a front sight base to tackle a few of the problems at once.

The front sight base design ended up having the following features:

• .750" inner diameter for compatibility with common aftermarket barrel diameters
• A split aluminum adapter sleeve for mounting on a factory Tikka sporter barrel at 20" length
• Uses a M4 flathead screw to align itself with the factory front screw hole on a Ranahan or Drover rifle
• When mounted on the Drover with the aforementioned flathead screw to align, it also provides a shoulder for the muzzle device
• Machined from steel with lightening cuts
• Protective steel ears for the globe sight base include set screws to lock in the sight with more than the provided single 8-40 screw

I had a 6.5x55 barrel at Kampfeld's shop getting shortened to 20" and threaded. He normally adds a short collar to shoulder up a muzzle device when the 5/8 threads are cut into the thin factory sporter profile. I had him extend that shoulder to 1" in length at .750" diameter so I could clamp the sight directly onto the barrel. It will also work great on a Taperless .750 or Tikka Hybrid profile barrel from Preferred:



The muzzleloader globe sight is well reviewed elsewhere on this site, but here's an example of some of the inserts available:



The front sight dovetail uses four of the factory scope mount screws to mount, centers via flathead gunsmithing screws, and is reversible. The reason for reversibility is to allow the rear to overhang the area behind the receiver and support the rear sight when mounted further aft.



I've tried several different sights at this point mounted on two different rifles. One is the factory Drover in .308, the other is the shortened 6.5x55 barrel from Kampfeld. The rail height, width, etc have all been great with the various biathalon and 11mm airgun sights I've tried:

 

[cal30_sniper]

Now for the results...

I fired back to back to back 10rd groups with the .308 this weekend with various ammo types. All three were 2MOA or less. I forgot to pack the crosshair reticle to try out at the range, so these groups were fired using the fiber optic sight in a lollipop 6 o'clock hold. I'll pack the other reticles to give them a try next time. I am the limiting factor on this setup at this point.

I'll be shooting the 6.5x55 next go around also, I finished putting it together after my range trip.





Due to volume manufacturing discounts, I had 10 sets of these machined. I'm keeping 3, the other 7 will be up for sale. I've got two folks in line for a couple, but anticipate about $200 for the dovetail and front sight base set, including hardware and the adapter sleeve for the sporter barrel. To that, you'll need to add the rear sight of your choice and a Precision Muzzleloader globe front ($50-60 bucks online depending on what reticles you want)

 

[atmat]

This is awesome.

 

[walk2112]

Agreed!

 

[longrangelead]

I did a couple similar variations as well.
one was Anchutz sights with a similar muzzle adapter, I left a recoil shoulder so the sight couldn't slip forward.




second iteration moved the sight back so it couldn't interfere with a large suppressor, added wrench flats.

dual apertures is silly fun how accurate they can be.


two 4 rnd mags, top 1st, adjust, 2nd mag, 1" dot @ 100yds.