Tikka T3X Failure to Fire

Just got back shooting 28 rounds. Had 7 FTF's. On each of them I had solid strikes, 2 of them fired on the second time, the other 5 did not. These are all my reloads with CCI 450's.

Can someone confirm, I can swap my firing pin/spring assembly from another tikka (22 Creedmoor) to isolate the spring/pin issue? I find various opinions when searching.
 
Just got back shooting 28 rounds. Had 7 FTF's. On each of them I had solid strikes, 2 of them fired on the second time, the other 5 did not. These are all my reloads with CCI 450's.

Can someone confirm, I can swap my firing pin/spring assembly from another tikka (22 Creedmoor) to isolate the spring/pin issue? I find various opinions when searching.
All the firing pins are the same. You could even order one and swap it out if needed.
 
Looks like you are having more trouble with your reloads than factory. You can try this, when resizing your brass. Back the die off a full turn from touching the shell holder, size a few and try them in the rifle to make sure the bolt will close on them. Then prime them and shoot them without powder just to see if you have FTF.
 
I haven’t changed anything since I bought the gun from the previous owner, except mount the scope in the rail. I’ll post an update on factory ammo fit in an hour or so.

Did you just mount the scope or did you mount the rail also?

Make sure the forward rail mounting screws aren't protruding into the action and binding the bolt. That will produce a FTF.
 
I would concentrate on the firing mechanism as the problem
Marks on the firing pin from dragging inside the bolt
Is the length of the firing pin spring the same as your others.
Trigger dragging on the cocking piece.
 
The gun came with the rail mounted. There are no marks on the bolt from any apparent dragging. I'll measure my other firing pins tonight and springs. How would I check if the trigger is dragging on the cocking piece?

All failure to fire primer strikes look solid - that's what's strange to me. No evidence of light primer strikes at all, in 20% of the cases the round fires on a bolt-lift re-cock.
 
The gun came with the rail mounted. There are no marks on the bolt from any apparent dragging. I'll measure my other firing pins tonight and springs. How would I check if the trigger is dragging on the cocking piece?

All failure to fire primer strikes look solid - that's what's strange to me. No evidence of light primer strikes at all, in 20% of the cases the round fires on a bolt-lift re-cock.

I know you said it’s happening on factory but how are you sizing your brass?
 
Use a sharpie of magic marker on the cocking piece and the sear on the trigger assembly. Insert the bolt and pull the trigger and hold it back while removing the bolt, see if you have drag marks on the pieces.

You can have good looking marks on the primers that didn't fire simply because the firing pin went forward. Maybe just not fast enough.

The primers have lead styphnate sandwiched between the cup and anvil which provides the fire to ignite the powder. Think about it this way. The old cap guns of yesteryear has a similar mixture and were susceptible to light hammer strikes. If the hammer had a bad spring it didn't hit the cap with the SPEED needed to fire the mixture. You can crush a primer slowly and it won't go off.
 
If these failure-to-fires were all on reloads I‘a say you weren’t priming the brass correctly. A primer needs to be seated fully down so that the anvil compresses. If it doesn’t compress it will not fire, even with a solid strike.

OP, what are you using for a priming tool?
 
If these failure-to-fires were all on reloads I‘a say you weren’t priming the brass correctly. A primer needs to be seated fully down so that the anvil compresses. If it doesn’t compress it will not fire, even with a solid strike.

OP, what are you using for a priming tool?
I've now used two different priming tools, the Derreco primer, and this time a lee auto primer, to try to rule that out as well.
 
I just measured the brass from today firings against my resized brass and my brass is only growing by about .001" fired with a pretty stout load of x8208 and TAC. I don't have any experience with 223 brass, does this seem normal? It's LC brass, BTW.
 
Update: Shot 30 rounds today with swapped bolt from another Tikka. Thought I found the issue, 1st 10 rounds fired like normal........then........2 shots in a row FTF! I changed nothing, shot another 18 with no issues. Both rounds that FTF today fired when recocked. I inspected both before doing that and both had solid primer strikes!

I'm not sure of next steps.
 
Update: Shot 30 rounds today with swapped bolt from another Tikka. Thought I found the issue, 1st 10 rounds fired like normal........then........2 shots in a row FTF! I changed nothing, shot another 18 with no issues. Both rounds that FTF today fired when recocked. I inspected both before doing that and both had solid primer strikes!

I'm not sure of next steps.
Action screw protrusion?

You have checked a lot now. I would be inclined to put it back in the factory stock, with no scope base, and fire off a box of cheap factory ammo. If that dosnt work then you know it’s the action/barrel.
 
The barrel is too big for factory stock, but I agree with you. Any chance the LC brass I'm using has some primer pocket issues? I'm using CCI 450 primers, thicker cup. I'm thinking about taking the rail off, reloading some the factory brass with standard SRP and see if that make a difference. What if I had the bolt slightly up when I shot my 1st two boxes of factory and had a couple FTF, but that was my issue and all the issues are with either the LC brass or primers?

Just thoughts for now.
 
That probably wouldn’t matter. Iv got 8k rounds of ci450s through tikkas with zero problems with ignition.

I would eliminate the reloading issues all together and spend 15 bucks on some factory ammo to diagnose.

Tight headspace might mean that there is some pressure on the rounds but that really shouldn’t cause light strikes.

Scope base screws, or action screws can cause drag or pressure. I’d eliminate those. I’d take a good look at the trigger group and make sure nothing looks like it’s dragging.

I doubt it’s the spring, tikka factory firing pin springs are pretty stiff.
 
The barrel is too big for factory stock, but I agree with you. Any chance the LC brass I'm using has some primer pocket issues? I'm using CCI 450 primers, thicker cup. I'm thinking about taking the rail off, reloading some the factory brass with standard SRP and see if that make a difference. What if I had the bolt slightly up when I shot my 1st two boxes of factory and had a couple FTF, but that was my issue and all the issues are with either the LC brass or primers?

Just thoughts for now.

But you said you are/were getting FTF with factory ammo as well so were you shootings factory ammo with LC cases?
 
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