Which 7mm in a Tikka

[Balderdash]

What @Balderdash said. I love the 7/08 and is what the 6.5 cm wishes it was. However for more horsepower the 284 is quite a powerful and easy package. Not sure why there is so much more love for the 280 ai.

In my opinion, if the 284 win can't deliver the down range performance you want, its time to step up to a 30 or 338 cal. The bigger 7s just burn powder, have more recoil and all for not a lot more in down range performance.

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There's a lot of truth there. Really, everything over a 7-08 is firmly in diminishing returns category. Not that its going to stop me from shooting 7mm mags.

 

[Gila]

284W is a dandy cartridge, especially in a Tikka. Likewise, the short mag derivatives are also great in Tikkas. Can get very good performance out of the long action rounds, too, even at 3.34. If you really want more performance, it's a simple process to get 3.6 out of a Tikka if you don't mind an AICS hanging down; I have a 7mm rem mag Tikka so equiped, and function is flawless. Pretty much comes down to how much performance you're looking for and how much recoil you care to deal with.

I like most any .284 cartridge, but if constrained to only one in a Tikka, I'd probably go 7prc. You'll get great performance with heavies at 3.34 so you can feed it from OEM or MT mags, which are nicer for carrying. You'll also be able to feed it with very solid factory ammo, which can be a big factor for me as I like to pull the trigger and don't always have time to reload.

I have always been a .270 Win shooter. But I really like shooting my Tikka T3x .300 win mag. I bought it thinking that I could change the bottom metal to get a COAL of 3.6" for handloads. I went looking for bottom metal and found out that the only way to get 3.6" in a Tikka T3x action is to send it to a gunsmith and have the action and stock carved out. I opted for the 3.5" bottom metal which is basically a drop in. I only had to rasp a bit off of the forward end of the magwell in the stock. I went through 5 mags and never could get the feed lips adjusted right to feed reliably on any of them.

I have a rifle carrier built into my backpack and during inclement weather, I cover the rifle with a Kolpin. Somehow a tree branch depressed the mag release and the mag fell out....then it wouldn't feed. I spent nearly $600 on that solution. If you go for that silly .1 inch longer, tack on the cost of a gunsmith. All of the AICS and after market crap is gone off my rifle. I am back to original Tikka mags, which for the past 20 years, have never failed me. After reading Rokslide's main page article on the 6.8 Western by Jesse Werner, I have decided to re-barrel the Tikka .300 win mag to 6.8 Western. I am planning another 300 win mag build on an action that uses a Wyatts box. But right now I am chomping on the bit to get my Tikka 284 Winchester build finished and start loading.

With AICS and without:

 

[Balderdash]

I have always been a .270 Win shooter. But I really like shooting my Tikka T3x .300 win mag. I bought it thinking that I could change the bottom metal to get a COAL of 3.6" for handloads. I went looking for bottom metal and found out that the only way to get 3.6" in a Tikka T3x action is to send it to a gunsmith and have the action and stock carved out. I opted for the 3.5" bottom metal which is basically a drop in. I only had to rasp a bit off of the forward end of the magwell in the stock. I went through 5 mags and never could get the feed lips adjusted right to feed reliably on any of them.

I have a rifle carrier built into my backpack and during inclement weather, I cover the rifle with a Kolpin. Somehow a tree branch depressed the mag release and the mag fell out....then it wouldn't feed. I spent nearly $600 on that solution. If you go for that silly .1 inch longer, tack on the cost of a gunsmith. All of the AICS and after market crap is gone off my rifle. I am back to original Tikka mags, which for the past 20 years, have never failed me. After reading Rokslide's main page article on the 6.8 Western by Jesse Werner, I have decided to re-barrel the Tikka .300 win mag to 6.8 Western. I am planning another 300 win mag build on an action that uses a Wyatts box. But right now I am chomping on the bit to get my Tikka 284 Winchester build finished and start loading.

With AICS and without:

View attachment 501872View attachment 501873

I can't say I ever experienced that much trouble with an AICS mag. Little fitting here and there to help things along, but I've been able to get them all to feed flawlessly. I've found that the main facet of getting the mags to both secure in the gun as they're supposed to and feed properly without too much magazine tuning is getting bottom metal seating depth perfect.

Not sure what you used for bottom metal, but there's good options these days for units that hide the mag release buttons, greatly reducing incidental drops. Certainly, an accidental release can still occur, but to certain extents, one takes that chance with any DBM; there's only a small indent and a thin spring loaded tab keeping things together for the vast majority of designs. The old Browning A-Bolts that had the DBM secured to the inside of a hinged floor plate were a good design as far as not loosing them or having them accidentally drop in the snow/mud when unloading with cold hands.

Overall, I've been thrilled with the functionality of AICS mags; my main affront to them is that they can make one handed carry more cumbersome. Depending on intended use, it might not matter much, but for hunting I prefer to stay with a flush mount mag when possible, and any cartridges I build in a Tikka that I plan to carry in hand a lot from here on out will fit factory mag confines. Further, I ran a lot of long action cartridges in Tikkas at 3.34 for years with a lot of good results; ergo, in the context of hunting, there's not always impactful gains to be had by chasing more COAL.

 

[Gila]

I can't say I ever experienced that much trouble with an AICS mag. Little fitting here and there to help things along, but I've been able to get them all to feed flawlessly. I've found that the main facet of getting the mags to both secure in the gun as they're supposed to and feed properly without too much magazine fitting is getting bottom metal seating depth correct.

Not sure what you used for bottom metal, but there's good options these days for hiding mag release buttons; these greatly reduce incidental drops. Certainly, an accidental release can still occur, but to certain extents, one takes that chance with any DBM; there's only a small indent and a thin spring loaded tab keeping things together for the vast majority of designs. The old Browning A-Bolts that had the DBM secured to the inside of a hinged floor plate were a good design as far as not loosing them or having them accidentally drop in the snow/mud when unloading with cold hands.

Overall, I've been thrilled with the functionality of AICS mags; my main affront to them is that they can make one handed carry more cumbersome. Depending on intended use, it might not matter much, but I prefer to stay with a flush mount mag when possible, and any cartridges I put in a Tikka that I plan to carry in hand a lot from here on out will fit factory mag confines. Further, I ran a lot of long action abd magnum cartridges in Tikkas at 3.34 for years with a lot of good results; ergo, in the context of hunting, there's not always impactful gains to be had by chasing more COAL.

If you are going to shoot high BC LDFs then COAL matters....If you are going to load 215 Bergers in the in the 300 win mag or 195 gr Bergers in the 7 PRC then you are going need a mag 3.6” plus.

 

[Balderdash]

If you are going to shoot high BC LDFs then COAL matters....If you are going to load 215 Bergers in the in the 300 win mag or 195 gr Bergers in the 7 PRC then you are going need a mag 3.6” plus.

Yep, if that is what one wants to do with a Tikka, then, for sure, going to a 3.715 AICS is a good move. I have a Tikka and 700's so equiped, and they work great. It's a simple enough process, and I wouldn't think it can cost that much if one needs to have a gun smith do it. And, if one is serious about getting the most performance from the highest BC bullets that you can, for most cartridges, one's rig would already be at the gunsmith, anyway, to get a barrel with the right twist and throat geometry. Certainly, the positive attributes of a Tikka make it well worth the effort if one wants to go that route.

My points were that, for hunting situations, there's plenty of high BC bullets well suited to hunting that can be run with good accuracy and velocity in Tikkas at 3.34, and that, by extension, there isn't enough to gain in terms of terminal performance to absolutely necessitate going longer if you'd rather not have an AICS mag hanging down. 175's in a 7mm rem mag or 280 do well at 3.43 as do the 200 and 212 eld-x in a 300 WM.

Of course you can squeeze more out of these cartridges with more COAL, but what does the slight BC gain you get with going minimally heavier, or the slight velocity gain you get with a little bit more room for powder really get you downrange? There's plenty of smaller diameter and lower velocity cartridges that will cleanly take game as far off as most people have any business shooting. One could also likely shrink groups a bit by seating with more COAL, but again, once accuracy is at a certain level, the minimal gains aren't likely to be an impactful game changer for hunting purposes.

 

[Pharmseller]

7mm-08

LA bolt stop

.30-06 magazines

 

[Northman.]

7,62x63
168 grain TTSX