Tikka Reputation

[srab]

Every rifle is unique, and I'll bet you can find a rifle from any manufacturer that has turned out to be a dud, but I've been very pleased with the Tikka T3 Lite.

The stock on mine is synthetic and not very impressive at all, but it's molded around a bedding block with the barrel floated. The barrel on a Tikka, of course, comes from the same exact place as those for Sako rifles priced much higher. Same barrel at significantly lower cost!

The trigger is exceptional, IMHO. It breaks clean and crisp and is supposed to be set at 3 lbs from the factory (mine was closer to 4 lbs, but it is very easy to adjust with the allen wrench provided).

The action is very smooth. The action length is the same whether you are purchasing a standard or short, but the magazine has a spacer for short-action cartridges. The magazine, however, is plastic and appears kind of cheap.

The recoil pad seems to be of decent quality. The scope rings that come with the rifle have worked perfectly fine for me thus far. My rifle is chambered for
300WSM and recoil is very reasonable for a "magnum" cartridge in a light rig.

Accuracy from my "out of the box" rifle is exceptional. I can't vouch for anyone else's, and maybe I just got lucky with this rifle, but I have heard others report
Savage-esque accuracy from Tikka rifles in general.

Personally, I'd buy another and have been encouraging friends to give the Tikka a hard look. I've got nothing against Remington, but I've just never had one that would shoot without quite a bit more "tweaking." I don't have any experience with Winchesters younger than 20 yrs, so I can't comment on them.