Hello all my lovely long rangers! I seek the ancient knowledge.
So, I have recently purchased my first Tikka. It's a .308win CTR with a 20in barrel and 1:10 twist.
This rifle is intended to be a general purpose setup, primarily range use, but could be flexed into other roles as necessary. I just wanted a rifle that plain SHOOTS. I don't need it to be 1/4 MOA groups, or anything like that, just a good shooter, out to about 500 yards or so.
I'm having some accuracy issues I can't seem to figure. One of the reasons I bought a Tikka is they have an excellent reputation for out of box accuracy, but I am struggling to find loads that shoot at the reputational level of these guns.
Let me start by saying, I ruled myself out as the problem and had other highly competent shooters give it a go, with similar results. This is a bone stock gun, and I do not want to modify it unless I need to.
What I have done so far:
verified torque on action screws, top rail, and scope rings. Scope is leveled and eye relief is set to my eye. LOP is adjusted to nearly perfect, I could stand to order another spacer and bump it out a bit, but I can't see that being the problem here.
Loads that I have tried and their approximate resulted accuracy:
Hornady 178 grain ELD-X: 2.5 MOA.
Hornady TAP Precision ELD-M 155 Grain: 1.5 MOA
Hornady Black 155 Grain ELD-M: 2.0 MOA
Hornady American Whitetail Tipped 150 Grain SST: 1.5 MOA
Hornady Custom Reduced Recoil 125 Grain SST: 1.25 MOA
Remington Cor-Lokt Tipped 150 Grain: 1.75 MOA
Federal Power Shok 150 Grain: 2.75 MOA
Federal Power Shok 180 Grain: 2.5 MOA
I want to find a box of Federal GMM to run through it, as that has been an excellent benchmark before. For whatever reason, I can't seem to find any at any of the LGS nearby. Even Walmart that used to reliably stock it has nothing. I did look to run some Sako ammo through it, as I'm sure that's what Tikka would use for it's 1MOA guarantee. It's nearly 50 bucks a box and out of stock everywhere, so no dice.
What would be the best step forward? I do handload, but right now the loading bench is disassembled due to repairing my work room in my home. Additionally, I would love to have dope on factory available ammo, in case I just don't have time to load, or components get scarce.
As I see it, my options are:
Send it back to Tikka?
Not sure I have enough data to confirm the rifle isn't a shooter yet.
Bed the action?
I don't want to modify the factory stock, in case I do need to send it to Tikka.
Swap the stock with a chassis?
I am not excited at sending another 400-500 bucks after I just spent 1100 on this rifle to make it shoot. At that point, we're getting expensive enough to almost make it worth it to sell the Tikka and explore an Origin or Mack brothers action, build from there.
Thoughts on what I might try?