someguy2800
Member
I thought I would show my build progress on my Tikka that I've been working on for the last couple weeks.
Firstly I want to start off by saying that I am well aware that my shop is filthy and I am working with the bubba-ist tools imaginable. I've been working as an engine builder, machinist and engineer for 15 years and this is just how I roll. I like to push the boundaries of what I can do with basic tools and sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn't but this is for my own entertainment and education only. So yes I am well aware that there are tools that I could have purchased to do this, but I didn't want too. Hopefully this inspires some people that you can accomplish this kind of stuff in your shop if you know what you're doing.
So the idea for this project is that I wanted to build my own "everything rifle". That being a hunting rifle suitable for all species of game. This is actually my 3rd iteration of this idea. The first was a 338 win mag ruger Mk2, but I couldn't quite warm up to that rifle. Next was a 338 win mag Tikka T3 stainless, but in the back of my mind what I really wanted a 375 ruger. I contemplated re-barreling the 338 Tikka but the ejection port was actually too small to eject 375 ruger brass so I sold that and decided to build from scratch. I started by buying a brand new Tikka T3x lite stainless in 300 win mag to be the action donor. The larger ejection port on the T3x is large enough for 375 ruger.
I also wanted it to be relatively light weight and compact and completely weatherproof with a fiberglass stock so got a Bell and Carlson sporter. My target weight was 8.5-9 lbs scoped. I wanted a scope that would be at home for both short range hunting and still capable of shooting out to 500 or 600 yards if I feel like it. I picked a Burris Veracity 2-10x42 SFP scope in a set of Sportsmatch billet rings I choose that scope because it has an excellent field of view on 2x and it is one of the only 2-10 scopes I could find with adjustable parallax which I insist on having. Also Burris has their custom turret program so you can order a BDC calibrated elevation turret for your load, which I plan to take advantage of. That is a much larger and heavier scope than I would typically use on a hunting rifle but I figured since I had plenty of margin to stay in my weight target that I would opt for a heavier scope rather than adding weight to the stock or barrel. With the components worked out I did some measuring on the factory barrel and the Bell and Carlson stock channel and designed a barrel profile to match my weight target in solidworks and sent that off to McGowen Precision to get a short chambered barrel made with my custom profile. I went with a 1:12 twist and 21" total length
The barrel took about 2 months to get and then went about removing the original barrel which proved to be very difficult. I did not know this but tikka uses some sort of thread locker on their barrels which takes a ton of torque to remove, even with heat. My first attempt was with some plastic barrel blocks I 3d printed in the vise and a big adjustable wrench on the action flats with strips of aluminum to keep from scratching the action. I've used this technique on a couple other rifles but could not get enough friction with different liners in the barrel blocks to keep it from spinning.
I could tell that this just wasn't going to work so I changed tactics and tig welded a 3/4" nut on the end of the barrel and put the action in the vice instead. I will latter cut this barrel back to like 18" and thread it in my lathe so no I did not ruin a good barrel.
I ended up with about 3 feet of cheater pipe on a breaker bar and I still couldn't get the barrel to break free without flipping my bench over. It actually ended up springing my vise open and nearly spinning the action in the vise jaws. (note: I forgot to take pictures at the time so I recreated what happened)
I was turning so hard on it that the action nearly cut the aluminum soft jaws in half.
Sadly my 50(?) year old vise did not survive the event. Luckely though I caught it before doing any damage to the action.
I was just about to chuck it in the lathe and cut the barrel off but I gave it one last go after replacing my poor old vise and bolting my bench to the wall. I was finally able to get it to break free with some heat. I screwed in the new barrel and found I only needed to take off about .010" off the shoulder to set the head space, but this left the roll mark on the barrel pointing up at about 1 o-clock, so I had to take off a little more from the shoulder to get the roll mark at 10 o-clock where it should be.
Now as expected the chamber was too short so I did have to rent a chamber reamer to finish it off. While waiting for the reamer I torqued the barrel to 60ish ft lbs and found that there was enough crush that now the bolt was hitting the rear face of the barrel and the bolt would no longer close, so I removed the barrel again and took .010" off the rear face reamed the chamber.
Just as I do when I set up a savage barrel, I did not use headspace gauges to set the headspace. I had bought some once fired brass off gunbroker so I resized them in my dies and then set the headspace off my sized brass since this gun will never fire factory ammo. On target rifles I like to set them so a piece of sized brass closes with some resistance but being this is a hunting rifle I set it so that it closes easily on a sized case, will still close with some force with a .002" shim on the base of the brass, and will not close with a .004" shim. This is pretty tight for a hunting rifle but if it ever proves to be an issue I can always ream it a little deeper.
After I was happy with everything I wire wheeled the bead blasted finish off the barrel and polished the whole barreled action with green scotch brite, and then gave it a bath in white vinagar to dull the finish to a satin grey. The stock did take a good bit of sanding in the forend to float the barrel, but the rest of the action fit perfectly with no inletting.
The final weight for the bare rifle is just over 7 lbs and with scope and rings is about 8-5/8 lbs, so right on target. I have the first test loads loaded up already. Hopefully I will get time this afternoon to get it sighted in. Very happy with the end result so far.
Firstly I want to start off by saying that I am well aware that my shop is filthy and I am working with the bubba-ist tools imaginable. I've been working as an engine builder, machinist and engineer for 15 years and this is just how I roll. I like to push the boundaries of what I can do with basic tools and sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn't but this is for my own entertainment and education only. So yes I am well aware that there are tools that I could have purchased to do this, but I didn't want too. Hopefully this inspires some people that you can accomplish this kind of stuff in your shop if you know what you're doing.
So the idea for this project is that I wanted to build my own "everything rifle". That being a hunting rifle suitable for all species of game. This is actually my 3rd iteration of this idea. The first was a 338 win mag ruger Mk2, but I couldn't quite warm up to that rifle. Next was a 338 win mag Tikka T3 stainless, but in the back of my mind what I really wanted a 375 ruger. I contemplated re-barreling the 338 Tikka but the ejection port was actually too small to eject 375 ruger brass so I sold that and decided to build from scratch. I started by buying a brand new Tikka T3x lite stainless in 300 win mag to be the action donor. The larger ejection port on the T3x is large enough for 375 ruger.
I also wanted it to be relatively light weight and compact and completely weatherproof with a fiberglass stock so got a Bell and Carlson sporter. My target weight was 8.5-9 lbs scoped. I wanted a scope that would be at home for both short range hunting and still capable of shooting out to 500 or 600 yards if I feel like it. I picked a Burris Veracity 2-10x42 SFP scope in a set of Sportsmatch billet rings I choose that scope because it has an excellent field of view on 2x and it is one of the only 2-10 scopes I could find with adjustable parallax which I insist on having. Also Burris has their custom turret program so you can order a BDC calibrated elevation turret for your load, which I plan to take advantage of. That is a much larger and heavier scope than I would typically use on a hunting rifle but I figured since I had plenty of margin to stay in my weight target that I would opt for a heavier scope rather than adding weight to the stock or barrel. With the components worked out I did some measuring on the factory barrel and the Bell and Carlson stock channel and designed a barrel profile to match my weight target in solidworks and sent that off to McGowen Precision to get a short chambered barrel made with my custom profile. I went with a 1:12 twist and 21" total length
The barrel took about 2 months to get and then went about removing the original barrel which proved to be very difficult. I did not know this but tikka uses some sort of thread locker on their barrels which takes a ton of torque to remove, even with heat. My first attempt was with some plastic barrel blocks I 3d printed in the vise and a big adjustable wrench on the action flats with strips of aluminum to keep from scratching the action. I've used this technique on a couple other rifles but could not get enough friction with different liners in the barrel blocks to keep it from spinning.
I could tell that this just wasn't going to work so I changed tactics and tig welded a 3/4" nut on the end of the barrel and put the action in the vice instead. I will latter cut this barrel back to like 18" and thread it in my lathe so no I did not ruin a good barrel.
I ended up with about 3 feet of cheater pipe on a breaker bar and I still couldn't get the barrel to break free without flipping my bench over. It actually ended up springing my vise open and nearly spinning the action in the vise jaws. (note: I forgot to take pictures at the time so I recreated what happened)
I was turning so hard on it that the action nearly cut the aluminum soft jaws in half.
Sadly my 50(?) year old vise did not survive the event. Luckely though I caught it before doing any damage to the action.
I was just about to chuck it in the lathe and cut the barrel off but I gave it one last go after replacing my poor old vise and bolting my bench to the wall. I was finally able to get it to break free with some heat. I screwed in the new barrel and found I only needed to take off about .010" off the shoulder to set the head space, but this left the roll mark on the barrel pointing up at about 1 o-clock, so I had to take off a little more from the shoulder to get the roll mark at 10 o-clock where it should be.
Now as expected the chamber was too short so I did have to rent a chamber reamer to finish it off. While waiting for the reamer I torqued the barrel to 60ish ft lbs and found that there was enough crush that now the bolt was hitting the rear face of the barrel and the bolt would no longer close, so I removed the barrel again and took .010" off the rear face reamed the chamber.
Just as I do when I set up a savage barrel, I did not use headspace gauges to set the headspace. I had bought some once fired brass off gunbroker so I resized them in my dies and then set the headspace off my sized brass since this gun will never fire factory ammo. On target rifles I like to set them so a piece of sized brass closes with some resistance but being this is a hunting rifle I set it so that it closes easily on a sized case, will still close with some force with a .002" shim on the base of the brass, and will not close with a .004" shim. This is pretty tight for a hunting rifle but if it ever proves to be an issue I can always ream it a little deeper.
After I was happy with everything I wire wheeled the bead blasted finish off the barrel and polished the whole barreled action with green scotch brite, and then gave it a bath in white vinagar to dull the finish to a satin grey. The stock did take a good bit of sanding in the forend to float the barrel, but the rest of the action fit perfectly with no inletting.
The final weight for the bare rifle is just over 7 lbs and with scope and rings is about 8-5/8 lbs, so right on target. I have the first test loads loaded up already. Hopefully I will get time this afternoon to get it sighted in. Very happy with the end result so far.
Last edited:
I like it.
