T3 bolt hard to close

[DVXDUDE]

I notice on my T3 .22-250 the bolt is sometimes hard to close when you have a shell in the chamber. Not all the time either. I noticed the plastic bolt shroud is kind of loose and if I wiggle it, the bolt will close very easy.


My T3 300winmag laminate has a bit of play in its bolt shroud, but the bolt is never hard to close.



Is this what is causing it? anything I can do to make this go away?

 

[noneck180]

are you shooting reloads? does it close fine with out a cartridge?
Shround no, a tight shroud makes it hard to close,usually caused by putting a spring in between it and the end of the firing pin to tighten it up. I am not saying it isn't binding but who knows..

 

[DVXDUDE]

nope, Only Hornady 55g v-max factory loads. Closes like butter without a cartridge. Not every time it's hard to close, but sometimes it's hard enough, I have to fiddle with it a bit, then put quite a bit of pressure on it to get it to close.

I was just comparing every thing with this gun and my other T3, that's the only visual differences I can see, bit looser bolt shroud.

 

[Baribal]

A while ago, I went through more than one Tikka rifles wich had problems chambering the factory Winchester Fail Safe (nickel cases) in at least two calibers.
This was due to chambers having a small neck diameter. Nothing wrong with it with other makes / types of ammos, but the factory FS were out of matter for these rifles.
I would suggest you to check with another brand or at least, another box of the same ammo. Then, take measurements of the faulty cases and you should be able to find what's going on with your rifle.

 

[MXoutdoors]

DVXDUDE,
I am also having trouble with my tikka in 22-250 being hard to close on some rounds, I'm just using some cheap white box winchester 45grainers for now.
I'm going to take her apart and try to find the problem, I'll let you know what I find.

 

[oldfart]

DVXDUDE,
I am also having trouble with my tikka in 22-250 being hard to close on some rounds, I'm just using some cheap white box winchester 45grainers for now.
I'm going to take her apart and try to find the problem, I'll let you know what I find.

My tikka 338 fed had the same problem with some factory loads, when I checked the case with my stony point head and shoulder gauge the shoulder was a couple of thou longer on the hard to close cartridges. All reloads gave no problems. My take is that tikkas have precise chambers, which may be why they are so accurate.The factory loads were federal fusion.

 

[AlexF]

A simple piece of advice, have a qualified gunsmith look over your rifle as anything related to a rifle's bolt is critical to its safe use. This will only take a couple of minutes.
I also had a rifle (a brand new Remington 700) which was sometimes difficult to close and the problem was related to a minute imperfection/bump on the bolt head.
The gunsmith spotted this in under 60 seconds and the manufactured fixed the problem in 1 week.

Alex

 

[guntech]

A simple piece of advice, have a qualified gunsmith look over your rifle as anything related to a rifle's bolt is critical to its safe use. This will only take a couple of minutes.

Alex

Ditto... Although it is probably ammo related and a minimum chamber... you should have it checked out.

 

[DVXDUDE]

DVXDUDE,
I am also having trouble with my tikka in 22-250 being hard to close on some rounds, I'm just using some cheap white box winchester 45grainers for now.
I'm going to take her apart and try to find the problem, I'll let you know what I find.

Ya, let me know



I just tried Winchester white box 55g soft points, Winchester Ballistic tip 55g. All the same. Soon as the bolt picks up the cartridge and the bolt is pressed in all the way, The bolt will not close- No matter how much pressure I put on it. I have to pull back a touch then in again and it closes no problem. I never noticed it this morning when I took 3 quick shots at a coyote, but it might have done it and I just wasn't paying attention to it close enough.

 

[smelly pete]

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