Mountain rifle T3 caliber

[LeeInSC]

I shot a Tikka T3 Lite this year and really like it. It seems like an ideal mountain rifle for deer, sheep and goats. I thought about a .30-06, because I trust it to take all the above, and elk and large bears, as well.

But I think the .270 Win or 7mm-08 is probably more suited to this light rifle.

My rationalization is that I could always get another T3 in .30-06 later, or another accurate synthetic like a Steyr SBS or old Model M Professional.

Are any of you using a T3 in .270 or 7mm-08 for a lite mountain rifle?
Stainless or blue steel?
How's that working out for you?

[Bushman]

Lee, I'd be a little careful about getting too much cartridge into too light a rifle. From what I've seen on the range helping guys sight in, a .30-06 is toward the upper limit of what people can shoot accurately without ducking a little. I had a M70 in .30-06 and even though it was not a lightweight, it recoiled pretty well. A lot of it has to do with the stock design too and that post '64 M70 was a club. Deer, sheep and goats don't need that much fire power and I would second your 7mm-08 or .270 choices. Years ago I built up a 7mm RM as light as it would go and when the scope stopped on my forehead when I was shooting at a deer it was like an epiphany that I had too much cartridge there. I personally have been happier with a 7mm-08 since.

Camo painted stainless has been my own choice because it can get wet here or condensation going from a cold area into a warm one will introduce a lot of moisture. A warped wooden stock pretty early has me using synthetic Kevlar on my serious bolt actions now as well. I like nice wood as much as the next guy and my fair weather shotguns or varmint rifles do wear wood, just not my big game bolt actions.

[Sabre]

I went to Beretta's website and looked at the Tikka's. I see the T-3 lite stainless comes in 6.5x55. That would be my choice for a light recoiling yet very effective cartridge for mountain game in a light rifle, especially since all the T-3's use a long action. Doesn't make sence to me at all to put a short action cartidge like the 7mm-08 in a long action rifle.

[MOGC]

Since the Tikka uses the same standard length action for all cartridges I'd vote out any of the short rounds like the 7mm-08. That's just a waste of a short case in a long action. In that case the .270 would make more sense to me personally.

[LeeInSC]

Thanks, all. Input from those who own the T3 Lite and/or hunt sheep, goats, etc, is especially appreciated.

Recoil of the .30-06 in a 7-lb rifle doesn't bother me. I have been hunting with a 7.25-lb M-700 with iron sights and aluminum buttplate for 40 years, and have other .30-06s.
I also have some 7mm-08s and .270s, in really nice walnut rifles, and a two 6.5x55s in a vintage Mauser and an semi-custom Ruger 77. None of these do I want to camp with in snow and rain for a week or two.

I am leaning towards a .270 Win, because I know what the 140 and 150-gr bullets can do. It seems like a good match up to the T3 Lite. The 6.5x55 is about a perfect match on paper, but I am not sure about the power it has for bigger game. It looks like you can order the T3 with iron sights, too. I like that.

Again, I might get a .30-06 later in T3 if this works out, or in a heavier rifle like the 700 XCR or Steyr M.

[Just a Hunter]

If you like the 30-06 then give some thought to the same rifle in .308Win

Your giving up very little in regards to the performance of the 30-06(often less than 100fps) However in return you may find up to 18% less recoil depending on which recoil calculation you use.

[Chuck S]

I'll second Just a Hunter. I own a 30-06 Steyr Mannlicher M carbine that weighs in at 7.3 lbs and it'll kick a tad bit. My BLR, same weight in 308 was a pussy cat in respect. For Sheep or Goats, the 308 is just fine and that extra edge of the 30-06 isn't needed unless you run into a Griz and tehn you'll be wanting everything but the kitchen sink!:eek:

[GF.]

If you're really going to carry it in the mountains, I'd go with the .270, myself.

And I say that as a guy who owns a 7-08 and no longer shoots enough to be totally unaffected by recoil.

#1, I don't see any sense in carrying a rifle that's saddled with an action that's any longer or heavier than it needs to be.:confused:

Beyond that, the 7-08 and .270 are so similar, ballistically, that I can't imagine you'll notice much difference in recoil. But if you have a ballistics program and/or a good place to shoot, you can use the case capacity and/or a lighter and/or more streamlined bullet to stretch the point blank range a lot more than factory tables would suggest, and you'll reduce your wind drift a touch. Especially if you can get good accuracy (and still-manageable recoil) out of a hopped-up loading. The 7-08 is pretty near maxed out in a factory load, and the .270 simply isn't.

I don't usually sweat ballistics that much, but with wind and longer distances being much more common at high altitude than in a woodlot....

[LeeInSC]

I like the power of a .30-06 for anchoring game, but the .270 will also do that.
The 140 and 150-gr bullets will resist wind, and I have seen the 150s shoot completely through very large bears.

This week, I handled a Sako A-7, which is a lot like a T3 with the plastic stock and all, but the action is really more like a Sako 85. It comes in a long action and a short action, which would be good for the .308. Cost is about $200 more than the T3. That gets close the same money as a Steyr Pro Hunter, but $100 less than a stainless steel Steyr.

All these rifles are going up in price due to the dollar falling 25% against the Euro and the European currencies since Obama took office. Whatever I do, one rifle or two, I need to do soon.

[Bushman]

Lee, don't forget about the used market either. UPS goes everywhere and with the hunting population getting older and the economy in the tank, used older and often better made rifles are out there.

[Altjaeger]

My wife has always accused me of being tactile challenged because I do not know where little cuts and scrapes on my hands come from and recently a neurologist testing for something else verified she is right.

With that qualification I have never found a difference in the .30-06 and .270 from the same model rifle with the same stock design. Based on firing the .308 and the 7mm/08 from different model rifles it seems likely the same is true in similar rifles for those two cartridges. Overall it seems there is only a small difference recoil between the short case cartridges and the long case cartridges just as there is small difference in the performance of same caliber cartridges in the two cases.

I would pick the one I liked, but possibly lean to the 7mm/08. I don't have one of those yet! :D

[LeeInSC]

I have two 7mm-08s, a 20-inch Model 70 carbine and a BLR, both too nice for nasty weather, beating through the brush and mountain slopes, camping for a week in the snow and rain.

The 7mm-08 is a really great deer cartridge, just a short 7x57.
The factory loads are pretty high pressure, like the .308 on which it is based, so you aren't going to hop it up much with hand loading. Recoil with the 140-gr bullets is pretty mild, I think, and the 120-gr bullets shoot at 3,000 FPS (from a 24-inch barrel). If you hand load the 120-gr CoreLokt or the Nosler BT down to about 2,600 fps, it is like a .257 Roberts in recoil and killing power. Hand loading also lets me use the Speer 130-gr bullets.

The 6.5x55mm Swede is also an option in the T3, and is commonly found all over the countryside, and the world.

I am starting to lean towards the less-powerful rounds in this rifle, and look for a second synthetic rifle in .30-06 for the 165 to 200-gr bullets for big game.

I am leaning towards .270 Win at the most, maybe .308 or 7mm-08, or even the 6.5x55. The 7mm-08 and the 6.5x55 would be on the light side for mountain goats and really big game, IMO, but they are accurate cartridges and this is an accurate rifle. They would be good for sheep, deer, caribou, hogs and black bear.

[GF.]

7mm, 120-gr Corelokt?

Isn't that the HP, or is there one that they built for the 7-30 Waters that you use?

[LeeInSC]

I originally bought a bag of 100 Remington 120-gr PowerLokt HP 7mm bullets to load for my son at 2,600 FPS when he was young, and was only going to be taking 100 yard shots or closer, with a rest. This is a thinner jacket bullet than the CoreLokt, and would be fine on pronghorn or small deer at 300 yards, but not inside 200 yards at the nearly 3,000 FPS of a factory load.

Then I decided to try to Nosler Ballistic Tip 120-gr bullets, because they have a very thick jacket, probably because they know the 7mm Rem Mag junkies will use them in the never-ending quest for more speed. These bullets shot great, and anchored deer at 100 yards without blowing up, when launched at 2,600 fps. So we used the 120-gr Remingtons for practice and hunted with the Noslers. Everyone I told thought it was nuts, until they tried it. I now load them up full house for a 2850 FPS load out of my BLR and Model 70, both with 20-inch barrels for a flat shooting whitetail load where the shots are 200 to 300 yards.

But the 140-gr is the standard for the 7mm-08. Nosler makes a good 150-gr in the Partition, and all the Hornady 154-gr bullets are good. The 160s start getting to be too much weight and take away some powder room. The 160s shine in my 7x64mm. The Sierra SPBT is a great all-round bullet, and the Sierra 160-gr HPBT is much tougher, shoots to the same POI, so it works up close, on animals like boar with big bones and gristle shield, and floats out there, too.

[GF.]

The Hornady 154 must be the bullet that Remington used in the 'extended range' line of about 18-20 years ago. My little Mtn Rifle was very fond of that load, and I was sorry to see it go off the market. Even though it was a boattail design and intended for long-range work, it was entirely satisfactory on those MN bucks even at ranges in the single digits :D

Must have to do with the bullet designers knowing full well that this one would end up in a lot of .280 Rems, .284 Wins, and assorted 7 Mags...

Now, if Hornady would see fit to load that bullet into their 'superformance' or 'light mag' offerings, that would probably be the ticket for the short-action sheep & goat load, no? It wouldn't keep pace with a .270 - similarly hopped up, anyway - but compared to Herne's pet load for his .270 (a 150 at 2800)... Seems like that comparison would put the 'dead' in 'dead heat'....

And I wouldn't touch another Ballistic Tip for love nor money (unless I was only looking for coyotes), but an aerodynamic, 120-grain copper solid must put the 7-08 on good footing with just about any non-magnum load going, I'd think....

[LeeInSC]

I downloaded the Hornady PDF of their LightMagnum ammunition ballistics tables, which includes the standard loads for comparison. Their LM 7mm-08 uses the 140-gr SST or the 140-gr SPBT Interlock at 3,000 FPS from a 24-inch barrel, which very few 7mm-08s have. I think the marketing geniuses want the magic 3,000 number.

For me, the 120-gr BT is best used downloaded to 2800 fps max, and used as a mild recoil deer load out of my 20-inch BLR or carbine.

The great thing about the 154-gr bullets is that Hornady makes a RN, flat base, SPBT, SST and an Interbond. So, if you can get them all shooting in your 7mm rifle, you should have 3 or 4 bullets shooting about the same POI at 100 and 200 yards, with some of them still rocking at 300 and 400 yards.

I am gathering up the parts to build another 7x64mm with a 24-inch barrel, iron sights and QD scope rings, and this will be my preferred ammo for it, along with the 160-gr Sierra SPBT and HPBT. It will be close to 8 lbs without the scope. I wish I could get a T3 in 7x64mm with open sights.

[GF.]

Stupid question: What's the diff between a 7X64 and a .280 Rem?

I'd love an iron-sighted 8 Mauser, myself. Preferably something like a Merkel SXS :D

But a nice bolt rifle with a good 4 or 6 fixed-power scope in some QD mounts seems like it would work out 'pretty OK'...

[Bushman]

I shot a meat deer in the neck with that 7mm-08 Light Magnum 140 grain SPBT Interlock and I haven't used that bullet since. My buddy got to the deer before I did and his call out through the woods said it all. "What the hell are you shooting?" The damage was rather extensive. I'd probably use that bullet again if Hornady throttled it back for their Custom line, but it only comes in the Light Magnum loading for the 7mm-08.

[LeeInSC]

The .280 Remington is a former wildcat based off the .30-06 case which is 7.62x63mm. The 7x64mm Brenneke predates it by about 40 years, has a bit more taper to the case body, different shoulder slope, and the head is not exactly the same size as the 8x57, 7x57, .30-06 family of cartridges, but mighty close. There isn't enough case capacity difference between the the .280 Rem and the 7x64mm to make any ballistic difference. They both are an honest 200 fps faster than the 7mm-08 and 7x57mm.

The 7x64mm is one of the most widely-used cartridges in Europe, because it doesn't fall under the bans many countries have imposed on cartridges used an army somewhere, sometime in the past. Tikka, Sako, CZ, Steyr, Sauer, all those offer it in their rifles, in various grades, with iron sights, too, but seldom are any imported here. Norma and RWS make some terrific ammunition for it. I would love a T3 Lite SS or Steyr Pro Hunter SS camo in this caliber.

[GF.]

Hmmmm.... That Tikka Battue in 8 Mauser could be an interesting solution for the way I normally hunt - at least provided that the QD scope mounts stayed out of the way of the irons...

Sako Hunter is a beauty, too, not that there's so much as a CZ or a Marlin in the budget...

[LeeInSC]

The 7mm-08 looks good on paper, and I have 2 of them in 20-inch carbines, but when you talk to people who have chronographed their Tikkas, Remingtons and other 22-inch rifles, they are often getting just over 2,650 fps with factory 140-gr ammunition, not the advertised 2,860. That is starting to push me back to the .270 Winchester.

As an aside, I ran across a nice used Steyr Pro Hunter in .260 Rem, camo stock, and a really nice scope on it, for $500.00. Not my cup of tea, but a deal, if anyone is interested.