After watching the latest video with the sit down session with Tikka/Sako, Jim brought up the issue with the crown of his Sako S20 getting damaged and causing accuracy issues. My question is why haven’t you replaced the barrel? Preferable with a Sako barrel? Are they hard to get? I recall talking with a guy who had a Tikka bolt break and he couldn’t get it replaced. After that he said he would never buy another Tikka. Are Tikka or Sako parts that hard to get to repair your rifle?
You can get a barrel recrowned by a gunsmith. Tikka bolts are expensive. Take off barrels aren’t too hard to find. Not sure about sako. They don’t seem nearly as common. There’s only one company I know of that makes after market tikka bolt bodies and it’s a small operation in Canada.
In my mind, when you buy a tikka you are paying for a premium feeling action with a decent trigger and factory barrel. Barrels and triggers can be replaced. The tikka bolt however is difficult to replace (although cheaper than a premium barrel). You can pay a few hundred dollars for one but you’re almost to the point of just buying a new rifle.
Tikka doesn’t sell just barrels. I could get it regrown which would fix it, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.
But in the interview didn’t they say tikka and Sako share the same barrel? If so wouldn’t they be interchangeable