A buddy of mine just picked up one of the first tikka’s chambered in 7prc and asked me to do load development with it and after not having any luck with the common 175 eldx bullets I found out that the barrel came in a 1:9 twist rate! I ended up having to go to a 162 grain before I got the rifle to shoot to my standards. The rifle still shoots great averaging .6 moa but I just don’t understand why they wouldn’t do a 1:8 twist on the barrel.
Tikkas kind of always have slow twists for some reason. My .308 doesn’t like anything heavier than a 150g.
Did you verify yourself that the twist rate was actually 1:9?
There’s a lot of discussion on the internet about this. When they first announced they were releasing the 7 PRC they had one- nine twists listed. That of course caused a lot of consternation. But then it was figured out that that was just a marketing error and all of the rifles were 1-8.
1-8 is the slowest allowed in the specifications for that cartridge so if they’re doing truly 1-9 they are making an out of spec rifle. And that’s not typical for them
1 Like
No I didn’t look that far into it I just saw the stamp on the barrel and figured that was why the 175’s would not group well.
Wow.
If it were me, I’d probably do a quick test to confirm that twist rate. If it’s true then I’d be contacting Tika and telling them they need to exchange that for one that meets specs.
An interesting discussion on the Barnes Bullets podcast from yesterday. They were talking about wanting to develop a Factory loaded ammo for the 28 Nosler. The 168 lrx was their favorite, but that needs an 8 twist. While some companies do make 28 noslers with 8 twists, SAAMI spec is 9 twist.
They, and other manufacturers for ammo, do not want to start putting out boxes of loaded ammo with big asterisks on them talking about which particular twist rate you can use this specific box in. Factory ammo should work in Factory rifles was their mantra. Heck, most rifle Shooters probably don’t even know what twist rate is.
So a nine twist 7prc basically takes the most popular ammo loadings completely off the table for that gun. And Tika would need to put a big asterisk somewhere saying use only ammo suited for 1-9 twist
The tikka website lists all the 7prc’s as a 1 in 8 twist now