Thread: Projectile tips damaged in tikka magazine

Hey guys,

Anyone have an idea on how to stop the tips on ballistic tipped bullets getting damaged in the mag due to recoil when you fire a round?

Maybe an after market mag with a stronger spring to hold the rounds in place better?

Tikka T3 7mm rem mag

Hold rifle firmly...something is SERIOUSLY wrong if damaging ballistic tips.they are designed to prevent that very thing.i used to run two of them in bottom of my old model 70 .270w to stop the tips of first two getting the soft point mashed

Sako 75/85s tend to do it too.
There is a vid on YT where someone mods the magazine to have a rubber pad inside the front of the mag to prevent it happening.

I stopped worrying about it for bush hunting. Just had 3 rounds in the mag instead of 5 to save them all getting squashed.
If you are doing long range shooting, just single load the mag (as can't top feed the Tikka).

Fairly common not just in tikka. Think there is an older thread on here about it and the general consensus was it didn't effect accuracy for normal hunting ranges.
My old .308 used to quite often damage the tips of the 168gr AMAX and my .270 often still does it to the ssts as well.

Interesting. I have never had it happen Nosler ballistic tips and Hornady ELD-Ms in T3 300wm, 7mmRM, 308 etc. I always load out so that the projectiles only just fit in the magazine. Maybe with little room to move they don't gain enough momentum to be damaged?

Single load, place a piece of rubber strip in the front of the mag or shove the pills fully forwards so they can't slam into the mag... Against the last option, I would be slightly concerned about setting the projectiles back into the case - the bullet tips might be taking away some other issues by deforming?

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

Hold rifle firmly...something is SERIOUSLY wrong if damaging ballistic tips.they are designed to prevent that very thing.i used to run two of them in bottom of my old model 70 .270w to stop the tips of first two getting the soft point mashed

It’s as common as when loaded to max mag length

Especially with hornadys

Originally Posted by Kelton

Especially with hornadys

They aren't nosler ballistic tips then lol

Cheers for the feedback, it’s happening with factory 154g ssts and 162 Eldm handloads. Seems like it’s a fairly common issue. Will see how the damaged tipped rounds group out at range and just single load for the longer shots.

I have seen ribs put into magazine .30/06 to stop it..years ago
when shooting wallabies with .270 the bottom rounds would get mashed as may have 10-15 rounds fired above them before I emptied the mag and got down to them..constantly topped up mag during day.... nosler ballistic tipped rounds in bottom of mag stopped any issue...with plain jane soft points I used to use, of all things a pair of tullen shears and simply remove the exposed lead tip so the tip was flat and had copper jacket and flat lead across tip...kind of how modern corelocts and the federal blue box stuff is...certainly didnt effect accuracy in hunting terms,some of the longest shots pulled off were using rounds altered in this way.

Went to NBTs years ago pretty much because the SP rounds looked a bit ugly.
We were not firing many rounds but the soft points deformed with the recoil of a 30.06.
Didn't notice much issue with the "required" accuracy.
Check now and again at 100 yards if 1st was 3" high and second nearly touching good enough.
Then shot deer in the bush at 10-40 yards.

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