Thread: Extending COAL in a tikka T3 mag?

Hi all,

I've started hand-loading for my T3 tikka, I have found I need to seat the bullets longer than mag length.

I was wondering if someone could tell me how to take the back out of the magazine so I don't have to single feed. Is this a DIY job or a gunsmith?

Many thank in advance for your pearls of wisdom.

cant make em fit the mag?? how much past the mag are they? or longer i should say.

It's not too difficult to do. I have seen one that AaronB did and it looked good. Track him down for advice.

I did mine, the bottom of the mag comes out , on either side of it you will see 2 plastic tabs located on the sides. Get something that fits in there and pop em in , you need to do them
the same time, a bit fiddly but not too difficult.
after you pop that out you can take out the spring assembly bits and pieces. then you are away,
you will need to shorten your bolt stop as well otherwise the bolt wont pick up your next round.
easiest way is to buy one,
I cut mine down and tigged a blob on the end (its hollow) then filed it to shape, works fine and was pretty easy.
I can seat the 140s waaay out now to fit in heaps more powder.

you can buy a long action mag which is easier too.

Originally Posted by sniper80

Hi all,

I've started hand-loading for my T3 tikka, I have found I need to seat the bullets longer than mag length.

I was wondering if someone could tell me how to take the back out of the magazine so I don't have to single feed. Is this a DIY job or a gunsmith?

Many thank in advance for your pearls of wisdom.

What calibre ?

I modify the 223 ones to fit the 22 Terminator

Thanks guys.

Its a .223, so I don't have to modify the bolt stop, it already comes back far enough. Just needing to get them in the mag.

I can get 58.5mm in the mag, but I have tried a few at 62mm coal and I'm getting a lot better results. I've got a 75g amax @ 2900fps shooting 17mm groups, which I'm happy with

Just as a side note, the difference between the 58.5mm and the 62mm loads was 180fps faster and a tighter group, with the same powder charge.

"faster and a tighter" which is what is expected. Is the projectile touching btw or 10 ~ 20 thou "in" or still a bit short? Interestingly this seems to be a common problem of the mag being too short by 2 to 3mm (which seems a huge amount) with many bolt actions (especially american ones?) when you want to handload. I wonder why its so spaciouswhen having a better shooting gun would sell more guns for the manufacturer.....jams more frequent or something?

Its still sitting a bit short of the lands, I think there is about 1mm jump. It is a frustrating problem, lucky its easy to fix