Hunting Rifle Comparison: Tikka T3, Browning X Bolt, Thompson Venture
Editor: All
Winner Tikka T3
Story:
The 3 rifles that we decided to compare in this mini shoot out, are 3 good, light weight, and common rifles that can be purchased in a number of Sporting Goods stores across the World…for this reason we call this a Retail available hunting rifle review.
We went through a simple process in evaluating these rifles.
-We chose rifles lots of people use
-We chose ammo that lots of people use
-We shot the way the average hunter shoots. We did not have wind gauges, we did not tune the rifle or the ammo…we just picked good rifles, good ammo, decent optics, and headed to the range.
In each case we shot: Fusion Ammo, Vortex Viper Scopes, and cleaned the guns after each 5 shots. In 2 cases we also took the guns on hunting trips. The Venture went on a Desert Sheep Hunt, and the Tikka on a Pronghorn Antelope Hunt.
We are taking the Browning on an Idaho Deer hunt, and will update this review with our findings if anything changes.
After shooting and using for nearly a year now, we created the following Pros and Cons. Keep in mind that we feel all of these guns are guns to own, but the Tikka was the overall winner.
We shot the Tikka in a 300wsm, the Browning in a 300wsm, and the Thompson Venture in a 7mm rem mag. We sighted in the guns to be dead on at 200 yards, so approximately 1.5 inches high at 100 yards. We measure the accuracy at 100 yards….MOA
Not much more to say, I think the table below speaks for the process.
We hope you find the comparison chart useful, please post questions and comments, and we can add detail.
| Tikka T3 Lite | Pros:
Crisp Adjustable TriggerSmooth Action Accurate out of box with any ammo Well balanced in hand Detachable Magazine Price Cons: Long action on short mags Synthetic parts on bolt
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| Thompson Venture | Pros:
Crisp easily adjustable Trigger Smooth Action Accurate out of box with any ammo Detachable Magazine Comes with nice rail system for easy scope mount Price Cons: Not well balanced in hand Little cheaper feeling stock than others in test
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| Browning X Bolt Composite Stalker | Pros:
Crisp Adjustable Trigger Very nice duratouch finish on stock Outstanding butt pad Well balanced in hand Detachable Magazine Cons: Detachable Mag little hard to snap in place Bolt not as smooth as competition Least accurate out of group tested. 1.5MOA |
