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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

 

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

 

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