First off, Huge thank you to everyone who told me to get off my butt and buy the rifle that was the subject of the previous thread. Not to completely re-hash that thread but the short story was I have been looking at a T3X superlight for a while, and after seeing prices starting to rise on them and the $100 off at Sportsmen's warehouse I decided to look hard at buying one. While there I was offered a heck of a deal on a different rifle, an original T3 light (synthetic and blued) for $375.99 but in .270WSM that had been gathering dust in the back room (and I had just slurped down some creedmoor koolaid). I went back first thing today and pulled my head out of my 4th point of contact and bought the rifle. The best part is the total out of pocket expense was $25.00.
Yes $25.00
Now please hang with me while I explain.
I have a rule that now that I have more firearms then I need and since I am a 99% bowhunter I won't spend any "big" money on new guns. I will save up gift cards or take any money from selling old hunting/tactical gear and applying to firearms. This is sort of what I did here.
I have known I wanted new rifle for a while now. To that end I have been stocking up on Sportsmen's Warehouse gift cards for the last year. I had right around $75.00 worth. I also had suspected that my next rifle would be a Tikka T3X so I have used some funds from my last bow sale to buy a limbsaver rifle pad when I found it online, from another hunter that had never taken it out of the package for less then $20.00. I also knew that the rifle would need a scope so I had been looking for a while. Last fall I saw a sale on Optics Planet where they were offering the Bushnell Trophy Hunter Xtreme (30mm) scope in 4X16X44 for right under $200 shipped. Now I have been blessed to play with some very nice scopes thru work (mostly Nightforce and higher end Leupold) but I knew from the start this was going to be a basement bargain build and wanted to stay pretty cheap. I saw some pretty decent reviews for this scope (for the price) and liked the quickness of the holdover hash marks so I bought it mostly because I knew it came with a 30% gift card rebate. That card took forever to come but finally got here.
The biggest thing that made me even consider pulling the trigger on a new rifle now was the fact that I was cleaning out the garage last week and decided to try and sell some of my older tactical gear that had been sitting in a tote under my work bench, untouched or used for several years. I had even forgotten a lot of what was in the tote. I thought I would probably get pennies to the dollar but I actually made out pretty well for gear that I hadn't even looked at in years. The total from this sale was $175 and a happy wife for clearing up some space.
Now back to the store
After the money applied from the gift cards and the money from selling the gear (and about $80 from a dozen unused axis arrows) My out of pocket total was a whopping $25 to walk out of the store with a bore sighted and brand new rifle/scope.
I realize that I am applying some pretty hefty justification math to the situation, but it still feels like I was only spending $25.00 out of pocket.
The limbsaver pad looks great and the scope mounts up really well with the Warne rings. Sits pretty low for a 30mm, 44mm scope. Did I mention that one of the employees had a box of un-opened 130gr accubond federal ammo from a rifle they used to have that they sold me for only a couple of bucks? Even the ammo looks mean!
This wasn't the T3X I went in for or one of the competitors such as the Kimber Hunter but I think it is money well spent. It doesn't have the new stock or recoil lug or aluminum bolt shroud but I still think I will find some ammo to make it shoot well. The trigger broke several times at 3.2lb, so a little heavy but really not bad at all for a hunting rifle, and the bolt is typical Tikka smooth. I was planning on using Double tap's 129gr TXLR loaded at 3350fps out of this rifle as I think double tap seems to load a little stouter in several cartridges and I like that but if these shoot well enough I will be using them. If not, where else will you find barrel break in ammo for $5.
In theory with the holdover marks from the DOA600 (and I realize this is all speculation until I stretch her legs a bit) a 130gr bullet zeroed in at 200 gives me holdover to 700 and with the drop in speed if I take a 160gr partition if I plan to use this instead of a .300 it should use those same marks from 100 to 600. Will be fun to see if this holds up in the real world but using the Bushnell app it gives me a decent starting point.
With all the creative painting of the Tikka stocks going on here I might paint it in the future and strap on my Voodoo Tactical comb riser, but then again I might not and just keep this thing as is. Hopefully it has a date in the future for a certain unit in CO where the mule deer grow big but cautious. I still am a bowhunter at heart but for some reason this thing is calling my name in a wicked nightshade type of way. Hopefully it shoots as well as it looks.
Thanks for listening to my bragging and the long post and thanks again for all the advise. I will have to post up some groups after I get the barrel broken in. Still has to be the best $25.00 spent in a really, really long time!
Yes $25.00
Now please hang with me while I explain.
I have a rule that now that I have more firearms then I need and since I am a 99% bowhunter I won't spend any "big" money on new guns. I will save up gift cards or take any money from selling old hunting/tactical gear and applying to firearms. This is sort of what I did here.
I have known I wanted new rifle for a while now. To that end I have been stocking up on Sportsmen's Warehouse gift cards for the last year. I had right around $75.00 worth. I also had suspected that my next rifle would be a Tikka T3X so I have used some funds from my last bow sale to buy a limbsaver rifle pad when I found it online, from another hunter that had never taken it out of the package for less then $20.00. I also knew that the rifle would need a scope so I had been looking for a while. Last fall I saw a sale on Optics Planet where they were offering the Bushnell Trophy Hunter Xtreme (30mm) scope in 4X16X44 for right under $200 shipped. Now I have been blessed to play with some very nice scopes thru work (mostly Nightforce and higher end Leupold) but I knew from the start this was going to be a basement bargain build and wanted to stay pretty cheap. I saw some pretty decent reviews for this scope (for the price) and liked the quickness of the holdover hash marks so I bought it mostly because I knew it came with a 30% gift card rebate. That card took forever to come but finally got here.
The biggest thing that made me even consider pulling the trigger on a new rifle now was the fact that I was cleaning out the garage last week and decided to try and sell some of my older tactical gear that had been sitting in a tote under my work bench, untouched or used for several years. I had even forgotten a lot of what was in the tote. I thought I would probably get pennies to the dollar but I actually made out pretty well for gear that I hadn't even looked at in years. The total from this sale was $175 and a happy wife for clearing up some space.
Now back to the store
After the money applied from the gift cards and the money from selling the gear (and about $80 from a dozen unused axis arrows) My out of pocket total was a whopping $25 to walk out of the store with a bore sighted and brand new rifle/scope.
I realize that I am applying some pretty hefty justification math to the situation, but it still feels like I was only spending $25.00 out of pocket.
The limbsaver pad looks great and the scope mounts up really well with the Warne rings. Sits pretty low for a 30mm, 44mm scope. Did I mention that one of the employees had a box of un-opened 130gr accubond federal ammo from a rifle they used to have that they sold me for only a couple of bucks? Even the ammo looks mean!
This wasn't the T3X I went in for or one of the competitors such as the Kimber Hunter but I think it is money well spent. It doesn't have the new stock or recoil lug or aluminum bolt shroud but I still think I will find some ammo to make it shoot well. The trigger broke several times at 3.2lb, so a little heavy but really not bad at all for a hunting rifle, and the bolt is typical Tikka smooth. I was planning on using Double tap's 129gr TXLR loaded at 3350fps out of this rifle as I think double tap seems to load a little stouter in several cartridges and I like that but if these shoot well enough I will be using them. If not, where else will you find barrel break in ammo for $5.
In theory with the holdover marks from the DOA600 (and I realize this is all speculation until I stretch her legs a bit) a 130gr bullet zeroed in at 200 gives me holdover to 700 and with the drop in speed if I take a 160gr partition if I plan to use this instead of a .300 it should use those same marks from 100 to 600. Will be fun to see if this holds up in the real world but using the Bushnell app it gives me a decent starting point.
With all the creative painting of the Tikka stocks going on here I might paint it in the future and strap on my Voodoo Tactical comb riser, but then again I might not and just keep this thing as is. Hopefully it has a date in the future for a certain unit in CO where the mule deer grow big but cautious. I still am a bowhunter at heart but for some reason this thing is calling my name in a wicked nightshade type of way. Hopefully it shoots as well as it looks.
Thanks for listening to my bragging and the long post and thanks again for all the advise. I will have to post up some groups after I get the barrel broken in. Still has to be the best $25.00 spent in a really, really long time!
