Sniper Central Blog

The Tikka T3 Tactical was awarded the prestigious ‘Rifle of the Year’ award from American Rifleman. American Rifleman is one of the official NRA magazines and they award annual awards for rifle and handgun of the year. For the T3, they states “… among the candidates from the past year, one stood out for its combination of quality, handling, accuracy, styling and features: the Tikka T3 Tactical.” They tested the 20″ version and were obviously quite fond of it. It is a good rifle and we liked the one we reviewed also.

Well, it seems to be a popular trend with Burris, then Zeiss and now Nikon joining the integrated LRF riflescope market. They call theirs the Laser IRT and it comes in a 4-12×42mm flavor with either the plex or their own BDC reticule. It appears that Nikon has not really been able to get a powerful laser in their either, with only an effective range of 750+ yards on a reflective target. Knock that in half for non reflective targets and you can see they are not yet ready for sniper use. Perhaps in a few more years when they can get a 2000+ power LRF in a scope.

Price on the scope lists for $1150, but are available for about $300 less than that.

Nosler has been producing some custom ammunition for a while now, but I had never really taken much notice… until now. I was browsing their offerings and I noticed that the .260 Remington was receiving a little bit of love and there were a few offerings for it. The one that especially caught my eye was the 120gr Ballistic Tip load. This 120gr Nosler Ballistic Tip bullet has a BC of .458 which is nearly identical to the sierra .308 caliber 168gr Match King. The great part about this factory Nosler ammunition is that it launches this 120gr BT bullet at 2975fps. (remember, the federal .308 GMM ammo with the 168gr SMK is launched at 2600 fps). That Nosler 260 load has very nice long range ballistics. I also noticed that they have a few 6.5×284 loads, but they are not loaded very hot and don’t appear to be much to write about. I have not tried any of this ammo yet to know how accurate it is, but its nice to see the .260 gain some more offerings. The down side is the cost, with street prices near $40 a box.

Well, since there was interest, and there were no other dealers of the Falcon Optics in the USA, I figured we might as well lead the charge! After I reviewed the Merlin (http://www.snipercentral.com/falcon.htm) I was favorably impressed with the product and what it offered and thought we might as well offer them here in the USA and see how they sell. We will be handling the warranty, which is 5 years from defect, and are an exclusive dealer. You can find them in the store here:

http://www.snipercentral.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=52

Well, since my last blog post was about a new Bushnell 4200 tactical scope, I figured I’d stick to the Bushnell theme! I order in some of the original Bushnell 10x tactical scopes to sell in the Sniper Store. You can find them at this url:

http://www.snipercentral.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=51

Of course, you can read SC review from a few years ago here:

http://www.snipercentral.com/bushtact.htm

Most of the review is still accurate, though my reviews now are a bit more in depth. The scopes are good for the money, they are solid, Bushnell stands behind them, and the optical quality is decent. I don’t have any reservation using them on various rifles and I have had good luck with them. Of course, your mileage my vary. But for a tactical scope for the money, its a good place to start. We’ll see how they sell, I wouldn’t mind keeping them in stock with a few other select scopes.