Tikka T3 bolt difficult to close

[MariettaGuy]

I picked up a gently used Tikka T3 lite in 243 recently for my young son to shoot. At the range he had difficulty closing the bolt so I assumed he was just weak and inexperienced cycling the bolt. When I assisted, I noticed it was difficult to close compared to other almost any other bolt action I have. We were shooting factory ammo. It seems I have to push it forward hard before it will lock downward. Any recommendations on smoothing this out?

 

[benjamin]

sounds like factory ammo is not properly loaded to overall bullet length , never had this with any of my tikkas

 

[ErfurtLuger]

I've had a similar problem with a Tikka T3 in .243 few years ago, I thought the factory ammo wasn't loaded to proper length. Try different ammo!