Is it possible to top-load a T3x, as with a M70 or M700?
Also, is the magazine a single stack mag, or staggered?
Bonus question - what about the Sako C19?
Thanks!
Is it possible to top-load a T3x, as with a M70 or M700?
Also, is the magazine a single stack mag, or staggered?
Bonus question - what about the Sako C19?
Thanks!
The magazine has feed lips that with the magazine inserted into the rifle will prevent you from pushing a round down into the magazine that has been inserted through the ejection port.
You can chamber a round by inserting it through the ejection port and with your fingers holding the top round that is in the magazine in place, (thereby preventing a double feed type situation) tilting the rifle forward and working the bolt so it rides over the rim of the rounds that are in the magazine. This will allow you to chamber a round and have a full magazine.
I don't do this method myself but you can do it.
I cannot think of any, but there are so many bargain basement cheeseball rifles out there these days that I am not the right guy to ask. I tend to go without for a while longer and then buy a better gun that I am most likely to have success with. Then keep it for years and shoot the snot out of it. I know that AI pattern mags work very well, as do Sako mags.
BTW I forgot to address the OP's other question. The Tikka T3/T3X are single stack mags. They are polymer. Sometimes people initially complain about them being "plastic". My Glock has "plastic" mags too. The Tikka mags I have have given excellent service in some pretty cold weather and unfavorable conditions.
My Savage 11 DBM will load top load through the ejection port if I don't want to drop the magazine. Works just like my brother's blind magazine Savage 11, but I can unload faster when we get back to the truck.
They did change the magazine design some time after I bought that rifle, but I don't *think* that it was changed so much that it won't still top load.
Don’t the AI AW mags top feed? They are double stack/double feed. Any action that uses the AW mags should be able to top feed assuming the ejection port is big enough for your fingers. There are a few custom actions out there that I believe use the AW mags. Terminus Zeus comes to mind, but I could be wrong. Or just forgo the DBM and run something with an internal mag (BDL) should be able to top feed.
You can top-load anything that was designed to be loaded from a stripper clip and a couple of oddities, some are not even bolt guns, like Winchester 1895. Mosin-Nagant for sure, although nobody but Russians hunts with those things anymore. All guns based on Mauser 98 action are included, such as Winchester Model 70, including not just "pre-64", but the current production ones.
I have a predecessor of T3, a Tikka M695. It has a single stack magazine and cannot be top-loaded aside from using it as a single shot (thankfully it's a push feed).
For some of the most annoying guns like that, you can buy 3D-printed inserts that replace magazines and allow cartridges loaded single to feed properly. I'm pretty sure I saw some of them for old French bolt guns like Bertier perhaps.
I like to top load at the bench. I found that by inserting an earplug into the magazine of my 595 I was able to keep the follower down enough to allow single-feeding from the top.
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