Im buying a rifle for PRS/NRL competitions soon. 6.5CM
I have it narrowed down to Havok Hit or dropping a CTR 24" in an Envy Pro chassis
I like the envy chassis better (looks more conducive to my style), but have concerns with the tikka barrel profile for PRS. Of course I could repkace it with m24 profile once i shoot out the stock barrel.
Either choice would have the folding mechanism and NVM installed so I can go thumb over bore.
A distant third option would be tikka in an acc elite chassis, but Its a more expensive chassis, and not sure it its worth it with the CTR barrel.
I ran a tikka action in a KRG X-Ray chassis for many years in PRS competitions. Their actions are very smooth, and their barrels are very accurate. I never competed with the tikka barrel, but i’m sure it would do just fine. The most you’ll be shooting typically on a stage is 12 rounds, and most stages are less (8-10 rounds), so I think you’ll be ok on barrel heat. And i’ve also run a XLR chassis quite a bit, and like them alot.
The trend these days seems to be heavy rigs that produce almost no recoil, and most people compete with a 6mm variant, but 6.5 always works well (and easier to spot impacts at the long distance targets). I don’t have any experience with the Havoc HIT, but i’d probably lean towards getting the chassis that you like, and building up from there.
Look at it this way, while you shake out your gear, rifle, etc on the first season, you will go through the barrel-then you can decide what you need barrel wise or a whole new gun.
I was dead set on the tikka, got tired of waiting for mdt to release the tikka acc elite and bought the solus.
Acc elite tikka came out same week I recieved my barreled action lmfao.
I will say, the solus was rough outta the box, but ive been working it (few hundred cycles with a couple cleanings in between) and its smoothed up nicely. Unless the barrel is 100% dogshit, ill be content, burn this out and rebarrel with some 6mm bartlien or something.
My only “regret” about the AI is that AI has never supported the WSM bolt face in their rifles. It would be nice to get a .300 WSM or .325 WSM tube spun up for whacking bigger critters if I wanted to use it as a hunting rig, albeit a hefty one.
Otherwise the 6.5mm Creedmoor barrel will be fine to bang steel with on the local 800 yard range, until I burn it out and then go from there. Maybe replace it with a 6 Creed, or 6 GT. At some point I’ll probably buy a pre-fit .22 Creedmoor barrel since factory brass is available now to use on prairie dogs.
For now I will be a bit under-scoped with an old Nightforce NXS 3.5-15X50 but it should do fine for known distances out to 800 yards.
I don’t know if my permanent optic solution will be a 30mm tube or not, so I’m just cooling my jets on optic mounting solutions much more than $200 at this time.
Plus with only a 50mm objective to clear right now with a total outside diameter of 2.325” I only need a scope ring/base of 1.16”+ height at the center to clear a totally flat rail. With the pic rail on top of the receiver I should have room to spare even with a sunshade with the rings I ordered which are 28mm while still keeping it reasonably low over the bore axis.
