New Tikka T3x CTR scratched barrel

[Corfius]

Hi,

New guy here so I'm asking for advice. This is my first precision rifle and I took it out of the box today.

Before my first cleaning I noticed a scratch near the crown. It's about half an inch long.

Any idea what should I do or try ?

I tried to remove it with bore solvent, a qtip and a nylon brush as I thought about cooper fouling from the factory. It did nothing.

Should I just return it ? Try to shoot it anyway ? Keep in mind I want to use it as my entry ticket for LR shooting.

I own a couple of hunting rifles and I've never seen something like that.

Figured I would just ask experienced shooters before. Pictures aren't perfect but it's the best I could do.

Thanks

 

[tlear]

I would shoot it.

 

[BuLLet]

How long have you had it? If it's recently purchased, bring it back to the dealer and show it to them. That doesn't look very good, if it is indeed a marked up land. Looks like a pilot could have done that when they cut the crown.

 

[m1match]

Rifle barrels, particularly factory barrels are going to have imperfections in them. I'd go shoot it and if it shoots well that's all that matters.

 

[Corfius]

I decided to shoot it. Ended up with .8 to 1.8 inch 5 shots groups at 100y which seems good enough. I had factory hunting ammo and Hornady match ammo (match ammo being constantly around 1 inch or below).

I'm not a terrible shooter but I'm not a pro either.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[b6graham]

The hornady match should shoot sub-moa pretty easily

If you're a new shooter and getting that performance i wouldn't worry too much unless you see legit odd uncalled flyers considerably away from the group