I've got a friend with a T3 Lite in .30-06 who was having accuracy issues, and sent her rifle back to Tikka and was told there was bore damage from a squib load that left a bullet in the barrel to be ejected by the next round. Sounds fishy to me. Usually a moving object at .30-06 velocities that impacts a non-moving object would cause more damage than just a few dinged rifling lands. I have not seen the rifle yet, but Tikka told her the damage was ~3" from the end of the bore. Am thinking the 22" barrel could be shortened to 18" with only a small loss of velocity, but regain the accuracy with a new crown.
New Tikka barrels are, well, spendy.
Thoughts?
A local 'smith said cutting the barrel back would be on the order of 200 simoleons.