Tikka T3x pressure point under barrel
 

I am tweaking and reloading for 2 Tikka T3x, one blue barrel and one SS, both synthetic. I noticed both barrels touching stock's plastic dam somewehere a few inches before the receiver (reinforcing section between the stock side walls). I wonder how you guys treat this? By theory free bloat barrel is the way to go but maybe Tikka does this for a reason.

With my T-3 Varmint, and CTR rifles ,I removed material to fully float the barrels. All shoot sub 1/2moa for five shots.

How does it shoot?
I have 5 tikkas factory stocked rifles, made up great loads for them, all shoot around .5 to .75 inch groups. Seem to fine for me......

I’ve got 2 T3’s and they both shot good before I removed the material to make them both full float like elk did. And they both shot good after too. Can’t say if it’s better before or after, I’m not a good enough of a trigger guy to make that determination.

I have a t3 that shoots ridiculous good groups. This winter it started grouping 3” high then 3” low then eventually 12” high and left. (All at 200 yds) one of the ribs Of the stock was pushing hard on the barrel possibly due to cold weather🤔. I’ve changed the stock to a bell and Carlson but have yet to try it.

I'd check all fasteners and confirm scope hasn't taken a dump. The factory stock would be down the list of suspects with that squirrelly of behaviour. YMMV. :)

I read a rather comprehensive post about this topic on tikka shooters when I was researching the same thing. What the poster said was that by confirmation of manufacturer the pressure point is there to help reinforce the stock from cracking. You will notice on the wood stock variants this pressure point does not exist. If this is true then you could probably be safe to remove if not shooting a magnum cartridge. I have had several tikkas that shoot great with the point still there.