Any experience with a Tula T0Z 78-04?

[Ledd Slinger]

I was running to all the sporting goods stores looking for a handy bolt action 22lr for my son when I came accross this little Russian made rifle at a local pawn shop.

Tho i havent shot it yet, I gotta say I am really impressed with this rifle. The trigger is absolutely perfect. It has a two stage externally adjustable trigger that when set to the minimum weight, breaks like glass at under a pound. The first stage of pull is nice and smooth and the second stage has no creep before or after the trigger releases. Very nice. I would compare the second stage to how my Jewell triggers feel. It's really that good.

Ran a bore scope in the barrel and came away equally as impressed. Good even cutting on the lands/crown and beautiful shiny smooth finish in the grooves with nice sharp rifling all the way down. No pitting or tooling marks. Judging by the finish, the barrel had to have been lapped at the factory.

The action is fit so perfectly to the stock that I decided there was no reason for bedding. I opened the barrel channel up a bit and placed a 'U' shaped aluminum foil shim under the front of the receiver to float the barrel enough where I could slide 4 dollar bills under it all the way to the receiver. The barrel is also threaded for a supressor and has a thread protector on it.

Came with open sights that have a really cool rear rotary sight for 25, 50, 75, and 100 yards. I ordered a dovetail to picatinny rail adapter for it. When that arrives, I'm going to mount a 4-16x44 illuminated riflescope on it.

I think it was a really good buy from what I saw on my initial inspection. Read a bunch of reviews and people rave about how accurate they are. From what I've seen so far, I think I will experience excellent accuracy as well.

Any of you ever shot one or own one? What are your thoughts/experiences? Thanks.

 

[boltfluter]

Led,
If it shoots better shimmed I would go ahead and bed it to alleviate any stress to the action.

Paul

www.boltfluting.com

 

[Ledd Slinger]

Led,
If it shoots better shimmed I would go ahead and bed it to alleviate any stress to the action.

Paul

www.boltfluting.com

Yeah I'll have to see. The shim allowed me to free float the barrel without having to remove a lot of material on the forend barrel channel. If it shoots good, I'll leave it. Otherwise I'll throw some Devcon under the front and rear of the receiver. The shim is about 1/2" wide and over an inch long in a U shape so it supports the front of the receiver pretty well. Gonna try to shoot it this weekend. That will let me know if bedding will be worth the time and effort.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

Well got out and shot it. Below is a 5 shot group at 50 yards. If I had a proper sized front bag for the skinny fore arm to give a more steady rest, I truly believe it would have shot even better. Pretty shaky when the front bag is meant for a 3" flat fore arm. But the best part was I boresighted it by eyeballing the bore on the target then adjusting the scope knobs and it hit right in the bullseye on the first cold bore shot and stayed in the bull for the whole group. Bet I couldnt pull that bore sight off again. Lol. Definitely gonna have to see how it does at 100 yards. Not too bad for a $125 used pawn shop rifle.

Also some pics of the rifle below. I decided to re-finish the stock completely so it didn't look so used. Went with a color scheme I've never tried before. I kinda like it. My son loved the colors so that what really counts