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Jimro asks if a stressed barrel doesn't shoot as well as a stress relieved barrel, how can Tikka make an accurate rifle with a hammer forged barrel?
Same way Winchester did with their hammer forged barrels used in their Model 70 .308 Win. match rifles. Those barrels had stress direction outward from the bore pretty darned equal in all radial directions. Just the opposite of a button rifled barrel with stress forces inward. Both were not much and played no part in the accuracy attainable.
Win. 70 hammer forged match barrels (available at retail) were often used in M1A and M1 match conditioned rifles in 7.62 NATO. While they were profiled the whole length to fit the rifle, their bore and groove diameters remained uniform enough to shoot good lots of M118 match ammo and handloads with Lapua D46 185-gr. bullets inside 4 to 5 inches at 600 yards. Both bullets had diameters larger than the barrel's groove diameter. No point of impact changes observed as they heated up from ambient to way too hot to touch.
On the other hand, Win. 70 hammer forged match barrels did tend to open up a bit under the flutes when so modified. The change in bore/groove diameters at the ends of the flutes did tend to degrade accuracy a little bit.
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