Story and Photos by Dave Campbell
Editor in Chief
During the past 40 years Thompson/Center has established an enviable reputation for producing accurate, reliable and versatile single-shot, centerfire pistols and rifles. Geared almost exclusively toward the hunter, T/C’s Contender and Encore series, along with its muzzleloaders, have been the benchmark single shots for hunters. Such success begged the question for those four decades, “When will T/C make a repeating centerfire?” It’s here.
Drawing heavily from modern benchrest and tactical rifle designs, the Icon features a very rigid receiver with a flat bottom and three distinct recoil lugs. Unlike earlier T/C guns, the Icon’s receiver does not start as an investment casting; it is completely machined from bar stock. |
The Thompson/Center Icon may very well be the first truly new American-made bolt-action, repeating rifle in more than a half century. Certainly there have been many bolt-action repeaters introduced in the last 50 years, but most are knockoffs of existing designs, perhaps with a few semi-custom enhancements to add individuality. But I know of no other bolt-action rifle receiver that has been designed and built from the ground up during that time by a major manufacturer. And while its design and features embody a plethora of modern characteristics to make the most obtuse rifle enthusiast giddy, the truly amazing thing is the Icon came about from concept, decision to build, design, testing and manufacture in less than a year.
The Rundown
According to T/C president Gregg Ritz, during the plane ride back to New Hampshire from the Safari Club International convention in February last year, all they had to go on was a handful of ideas and a decision to “go for it.” What next? Ritz’s vision was to produce a bolt-action repeater that embodied every desirable modern feature—accurate out of the box, utterly reliable, user friendly and pleasing to the eye—at a price point to make it competitive with the big-box discount stores. “I wanted a rifle that people will be proud to own. In fact, I want custom rifle makers to use this receiver as a basis for their guns,” Ritz told me. Rather than simply put together the rifle he liked, Ritz and lead designer Mark Laney sought out some of the best riflemen in the country and picked their brains as to what the ultimate bolt-action repeater should be. Among those consulted were Shooting Illustrated contributors Ian McMurchy and Wayne van Zwoll.
Disassembly of the bolt can be done without tools and reveals another novel idea: interchangeable bolt handles. Thompson/Center’s ties with European styling carry over to the modified butterknife bolt handle, but a more traditional round and an oversized tactical handle will also be available. |
Of primary importance, the rifle must be accurate. Many manufacturers know how to make accurate barrels and free-float them within the stock, but the benchrest and tactical crowd has become catatonically focused on accuracy, especially as it relates to the receiver, for years. Existing actions have been sleeved, beefed up, squared and blueprinted in an effort to stiffen them and make them more consistent. One of the first things you notice when looking over the Icon is its rather small ejection port. The gaping span between two receiver rings typical of the Mauser and its derivatives is gone. That span was necessary in the early military bolt guns to facilitate loading an integral box magazine from above, but the Icon’s magazine is detachable. It’s only logical, then, to close up the receiver and make it more rigid.
Thompson/Center has long used high-grade investment castings for its receivers. Investment casting has been somewhat of a salvation to several American gunmakers, given the stratospheric cost of skilled labor in this country. So imagine the raised eyebrows when T/C announced the Icon’s receiver is milled from bar stock—not investment cast, not forged, but machined completely from a single piece of steel. What was that I just said about American labor costs? Well, of course, no longer does a skilled machinist hover over a lathe and milling machine adjusting speeds and feeds and taking cuts in several passes, while ensuring all the backlash is out of the tool post by a sense of feel developed over several years experience. Today’s modern machining centers operate on as many as seven different axes and are capable of holding tolerances measured in single-digit-ten-thousandths of an inch. Ritz invested several million dollars in these machining centers, and the result is T/C can take a piece of bar stock, put it through several dozen machining operations and turn out a receiver ready for tumbling and finishing in 41 minutes flat. Pretty neat, but what does this have to do with making the Icon more accurate? Recall the blueprinting and squaring done to other mass-produced receivers? It’s all taken care of during that 41-minute machining operation.
A full-diameter, three-lug bolt offers a couple of advantages: a shorter, 60-degree lift and a lack of roughly broached raceways. Bolt cycling in the Icon is extremely smooth and quiet. |
The criteria T/C established for the Icon—accuracy, reliability, ease of use and aesthetics—are not independent characteristics. Like a giant molecule—a rifle molecule, if you will—each is linked with the other. For what good is an accurate hunting rifle if it doesn’t go bang every time the trigger is pulled; or if it is so ungainly to operate the shooter spends more time fumbling with it in the field than dealing with the task at hand (putting meat on the pole); or if he is compelled to stick camo tape over the rifle, not to hide it from game animals, but from his cronies as to not have to endure their cruel remarks about ol’ Joe and his ugly huntin’ stick?
Thompson/Center has addressed those matters. The Icon features a full-diameter, three-lug bolt that has—get this—interchangeable bolt handles! A full-diameter bolt means the receiver does not need bolt-lug raceways broached into it. The opening for the bolt is perfectly round, and because the machining centers are so versatile, that hole can actually be honed to a perfect mirror finish. That means the bolt slides back and forth like it is on ball bearings, making it not only easier to operate, but very quiet. Three lugs on the bolt ensure it transfers the thrust of the firing cartridge to the receiver squarely—further enhancing accuracy—and as another benefit, allow for a shallower, 60-degree bolt lift. Maybe interchangeable bolt handles don’t help in the accuracy department, but there is a very practical argument in favor of such an arrangement. The four examples of the Icon I have seen possessed a modified butterknife bolt handle, keeping with the European-styling thrust that has been a T/C hallmark. I confess it isn’t a favorite of mine, but for guys like me there will be a traditional round-knob bolt handle that can be installed in seconds by simply taking down the bolt as one normally would for cleaning and lubrication. There’s even an oversized tactical bolt handle—something I might opt for on a cold December whitetail stand where I would be wearing gloves and would not want to bare my hand to operate a rifle chilled to sub-zero temperature. All of the four working prototypes I examined have a push-feed bolt with the normal hook extractor and plunger ejector, but Ritz says they are working on a controlled-round-feed bolt. I’m guessing it will be similar to the Winchester controlled-round, push-feed bolt. Another nod to modern requirements, the rear of the bolt has a massive cocking indicator that makes it easy to see or feel whether the bolt is ready to fire.
An otherwise bulky and heavy receiver is lightened by stylish sculpting cuts during its machining. The bolt release at the rear of the receiver is sleek and well designed. |
On the topside of the receiver T/C has done something all manufacturers should have made standard 50 years ago. It has machined integral scope-ring bases onto the Icon’s receiver. A couple of other manufacturers have done that—Ruger and Sako—but why it has failed to become a universal component in all rifles suitable for a scope is beyond me. I have had my fair share of scopes getting knocked catawampus. In every case, something in the mount moved. Fewer mechanical attachment points for a riflescope simply reduces the chance it will be knocked out of alignment when you slip and fall or the horse you rode to that great elk spot has a fit and pitches your rifle from the scabbard. The stout Picatinny-rail-style bases look a bit ungainly at first, but I soon got used to them with a scope aboard, and they accept Weaver-style rings as well.
Since the Icon’s receiver is machined, it can be virtually any shape desired. There have been some problems—or the perception thereof—with round receivers twisting in the stock. These receivers are made from tubing, and the only options to limit twisting are a thicker washer-type recoil lug or welding secondary lugs to the bottom of the receiver. Thompson/Center not only milled a flat on the bottom of the receiver, it also machined three separate recoil lugs there to mate with corresponding recesses in an aluminum bedding block.
Nice Wood
That bedding block, which is corrugated about its perimeter, is epoxied into the stock while still in the inletting fixture just after the inletting is completed. The corrugation increases the surface area bonded to the wood, and setting it immediately after inletting while the stock is in the fixture all but eliminates any tendency to wander. Holding the barreled action into the stock are three Allen-head screws, two of which hold the trigger guard in place.
The Icon’s detachable box magazine tapers toward the top to provide the capacity of a staggered magazine with the reliability of a straight, center-feed design. It fits flush with the belly of the stock. |
Thompson/Center has been known for its better-quality walnut. It wasn’t that many years ago the company operated its own sawmill and harv-ested walnut from property it owned or leased. Ritz said he wanted to continue that legacy, so the Icon is cloaked in a nicer-than-average piece of American black walnut. In an interesting departure from the single-shot rifles, the Icon’s stock is pure classic—no cheekpiece, no Monte Carlo, and the fore-end profile is fully round. A nice grade of walnut commands better than the standard coarse checkering found on a lot of modern guns. The Icon sports borderless, 20 line-per-inch, cut checkering in somewhat generous panels, each with a tasteful ribbon. I’d like to see it wrap around the grip and fore-end, but for a rifle slated to retail at less than $700, cut checkering at 20 lines per inch and walnut with real figure in it is a heck of a bargain alone.
The detachable magazine that feeds the Icon borrows its design from double-stack pistol magazines. Cartridges are held in a staggered column, and the magazine tapers toward the top centerline to provide a straight shot into the chamber. A spring-loaded latch retains the magazine in the rifle, and plans are for the magazine to have spring-assisted ejection—release the catch, and it is pushed into your awaiting hand. Like a lot of things, I tend to be old school when it comes to magazines. Perhaps it’s simply that I am so familiar with traditional staggered-column, Mauser-style magazines, but in reality for the vast majority of American hunters pursuing whitetails in modern hunting conditions, the detachable magazine makes perfect sense. Many of today’s hunters are in and out of trucks and treestands several times a day, and the detachable magazine is neat and handy for these folks. Cartridges don’t spill out of the hand onto the ground while clearing the rifle for transport, yet the magazine can be put back in service fairly quickly if needed. I’m still not sure I’d want a detachable magazine on a rifle intended for game that bites back, but for the “keep on truckin’” set it’s probably fine.
Picatinny-style scope bases are machined into the Icon. This makes for one less point that can loosen in the field and should have been made standard on all sporting rifles long ago. |
Triggers have been a pet peeve of mine for a long time. As I came of age, manufacturing trends were all about making a product cheaper to remain competitive in the marketplace. Fire-control systems typically needed more human “hand time” to be crisp, light and reliable, so product quality took a backseat to the bottom line. Then we got into the ’90s, and lawyers began dictating trigger requirements, some of which seemed to specify that the trigger be capable of holding the weight of the gun without firing. Too, several manufacturers made it difficult, if not impossible, for the end user to adjust the trigger to his liking. Happily, that trend appears to have been reversed. Thompson/Center designed the Icon’s trigger to be adjustable by the end user from 2 1⁄2 to 6 pounds without removing the barreled action from the stock. A tool supplied with the rifle makes this an easy job. The prototype examples we had to work with on a Kentucky whitetail hunt in November 2006 had triggers set about 3 to 31⁄2 pounds—acceptable for most hunters.
The first examples of the Icon—which is planned to be available by April—will be in .308 Winchester-length cartridges, including a new chambering called the .30 TC. Ritz eventually wants a long action to handle .30-06-length cartridges and even a magnum-length action is planned. Our rifles for the Kentucky hunt were all chambered in
.308 Winchester because the shoulder dimensions of the .30 TC were being finalized at the time. My example put three shots of Hornady 155-grain TAP ammo into 3⁄4 inch at the 100-yard line. All of the rifles on this hunt turned in similar performance. Regrettably I was unable to close the deal and put one of those 155-grainers into a whitetail, but it wasn’t the fault of the rifle.
Very well executed 20-line-per-inch, borderless cut checkering with a ribbon through each of the four panels is a feature usually reserved for rifles costing more than a grand. That, along with the superior grade of walnut used for the stock, really sets the Icon apart from other rifles. |
We often get caught up in superlative descriptors when it comes to new products. New and improved, innovative, the best—all are well-worn ways of describing guns and their accessories. Nonetheless, what Ritz and his team of designers and manufacturing managers have accomplished is truly remarkable. To take a product from concept through launch in less than a year is almost unheard of. Will the Icon replace the Model 70 or Model 700 as the American sporting rifle of choice, living up to its moniker? My crystal ball isn’t that good. But I think a lot of riflemen are going to look closely at it, perhaps shoot it, and I believe most of them will like what they see—an accurate, reliable and handsome rifle with the features many have been asking for in one package with an MSRP of $699.
