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I found a nice node in a buddy's older Tikka 30.06 with the 168gr Berger classic hunter, 3.340 COAL, 48.5gr Varget, Norma Brass and Fed 210 Primer. It just made the same hole bigger.

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My recommendation is to work up an Optimum Charge weight for your rifle with a specific powder and bullet.
1. Start with what you want to shoot (Target, Hunting, Both? – which game?) If Deer is your primary, then 140gr or 150gr is going to be just fine with 140gr being the primary popular weight. Select your bullet. If you are going to have some long range shots, I prefer Berger – they are consistent and shoot well. But the Nosler Ballistic Tips are fine too. So pick your bullet.
2. Select your recipe as a starting point. I have a Tikka T3x Lite SS and found some ideal charge weights of 47.5gr of RL19 or 41.8gr Varget, loaded with a COAL of 2.803 and using the Berger 140gr VLD. Note that the Max load of the Varget is 41.7 so follow at your own risk.
3. I load 3 rounds at 2 or 3 gr intervals and usually 5 – so 41.6, 41.4, 41.2, 41.0 and 41.8 gr. Load all of these at the same COAL AND CBTO.
4. I set up 5 targets and shoot one of each round at each target waiting 2 min between shots and dry patch clean after each 5 shot round (Load and extra one and fire first as fouling shot).
5. You will easily be able to spot your optimum charge weight for the bullet and powder.
6. You can repeat the process with the charge weight and start to play with your COAL/CBTO – same process just loaded with different COAL lengths. If you are shooting a magazine based deal like I am you are going to be restricted to a max COAL of 2.806 +/-. So the only direction you have to go is shorter for your COAL's. But  I would look at .002 increments.
Good Luck.

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Try RL19 47.5 gr and load the Berger to 2.805 or so. Had great luck with them. Even at 48 and 48.5.
I think the 2.80 to 2.808 COAL is good for my T3x in 7mm-08
Good luck

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My T3x 7mm-08 really likes the Berger VLD and the Nosler Ballistic tip in 140gr. I played with several charges and the ones you might want to try are:

140gr Berger VLD with 47.5gr RL19 with a COAL of 2.805. Norma Brass, Fed 210 Primer (.546 MOA)
140gr Berger VLD with 37gr N150 COAL from 2.74 to 2.802 and it averaged .571 MOA.
140gr Nosler BT with 47.5gr RL19 2.81 COAL and it shot .371 MOA.

Somewhere in there is a sweet spot for sure. Dumb luck as these were the first accuracy loads I tried. Basically all the charge weights from here up all shot sub 1 MOA. The RL 19 loads I then shot at 250 and yds to test my zero in a 10mph cross wind (1.7MOA) and it was dead on.

Good luck!

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I was faced with the same question and decided to go the picatinny rail and seekins low rings. Rock solid and worth a small premium over the factory rings. Great website to double check scope height is here: http://www.mil-rad.com
They have a great scope ring height and clearance calculator. You will not be disappointed with Seekins.
Good luck!