I think that the build in "find in files" operation uses a Python variant of ack. If you set up the exclude patterns correctly for the project, then you can gain a lot of speed. It is inconvenient for some file types that you have to list all extensions (e.g. having to list *.c and *.h to get all C files). But other than that, it works nicely.
after working with ACK for quite a long time, i was just introduced to "The Silver Searcher" aka "AG" which does exactly the same, but i way faster : https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher
I made a plugin which lets you search in project using both Ack and AG, and some more utilities: https://github.com/leonid-shevtsov/SearchInProject_SublimeText2
Ideas
after working with ACK for quite a long time, i was just introduced to "The Silver Searcher" aka "AG" which does exactly the same, but i way faster : https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher
I made a plugin which lets you search in project using both Ack and AG, and some more utilities: https://github.com/leonid-shevtsov/SearchInProject_SublimeText2