First time on this forum. Just got lucky to find it. I have been hunting with a Sako L61R Finnbear Deluxe in .270Win since I was about 12 years old. That was 50 years ago. My father was in the Air Force and bought this rifle along with a couple of others to include a 7mm Rem Mag and a .223 Deluxe Vixen. Since then, he has been trying to fill out a collection of the older Sako Deluxe rifles and probably has about 8 in total. That's the background story. Here is my current issue.
This past weekend, I was checking zero on my rifle before a hunting trip I leave for on Friday. On my fifth shot, I had a failure of the bullet casing around the primer. The load actually blew a hole through the brass next to the primer. The blow back disengaged the extractor from the bolt and stuck it to the wall of the chamber. That opened a channel for the powder residue to pump right back towards my face (if you ever questioned wearing eye protection while shooting, let me tell you don't question it, do it). After getting home and actually investigating the failure, the extractor detent and spring were still in place. I was able to dislodge the extractor from the chamber. I put the extractor back on bolt and I am able to cycle rounds through the chamber. I do not know if the firing pin was damaged. I will not shoot this rifle again until I can get it to a gunsmith for inspection and he confirms the rifle is safe. That me scrambling for a rifle to use this coming week, but I have that worked out now. It will be either the aforementioned 7mm or my nephews Savage in .300WSM.
This also left me with a desire to have a second hunting rifle in my inventory in the event this ever happens again or if the .270 is damaged beyond repair. I have been researching the .300WSM for some time. Slightly better performance than the .300 Win Mag, but a bit higher cost per round. That isn't so much an issue since I plan to reload (if I can ever find the components). Down the road, I want to mount the new Swarovski DS scope. Orginally, the scope had a 40mm tube and only about 2 companies made rings to fit. The new scopes have the Swarovski SR mounting rail. I have been looking at how to mount this and there seems to be few companies that support the SR mounting rail and Sako dovetails. But this leads me to my ultimate question. Does anyone know the length of the receiver ejection port opening on the Sako 85 in .300WSM? Sako says size S/SM, but not all companies reference that sizing. Some use the actual metric distance in millimeters. If you know that distance, can you please let me know. I am trying to do as much research as possible before committing to this purchase.
This past weekend, I was checking zero on my rifle before a hunting trip I leave for on Friday. On my fifth shot, I had a failure of the bullet casing around the primer. The load actually blew a hole through the brass next to the primer. The blow back disengaged the extractor from the bolt and stuck it to the wall of the chamber. That opened a channel for the powder residue to pump right back towards my face (if you ever questioned wearing eye protection while shooting, let me tell you don't question it, do it). After getting home and actually investigating the failure, the extractor detent and spring were still in place. I was able to dislodge the extractor from the chamber. I put the extractor back on bolt and I am able to cycle rounds through the chamber. I do not know if the firing pin was damaged. I will not shoot this rifle again until I can get it to a gunsmith for inspection and he confirms the rifle is safe. That me scrambling for a rifle to use this coming week, but I have that worked out now. It will be either the aforementioned 7mm or my nephews Savage in .300WSM.
This also left me with a desire to have a second hunting rifle in my inventory in the event this ever happens again or if the .270 is damaged beyond repair. I have been researching the .300WSM for some time. Slightly better performance than the .300 Win Mag, but a bit higher cost per round. That isn't so much an issue since I plan to reload (if I can ever find the components). Down the road, I want to mount the new Swarovski DS scope. Orginally, the scope had a 40mm tube and only about 2 companies made rings to fit. The new scopes have the Swarovski SR mounting rail. I have been looking at how to mount this and there seems to be few companies that support the SR mounting rail and Sako dovetails. But this leads me to my ultimate question. Does anyone know the length of the receiver ejection port opening on the Sako 85 in .300WSM? Sako says size S/SM, but not all companies reference that sizing. Some use the actual metric distance in millimeters. If you know that distance, can you please let me know. I am trying to do as much research as possible before committing to this purchase.