Quandary
WKR
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2023
- Messages
- 439
Last fall I bought a left handed vintage (mid 80s) Sako 338WM from the classifieds on Rokslide. I didn't want a 338WM and the rifle looked to be in bad condition, but the price was right so WTH I took a flier. Seller picture, I bought the rifle on top.
The rifle arrived to my FFL with an absolutely horrendous boxing job, but nothing was broken. The barrel and stock were as suspected in terrible shape. I disassembled the rifle and tossed the barrel and stock. The action, a Sako AV (long magnum action), was in good working order but had been "parkerized" and did not look to good. The old rings of course were useless.
First thing was to decide what to do with the action. Given its age I decided to go old school and build a Super 30 (300H&H). Bartlein had a .308 1/8 twist 5R #3b barrel in stock. Drove down the road 10 miles bought the barrel. Frank had a 300H&H reamer on order, perfect, Bartlein could chamber and thread the barrel. Frank also said he could sand blast the action for me to remove all the parkerizing. Here is the new barrel on the sandblasted receiver
Next was stock, optics attachment and trigger. There are not many options for these items for old Sako actions.There are some however. McMillan still inlets some of their stocks for Sako AV's, Timney still makes triggers and a fella in Canada makes rails to fit the Sako AV dovetail mounting on the top of the receiver. Near Rail.
I ordered a McMillan carbon Game Warden and a new Timney trigger. The stock arrived in May.
Next on the agenda was getting the rifle Cerakoted. Took the barreled action and bits and pieces to a local guy that does great work and got that done. I had the cerakoting done in a color to match one of the colors in the stock.
Finally bedding and assembly and a new rifle.
Just finishing shooting a couple of boxes of factory rounds through it before developing a load.
Shoots great! 300H&H rounds chamber very smoothly due to the sloped cartridge.shoulder. Recoil with the TBAC Ultra 9 is not very heavy. For hunting rounds due to the box length and long cartridge going to have to go with old school bullets, think Nosler Accubonds and Partitions, Sierra Match or Game Kings, Woodleighs PPs etc.
All in all it was a fun project to find all the parts that would make this project come together and end up with a rifle I am very happy with.
The rifle arrived to my FFL with an absolutely horrendous boxing job, but nothing was broken. The barrel and stock were as suspected in terrible shape. I disassembled the rifle and tossed the barrel and stock. The action, a Sako AV (long magnum action), was in good working order but had been "parkerized" and did not look to good. The old rings of course were useless.
First thing was to decide what to do with the action. Given its age I decided to go old school and build a Super 30 (300H&H). Bartlein had a .308 1/8 twist 5R #3b barrel in stock. Drove down the road 10 miles bought the barrel. Frank had a 300H&H reamer on order, perfect, Bartlein could chamber and thread the barrel. Frank also said he could sand blast the action for me to remove all the parkerizing. Here is the new barrel on the sandblasted receiver
Next was stock, optics attachment and trigger. There are not many options for these items for old Sako actions.There are some however. McMillan still inlets some of their stocks for Sako AV's, Timney still makes triggers and a fella in Canada makes rails to fit the Sako AV dovetail mounting on the top of the receiver. Near Rail.
I ordered a McMillan carbon Game Warden and a new Timney trigger. The stock arrived in May.
Next on the agenda was getting the rifle Cerakoted. Took the barreled action and bits and pieces to a local guy that does great work and got that done. I had the cerakoting done in a color to match one of the colors in the stock.
Finally bedding and assembly and a new rifle.
Just finishing shooting a couple of boxes of factory rounds through it before developing a load.
Shoots great! 300H&H rounds chamber very smoothly due to the sloped cartridge.shoulder. Recoil with the TBAC Ultra 9 is not very heavy. For hunting rounds due to the box length and long cartridge going to have to go with old school bullets, think Nosler Accubonds and Partitions, Sierra Match or Game Kings, Woodleighs PPs etc.
All in all it was a fun project to find all the parts that would make this project come together and end up with a rifle I am very happy with.
