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Sako Extractor

WayneShaw

I know I'm going to get slammed with all kinds of "don't do that"....The ejector spring thread got me thinking. Many new custom high priced actions come with Sako style extractors. Many good smiths have installed Sako extractors. I have both bought and installed Sako extractors on my own guns.

A properly installed Sako extractor will work reliably and smoothly for decades. Done right, you can pull a case out of the chamber, SLOWLY, and when it clears, it dumps the case right below your gun. Granted, tuning the ejector is involved. You don't want the case sent into the next zipcode, but done right, they are awesome.

I have done another bolt with a M-16 extractor, (my own) but haven't gotten to the point of testing yet. I know the argument of "it is pinned", but if a case blows, that pin aint gonna save you.

Before laying blame on an extractor, a case blows for other reasons.

Flame away.
 
About four years ago I converted my favorite Right/Left Farley 6PPC to a drop port using a Sako Extractor.

I knew going in that if I ever blow a case head, that extractor is coming right up the bolt way.

But I did it anyway.
 
My feeling is the Sako extractors got a bad rep back when many Remington 722/700/40X/XP100, etc. actions were being converted to use the PPC cases at a time when the infamous 'balloon head' PPC cases were being used.

The standard Remington counter bore for the bolt nose is .150. A correctly done Sako conversion on a 700 ends up having a .125 counter bore. With the .125 counter bore, the back end of the case is .125 out of the chamber...plus a few thou. for clearance. The 'balloon head' PPC cases of that era had the thin part of the web about .135 from the back end. So even in the best scenario, things were on the edge as far as having the thin web supported.. If the Sako conversion didn't have the bolt nose dimension corrected, you had a minimum of .015 of the thin case web unsupported and out of the chamber. Case heads seperating in that scenario weren't uncommon and often the extractor did end up as shrapnel. Add to this that some of the early 722's, for example, didn't have the rt. sided receiver side opening for venting pressure, instead using a vent hole in the left side of the bolt lug as a way out for pressure.

The extractor got the blame when the root of the problem was an improperly done conversion coupled with a case design that was sketchy at best, anyway. All this went away when when the later PPC/USA cases came on the scene as the back ends were thicker and weren't of the 'balloon head' design. The back ends of the later cases were bigger and that caused some issues with tight cases but that's another issue...it ultimately ended up being both better and safer.

My first 'real' BR rifle was a sleeved Remington with an incorrectly converted PPC bolt that had this exact problem. Figuring this out was a challenge but it all turned out ok in the end.

And while my preference is for a sliding plate style extractor like Kelbly's uses, I don't have any strong pro or con feelings on the Sako extractors. Done correctly, I can't imaging the extractor being a real world issue.

My 2 cents worth.... :) -Al
 
Well I have 700 Bolts done by bench rest Smiths and a few PTG Bolts with Sako Extractor , Never a Oh-Sh--.
I shoot F/Class and did Palma Matches lots of Rounds on those Extractors.
I have replaced them on my third re-Barrel.

Good Luck
 
But surely the difference is that in the custom actions, at the least the ones I have, the extractor is contained in the lug so I can't see that going anywhere, but in the Remington conversion, or at least the ones I've seen photos of, it's not, hence the stories I've read of them coming back up the raceway.
 
My Bat Neuvo Actions have Sako Extractors, but since the Neuvo has horizontal lugs when in battery, it is more toward the bottom away from the raceway.
 
I understand the concern of the open raceway theory with a Sako extractor.

This is the factory bolt on my Sako A1 single shot 22PPC:

LjGG34ll.jpg


Good shootin'. -Al
 
Correct me as I'm always wrong( ask my wife). Doesn't a sako extractor compromise the three rings of steel that Remington is famous for( even if just a sales pitch)? And it just happens to be right where the only opening or compromised spot IMO is? Couldn't be in a worse place, although has to be there to work correctly on a Remington anyway. What I was told and showed. Or... probably should just read and keep silent.
 
Wayne , the main issue with the older sakos being put in remingtons was the pin dia. being a little larger and when installed if they are drilled a little to deep you cut into hole allowing the gas to push down firing pin hole and then out on extractor... I have used them and would again...
 
Leeman said:
But surely the difference is that in the custom actions, at the least the ones I have, the extractor is contained in the lug so I can't see that going anywhere, but in the Remington conversion, or at least the ones I've seen photos of, it's not, hence the stories I've read of them coming back up the raceway.
Click to expand...
Sako extractors are cut into the boltface the same on every action, remingtons and customs alike
 
It has always been a mystery to me why no one has ever installed a rail like the original Sako bolt has to block the raceway behind the extractor. The Sako is a decent option but there can be problems with it. That's why Sako had that block. Savage does a similar thing for their bolts. The Bat looks much like the big Weatherby bolts except it looks like a better option than all those lugs Weatherby uses.
 
A Barrett Fieldcraft, for sake of comparison. Not mine but thought it may be of interest. -Al

qd0GhHil.jpg
 
I personally saw one shooter end up with a Sako Extractor in his head.

it was at Lake Houston Gun Club some 20 years ago. A shooter just had a local ‘smith install a Sako in his Remington 700, chambered in 243 Winchester. He was a left handed shooter shooting a right handed rifle.

he was shooting 68 grn match bullets just to see how accurate the rifle would shoot. The load was what amounted to a full case of medium burning powder, 4320 if memory serves.

He decided to switch to some 100+ grn hunting bullets. He forgot to lower the charge. The case head was blown off, the bolt locked up, and that extractor went into his right cheek Like a 22 bullet.

Several of my friends as well a myself witnessed this. None of us knew what happened until a bullet was pulled and the load identified.

That load would have caused a severe failure in any rifle. A right hand shooter might have just got peppered with back flash. But that extractor was coming out, his face just happen to stop it.
 
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