Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Sako 85 ejection failure

Yep, i agree. I do like the idea of CRF if you are using a staggered feed, as i think it reduces feed issues by placing the round in the chamber more precisely than a push feed can. It should be pointed out that this is the real reason why Paul Mauser developed his system of CRF - it wasn't anything to do with preventing double feeding or cartridge control whilst lying upside down or what have you. It was to reliably feed cartridges of variable quality control and dimensions into the chamber reliably from a staggered magazine. The Sako system performs this function quite as well as the mauser system does.

Otherwise any advantages of CRF are really largely imaginary and vanish into insignificance in comparison to the much greater advantages afforded by the reduced bolt lift and smoothness of the Sako system. I have had the opportunity to use some really nice mauser-type actions over the years, and none is nearly as smooth as the Sako action and all have some degree of bolt wobble at full extent. It is inherent in the mauser design.

The advantages of the Sako systyem vastly outway the disadvantages. However, the system does require the cartridge rim to be firmly secured by the extractor on ejection. The short Sako extractor is difficult to tension to achieve this objective and the reason Paul Mauser developed the full length extractor was to provide a method to reliably tension the extractor given the manufacturing limitations of his day. However, i do think it should be possible to achieve sufficient tension with the short Sako extractor, and clearly the majority of Sako 85 actions do achieve this objective. It will be interesting to see how they go with time. But clearly, the 85s in which the extractor doesn't get sufficient purchase to provide reliable ejection are faulty and should have been repaired by Beretta.

It is interesting to note that Sako was not alone in contemplating trying to develop a form of controlled round feed in a three lug action. Thomspon Center considered a similar design for the Icon action, but gave up because they knew folks would have a fit if you tried to call it CRF. In fact, i think they were probably influenced by some of the commentary on the Sako.