Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Sako 85 Ejection issues

I had a $1700 Sako 85 Kodiak in .375 that like to eject brass right into the windage turret of a scope mounted in high rings (really great on a .375, not!) and nicely drop the case right back in the action. Sold it and (luckily) got most of my money back. Purchased a Winchester Alaskan in the same caliber and have not had any issues whatsoever.

Has anyone tried changing the spring/plunger/extractor on an A7? A7's are known to have the same issue. My A7 in 300WSM wears high rings because that's the only way that brass will clear the scope. If the thing wasn't so darn accurate I'd have sold it years ago.... Anyway, just wondering if the A7 could be fixed just like the 85's. I thought it was just an uncureable design flaw.

I have a A7 but it doesn't have that issue.

Mine is a 25-06.

the bolt is the same as you indicate so a stronger spring, and or a new bolt kit should do it.

I changed the spring yesterday. No problems now.

Good deal Fotis !

Hey how often to you go back to Crete ? It's been a while for me, I may make a run this year.

I have not been there in 10 years. Everytime I have been to Greece since 2007 it has been in Athens for funerals. SUX

I know this is now an old thread, however, I can share how I resolved the Sako ejection issue that seems to plague a number of 75 and 85 model Sako rifles and hope others may find this useful. I resolved this problem in about 1 hour and at no cost.

I believe this is a fundamental design issue related to the position of the fixed ejector at 6 o'clock, however, not all Sako rifles have this problem. For those that do, the ejection issue is not restricted to the Sako 85's but also affects some of the 75's.

In my experience, long actions (30-06, 270, etc) seem more commonly affected whereas short actions (.308, .243) appear to be unaffected. My Sako 75 .308 has give many years of service without ever failing to eject cases perfectly.

In contrast, my Sako 75 .30-06 used to eject the case vertically upwards into the base of the scope and occasionally it would come to rest in the magazine on top of the next round which was really frustrating. I contacted Sako and searched the internet for a solution without success. So I decided to do something about it myself.

I tried .30-06 cases in my Sako 75 .308 rifle and still had the same ejection issues whereas it works perfectly with .308 cases.
I tried 9.3x62 cases in my Sako 75 .30-06 rifle and only occasionally had ejection issues.
I tried .308 cases in my Sako 75 .30-06 rifle and had no ejection issues, so I knew it must be something to do with the cartridge and not the rifle.

The rim thickness of a .308 case is 1.37mm
The rim thickness of a 9.3x62 case is 1.30mm
The rim thickness of a .30-06 case is 1.2mm

There seems to be a relationship between the rim thickness and ejection issues i.e. thinner rims lead to ejection issues. If you seat a case in the bolt face you will see there is more slop for cases with a thinner rim. Seems Sako has gone for the 'one extractor size fits all' approach regardless of the cartridge case rim thickness - presumably to save costs.

So..... I needed to reduce the amount of slop that the extractor held the .30-06 case so the extractor would have a tighter grip on the case (at least as tight as it holds a .308 case). My options were: 1) either build up the under-side lip of the extractor; 2) seat the extractor deeper in the bold somehow, or, 3) compress the extractor to reduce its overall length. Options 1 and 2 seemed very difficult, so I chose option 3.

I removed the extractor from the bolt face of my .30-06 and with all the skill of a high-precision swiss watch maker.....I beat it with a hammer! Actually, I placed the extractor vertically with the flat near the round bit on the sharp right-angle edge of an anvil and used a hammer to very carefully slightly compress the extractor so when fitted back into the bolt, the extractor had a tight grip on the cartridge case.

If you do this make sure to closely monitor the amount you compress the extractor with a good set of calipers and repeatedly try the extractor in the bolt. If you overdo it the cartridge will not align straight with the chamber, and.....you will need to buy a new extractor - not cheap. Also make sure the hammer impacts the anvil square on - not on an angle. Hamming may create a very small burr on the top of the claw and you may need to gently file a small amount of the inner edge of the extractor claw so the case slides easily into the bolt face.

Actually this is a really easy process and can be done by anyone with handyman abilities.

My .30-06 now extracts and ejects cases perfectly every time. Cases eject horizontally rather than vertically and never hit the scope anymore.

Essential tools for this task are: a hammer, a vice or anvil with a sharp right angle edge, a set of calipers, and a bandaid for when you hit your thumb.
Caveat: this worked very well for my rifle but may not work for everyone - attempt it at your own risk. Good luck.

It helps if you put a heavier spring in it - Gre-tan has some ...

I put them in mine without screwing with the guy ejector and it fixed it as well.

I have replaced the extractor and spring in one of my 85's. It has helped a bit. I think I'm following your fix but couldn't the same be accomplished by shortening the extractor back end with a file? Essentially shortening the extractor so the hook sits closer to the bolt face and grabs case tighter? Thanks for sharing your fix.

Edit. I pulled out my spare extractors and reacquainted myself with their shape. In my mind I was picturing a Rem870 extractor. None of my extractors are exactly the same length so I could swap out or use the hammer mod if needed in the future.

Hi Horseman,
Shortening the back end of the extractor will make no difference what-so-ever. The spring pushes the extractor forward, not backwards.

The aim is to hold the case more tightly against the bolt face and the only way to achieve this is by moving the 'claw' of the extractor closer to the bolt face.
I don't believe the sako design is flawed - I believe it was probably designed with the Sako high standard of precision, but has just been implemented poorly, most likely in an effort to save production / assembly costs (i.e. perhaps the bean-counters got involved).

The extractor and ejector design needs to be accurately adjusted for EACH CARTRIDGE rim thickness in order to work well. Most of the time the factory rifle will work well (think of it in terms of a bell curve distribution with those beyond 2 theta causing the problems), however, for cartridge cases that have a thinner rim thickness there is a greater chance of an extraction issues. When the cartridge is loosely held by the extractor, then the greater the radial distance between the extractor and the ejector the more likely this is to be an issue i.e. cartridges like 300WM, 7mmRM, 338WM are more likely to have issues. Here is a limited list of selected rim C.I.P approved rim thickness (essentially identical to SAAMI specs - data from wikipedia). I suspect that during manufacturing sako did not discriminate between the bolt face - extractor distance for a .30-06 and a 6.5x55 and took a 'one size fits all' approach.

30-06 1.24mm
270 1.24mm
7mm RM 1.27mm
300 WM 1.27mm
338 WM 1.27mm
9.3x62 1.30mm
375H&H 1.30mm
7mm SAUM 1.30mm
7-08 1.37mm
308 1.37mm
300 WSM 1.37mm
6.5x55 1.5mm
7.62x39 1.5mm

Please note: I do not aim to disrespect Sako, they make quality rifles ....but sometimes need a little adjusting to work to our expectations.
Hope this helps

Waimahana thanks for that info. After looking at my spares I now see what you did. I'm surprised mine are visibly different lengths so I'd start by just swapping them all if I need any more improvement. So far that 30-06 Finlight is working ok but still occasionally kisses the bottom of the turret housing on it's way out. Ejection on any of my 85's isn't as positive or repeatable as other rifles I own. Certainly no where near M70, Mauser or Kimber with large claw extractors.

I've owned

75 30-06-No ejection issue
85 270 WSM-terrible ejection and would sometimes fall back in the action
85 270 Win-honestly don't recall ejection but was returned for a refund when it didn't meet MOA and had headspace problems(loose primer was in the action when cleaning it from new. Proof load lost a primer apparently and this wasn't noticed by QC)
85 30-06FL-which has always ejected but dinged the bottom of turret housing until new spring and extractor installed. Now hits occasionally
85 7mmRM- has never had any ejection problems and is very accurate.

So my bell curve says about 50/50 on ejection issues. I've heard short actions are better ejectors but haven't owned one. There's enough good about them that they're still worth owning you just need to be aware of this issue. If you get a good one don't get rid of it.

Hi Horseman,
I wonder if the variability between rifles comes from the process they use to put the rifles together:
If the bolt extractor hole and channel is milled into the bolt head and THEN the barrelled action is correctly head-spaced by milling material out of the bolt face then this would account for the variability in how well the extractor holds the cartridge case and the variability between rifles.....back to bell-curve distribution.
i.e. good design with incorrect implementation - probably to save money.

Hence what I believe should be done which is the requirement to adjust each extractor to each rifle. This could be achieved by my method (crude but effective), or better still, having a range of extractor sizes and fitting the correct size to each bolt ....AFTER it is head-spaced.


....food for thought.

I just bought a Sako 85 Synthetic Black in 270. It will not eject a live shell but does fine with a fired shell. Guess I need to shoot it more to see if I have an issue

I have the same rifle, bought about 4 months ago. Synthetic black 270WIN. No ejections issues at all so far.

Does it eject live shells as well?

I have 2 Sako 75's one in 30-06 and the other in 7 Rem Mag. One has xtralow rings on a 50mm scope with 30mm tube and the other has low rings on a 56mm scope with a 30mm tube. I have had not one issue ejecting , extracting you name it . What am I doing wrong? They are both Stoeger imports not produced under Beretta. The statement where someone said they are changing to a 3 lug arrangement on the 85 is wrong , the 75's obviously have 3 lugs as well but the bolt face has not been undercut for the CRF feature.

Oldelkhunter,

Yes the 75 is also a 3 lug bolt, but to my understanding of what these guys are saying, is that the 75 has a 9:00 O'clock ejector and the 85 has a 6:00 O'clock ejector. And therefore, the 6:oo O'clock ejector is what is causing/making worse the ejection issue. RJ

Ok, I have never owned an 85 because Beretta(bless their little heart) tried to answer a question that was never asked. I love my 75's

Yep, Hold on to your model 75's OE, its the better rifle 👍.....Hb

No issues ejecting live rounds, but then again I don't really do that. I have ejected a couple but went slow and picked them out rather than fling them.