Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Sako 85

I'm chiming in on your thread here. I just purchased a .300 wsm in an 85 sako finnlight. I haven't shot it yet but I just dropped it off at the gun smith to have a scope mounted, bore hand lapped, and a decelerator put on. He's not open on Monday so I'm going to see if I can have this process stopped so that I can put some empty casing through it and test the ejecting.

What % of these guns are having this problem?

Would it make any difference is the casing I'm using are unfired?

You will need the scope mounted to test the extraction. Unless you mount the scope a mile high it’s a gamble what angle the gun will eject at. Either it’s perfect or it will hit the scope is what I’ve learned. Mine hit the scope mounted in Leupold high rings. Leupold high is lower than sako branded lows if that tells you anything. I wasn’t aware of the extream height difference between brands when I bought mine.

Hopefully you won't have the problem.

To ease your mind a little, it seems to be the 30-06 based rounds that exhibit it most frequently.

Based on the reports I have seen, the shortmags and standard magnums seem to be less prone to it.

My only magnum 85 is a 7mm RM and it’s never had a problem. I’ve had problems with 270wsm, 270 win and 30-06. The wsm was by far the worst and would sometimes fall back into the action. The other two always eject but sometimes kids the bottom of scope on the way out. All rifles have used Sako Optilock rings or ring mounts.

Went to the gun smith today to check out if my new unshot Sako 85 Finnlight would have an ejection problem. The gun smith took one look at the bolt face where the ejection button was located. It is located in the very bottom of the bolt at 6:00 (if your looking at the face of the bolt). He immediately commented that the rifle was going to eject the casing up because of the location of the ejection button. He immediately commented that is going to be a problem. He then picked up an older Sako not sure which model (pre 85) and the ejection button was located at 9:00. Then he picked up another (pre 85) sako that was located at 7:00. Then he showed me a couple other brands of guns and theirs were both located at 7:00. So then he picked up a Sako finnlight 85 that he had just put a scope on for a guy. Ran some cases through the gun and sure enough they all hit the scope. Within about 10 ejections the finish on the bottom of the scope was rubbed and you could see bare metal. I also took my right handed gun without the scope on and tilted very slightly left and ejected a casing. The casing landed 2 feet to my left. That's correct to my left. It should have landed to my right.

At that point I had seen enough. Taking this gun back and buying a Browning. Although I think their new x-bolt plastic magazine is crap and makes the gun look [bleep] my Browning experiences have always been good ones. I hope this is the case again for me.

Just can't believe a company would make this mistake and not change it. Especially for what they charge. Very disappointed in Sako.

I have the Finnlight 85 in 300 WSM and I don't have any problem with low Sako ringmounts and a Swaro Z6 scope. I initially had a Leupold VX6 scope mounted and had ejection problems. The VX6 has larger turrets compared to the Swaro and the brass would sometimes hit the turret and fall back into the action. I wouldn't give up on the rifle yet. There was a post a couple days ago that Sako is rolling out some sort of fix for the problem.

Sorry for your trouble. I own Sako rifles but all are pre 85. If you can return the rifle that's what I would do. There's lots of great choices in guns in similar quality,weight,and price. For me personally,Browning wouldn't be among them,but good luck with whatever you choose.

I'm not sure why your casing doesn't hit your scope but I'm glad you got one that doesn't. Unfortunately I have given up on the my 85 finnlight. Never shot it, never will. I know that I am going with a Leopold VX-3I 3-10 with CDS system which has a very short L-R turret. But I'm not willing to futz with a $1400 + finnlight hoping I can get it to eject right. For that kind of money the gun should be excellent in every way. I'm very disappointed in Sako for putting out all these 85's with the current ejection design. Did they not test it? I have no idea how this ejection system made it to market.

I have the Leopold VX-3I 3-10 with CDS on my .308 xbolt white gold medallion and Imho it is a great scope. I'm in the process of having one installed on my .270 wsm A-Bolt medallion as my nikon monarch cross hairs have broken for the second time and is out of warranty. Both these rifles shoot with excellent accuracy. I just purchased a x-bolt medallion safari grade .300 wsm which is replacing the finnlight. I know these rifles anrn't anything a like but I have my reasons which are too long to get into. I have owned, Remington, Winchester, Weatherby, Sako, and Browning rfiles. Sako's and Browning have been my favorites. However I have a bad taste in my mouth for the Sako 85's and I don't think that's going away anytime soon. Probably will never own a Sako again said to say. I hope Sako does comes with a resolution but not sure how that is possible. I agree with my gun smith, there is no way to fix this problem. Maybe were both wrong but they can't change where they put the ejector button.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this new x-bolt medallion safri shoots as well as my other brownings, as I'm going on an elk hunt this fall in NM where the average length shot is 350 yards.

Have an 85 hunter in 30-06 and no ejection problems here 🤷🏻‍♂️ Maybe just a few bad ones out there. Blake

Update on my rifle. Sako 85 synthetic black in 30-06. New gun with high leupold mounts no ejection. Sent it back to Berretta and they said it works fine with their test scope with sako medium height rings. Sako mediums are .3 inch’s higher than the leupolds. So I shimmed mine up to that height just to test myself. It did function with a leupold scope but with a Bushnell Elite 6-24 it still nipped the turrets on the way out. And at that height you have zero cheek weld and it looked ridiculous. So I called Eurooptic and they gladly refunded me my purchase price. So cudos to Eurooptic for top notch service. I’m out a little over 100 bucks now in shipping and rings but lesson learned and my lust for a Sako has ended. Eurooptic also said that Sako is working on a fix much like shortactionsmoker mentioned earlier in this post.

What brand and height rings are you running to have no issues?

The ejector blade needs to be relocated is the only fix I can think of and this would mean a redesign of the action, It will be interesting see what Sako comes up with........Hb

That's the very reason Beretta customer service lies, lies, lies. And I still have the emails to prove it. They don't want a recall on their hands. The stinkin' 85 receiver/ejector/bolt is an incredibly bad design. How any "engineer" could think it would work on a scoped rifle 100% is beyond me. Now on a 94 Winchester the design works great. And where does the ejector on a 94 send the ejected case? Same place as the 85; straight up. Lots of R&D bucks that'd be down the drain along with the cost of replacing existing rifles if Beretta was honest about the problem and took responsibility for it. Not all 85M rifles fail to eject, but an apparently significant number of them do. But Beretta not only refuse to take responsibility for the problem, they still sell the crap and keep telling users it's not Beretta's problem. Beretta is the parent company so it is Beretta that is the thief. They continue to sell a known faulty product with no intention of servicing the warranty.

If anybody wants to read the emails and my step by step description of what actually happens during the ejection cycle just find it in my old posts. I'm not going back thru it and matter of fact this will me my last post here. But to summarize my 85 Finlight was a 30-06 NIB. Medium Leopold rings and a 1" tube Zeiss. Cases weren't hitting the turret they hit the scope tube. Plain vanilla set-up. Customer service refused to admit the problem. Said they had only a few such complaints over the years. Told me, literally, if the rifle ejects a cartridge or case out of the action it is considered to be normal function and they wouldn't be responsible for all the combinations of mounts and scopes customers might use. Seriously. Told me I could send the rifle in but if it functioned according to this standard it would not be considered a warranty problem. Lying to cover up the problem. Apparently they figure if you lie long enough the problem will go away. Did I mention they lie? Well they do. So this is not only a bad design, it's a bad company that sells the product. I wouldn't buy dollar bills from Beretta for a quarter a piece. Not the kind of people I'm willing to deal with.