Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Any changes to the Sako 85

I have been looking at Fierce rifles, and as most of you know they use the Sako 85 receiver platform. However they use a plunger ejector on the bolt face, according to their specifications. Can any owner of a Fierce rifle confirm this? At the risk of opening old wounds a few years ago Sako 85 owners, including myself were having a lot of problems with ejection of fired rounds due to the fact that the ejector was fixed at the 6:00 position. So I guess my question is, did Sako do away with the fixed 6:00 ejector on it's 85 rifles, and now use a plunger ejector on the bolt face? Or did Fierce just realize that the fixed 6:00 was causing many problems for Sako hence the plunger bolt face ejector on their rifles.

Gramps, I remeber when you were having issues with your Sako 85. Its baffling to me as to why they even used that pos ejector configuration. Its in the wrong place and why did they just not do it more like their sister company Tikka? Tikkas have the spring loaded plunger and it works slick as snot every time. Never any problems at all. I have a buddy that bought a Sako finlight chambered in 300WSM and I warned him he may have ejection issues with the rifle and what do you know, the first time he took it to the range, it was having issues.... What a chit show of a rifle and company.....

I have never had any ejection problems with my Sako rifles, including a 75 and both older and new 85’s in various magnum calibers.

Regards,

You sir are a very lucky man. Others however have not been so lucky. Do all of your Sako rifles have the fixed ejector in the 6:00 position? Do you have your scopes mounted unnaturally high? Thank you

I think he is too. Hell, ive had ejection issues with my a7. I had a scope with big turrets, it would cause the spent case to bounce back down into the loading port. Funny thing about that is it never happened when that particular scope was mounted on my savage rifles. Sako has definite issues, that have been discussed here.

I have two Sako 85’s, 300 WSM & 308 Winchester. Mounted my scopes with medium Talley Screwlocks. I do so in order to use the scope tube as a handle. Have never had any ejection issues.

I wrote Fierce to inquire about getting a rifle built. The guy angrily denied using Sako 85 actions or any semblance thereof. I don’t need/want any rifle bad enough to deal with a self-entitled, foul mouthed shop owner.

Never had an ejection issue with three Sako 85 rifles. Two were .308 and the other 7mm/08. The ejection problem seems to only occur in the longer 85 actions and then not in all of them.

Sako 85 ejection issues are mainly with LA cartridge such as 30-06

Yes you are right. I bought a Finn Light in .270 Win, after the usual back and forth with Beretta they gave me a full refund. My opinion only (but a lot of others agree). When the designers went to three locking lugs, they had no place for the older but reliable 9:00 fixed ejector. So it was placed at the 6:00-6:30 position. If they had just used a plunger ejector on the bolt face their design problem would have been solved. I am not down on Sako rifles or Beretta. I have older Sako AV type rifles that work perfectly. I was at my wit's end when they told me to send the rifle back for the second time. This is when I received a refund check. I have to thank them, and. respect that. I am now long in the tooth as they say, and I go as light as possible. I wish all Sako 85 owners the best, and as I said earlier I am not on a mission to hurt Beretta/Sako. This is just MY experience. caveat emptor

If you go online to Fierce's home page, or go to YouTube you can get info from the horse's mouth. I am sorry you had a bad experience with ill mannered shop owner. They even have the owner talking about the 85 Sako STYLE receiver they employ on their rifles. Reloader 28

For Reloader28 I just looked at two YouTube Reviews of the Fierce rifles they are as follows: How Fierce 300 Win Mag shoots 1/2" MOA -Deep Dive Review. This one is a review by Ron Spommer Next Rifle Test and Review: Fierce Fury I did notice something that was wrong in my original post. They do not use a plunger ejector, they have put a beefed up extractor on their rifles. But if the receiver and bolt are not a Sako 85 improvement I'll eat crow. Also see Fierce Firearms Canada.

Yeah, isn’t that strange. Maybe somewhere between you & I, Fierce decided they could no longer sidestep the obvious.

I love my 85’s better than any bolt guns Ive owned to date.

Now that I think back on it, I was inquiring to determine if they had any ejection issues being a custom shop. And, if they had solved the problem I was going to place a custom rifle order. That is when he angrily lashed out at me totally denying the use of Sako actions.

Your friend's issue with the .300 WSM is the first I've heard of other than the 85m for '06 based cartridges. And your evaluation of rifle and company is dead on. I saved my email exchange with their customer disservice concerning a 30-06 I had. Basically called me an ignorant liar. Denied having frequent problems and refused to even examine the rifle without a service charge. All this with an unfired rifle. Tried to blame any problem that MIGHT have occurred on my scope/mount set up. Said they couldn't be responsible for the multitude of scope and mount combinations customers might use. Was using Leupold medium rings and a 1" Zeiss scope. Pretty much plain vanilla. Plus the rifle comes without iron sights and as such is intended to be used with a variety of customer chosen options. All CS did was spout the corporate line. It was a lie and he knew it. Extraction system was designed by an idiot and signed off on by another. Of course the only justifiable solution was to do a recall on the product. Lying and denying is a lot cheaper if you can make it work.

If you work with the action for a while with cases and cartridges the engineering errors are obvious. Beretta/Sako will never see another of their products in my possession. The only one I have left is a Franchi Affinity shotgun. It'll be gone soon as I can work a deal on a Browning Gold. Lying about a known problem and blaming the results on the customer is a bad, bad decision to pursue. There are too many better products and better companies out there to consider spending even a dime with that clown company.