Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Husqvarna 1640 in 6.5x55

Ever need a new rifle like a moose needs a hat rack, but you find one that you just gotta have?

Yeah, me too. Think I'll flip a Ruger American in 6.5 Creedmoor for this one here. Was checking out the board earlier and looking at what people had to say about the 1640 here...sound like a real sleeper.

Price translates to $483 USD. Has a Timney trigger installed...will be yanking the funky comb/cheekpiece off of it. Stock does have quite a downward cant but I can live with that.

Decent deal?

Oh Lordy yes. Grab it.

Hell of a nice snag!

I've been told the walnut stocked is a 4100.....any truth to that?........no schnabel on that one.

Put a receiver sight on and that comb is perfect.

1640s in 6.555 aren't all that common, but neither are 640 in 6.5x55 built on the FN 98 commercial actions. At that price, if I had the discretionary income I'd buy even if I didn't need it. Play with it awhile and if you don't like it, you can probably sell it for a little more than $483.

He can always call me if he doesn't want it.

If it has an original trade winds timney, those are rare. They haven't been made in decades are are fetching $200 but themselves.

Igloo;
Good afternoon or perhaps evening already where you're at, I hope the weekend was a good one for you.

With the understanding that although I don't own a Husqvarna rifle, I am admittedly biased towards them and find the 6.5x55 to be an extremely useful round that we've been playing with since I modified a 96 for my late father in '85.

The various models of Husky rifles are a bit confusing for me, but they all had very good metal work in my opinion.

I've worked on a fair few Husky rifles with cracked stocks, most of them cracked behind the tang, but some cracked forward of the recoil lug as well. That's not a hard repair either way.

If any of them had any finish or sealant on the interior surfaces of the stock I don't remember one. When you've got it apart to inspect it, if it's not cracked then a couple coats of spar varnish can't hurt.

There has to be some that don't shoot well, but again I don't recall one that I repaired and bedded that didn't shoot quite well after. Perhaps some not as well as say a new Tikka T3, but some were no slouch either.

They're undervalued out here in our part of BC I think and the 6.5x55 is one I've never had in my shop so reasonably rare. I've seen more .270's and '06's than anything else.

Anyways sir, again I'm biased, but I'd be surprised if you didn't like it.

Good luck whichever way you decide.

Dwayne

The rifle would be worth (or close to) the price without the Timney installed. With the new trigger, I think you're getting a bargain. The Timney itself is only about $120, but as I'm working on a 1640 stock right now, I can say that there's a decent chance fitting the Timney to the original inletting took some careful work. So if all is functioning well and the more delicate inletting around the trigger and tang isn't a mangled mess, they've saved you some trouble in advance and the Timney is a vast improvement over the factory trigger. Do note that he Timney safety does not lock the bolt. Doesn't matter to me, but I know some folks are particular about that.

They have a tendency to develop a crack at the tang if you don't relieve the area when bedding... but that's an easy fix. The stock in your photos doesn't have the schnabel end that most of the 1640s I've seen are sporting, but as mentioned above, there seem to be several iterations of the 1600 series and they get pretty confusing. Tracking down replacement stocks and front sight hoods is a pain if you're in the states, but they appear to be readily available in Canada (though those outfits are unwilling to ship here).

I like mine a lot. It has the slim carrying profile a M70 FWT but for whatever reason just feels a bit sturdier.

I saw quite a few of these in the auction safe of the gunshop in central Stockholm a few years back.

Very nice rifles.

"Decent deal?"

yes

Hell YES!

I've had a couple in '06 and 270, and I have the Dlx in 7X57AI, my antelope rifle. The dlx had an adjustable trigger as standard. It's good yours has a Timney. The standard grade triggers were just mpfff. In 6.5 Swede yours is a steal!

Have a look at Walter Borg in Stockholm. 2nd hand weapons are sold by Auction (probably so no liability is attached).

The online auction site is https://auctionet.com/sv/search?event_id=&company_id=229&is=ended&q=husqvarna+6.5x55 and prices are pretty good (even with the import difficulty).



They have also had a fair few 30/06 and 9.3x62 through the doors. After all, these are the Swedish Model 70.

Buy it,

I have a 6.5x55 that I picked one up that was an unfinished project. Had a new barrel and McMillan Hunter stock.

Liked it so much that I bought an original one in 270 also.

The 4100 is the lightweight carbine with 21" barrel.

No brainer. Do it.

Thank you guys, all of you, for the input, suggestions and letting me know its a good deal. I put a down payment on it and it shall be mine.

Much appreciated.

Dwayne, thanks for the kind words. What kind of work did/do you do on rifles, sir?

Igloo;
Good afternoon to you sir, I hope your section of Canada is in the sunshine like we've finally got here in the south Okanagan and you're well.

Regarding what I work on, to be crystal clear I'm not trained in firearm repair, but did spend a bunch of my working life in finish carpentry and cabinet making at the same time as I was fooling with repairing, modifying and making rifle stocks.

I sort of became known as someone who could put your stock back together if your horse rolled on it or you'd flipped your quad - or it just was cracked from time and recoil like a lot of Husky rifles were.

So all that to say I've worked on whatever project has wandered into the shop, as long as I thought that the owner and I could understand each other and that I could do it to both party's satisfaction.

Sometimes I've not taken jobs either because I had the inclination that the owner wouldn't be easy to get along with or I just couldn't get behind the project. Drilling holes in a MS that had no holes was one project I remember not taking because it was in such nice shape, was an heirloom from a family member who'd passed and I felt doing so would wreck the collector value.

Anyways, I'm mostly a woodworking guy who likes challenges.

Good luck with the new rifle, I think you're going to get along well with it.

Dwayne