Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Sako Vixen Thoughts??

A few years years ago I got the bug for another Mannlicher stocked rifle and looked at a number of high priced Sakos. I really liked the longer barreled L-46s but ran into a like new L-461 with the stock shortened and got it for a great price. I'm vertically challenged so it was to be cut down anyway so this one sàve me the work and saved my pocket book too.

It is one of my favorite çoyote hunting rifles, 52gr Speer HPs over a mild dose of Exterminator. My only gripe is that you can't mount even a Leupold 1-4x20 in low rings. I have a Leupold 2-7 compact on it in low rings but it does lack FOV even on 2x.

I bought one of those little Sako actions from an army buddy in about 1994. He bought it from the rod and gun club when he was stationed in Germany, so it's probably at least 40 years old now. It was new when I bought it. I've long been a .17 Remington fan so I bought a barrel from Numrich arms that was a take-off from disassembled H&R rifles imported in the, I think, 70s. It was a very light 20". An old friend of mine in Bozeman screwed it on the Sako action and also stocked it in an early MPI synthetic stock. I've only shot one load in it with Remington 50gr PLHPs. It clocked 3900 and shot into a half inch. I like the .17Rem but found it iffy on coyotes out past 250 yards. So, I'm thinking of re-barreling it in .17 Hornet or .221 Fireball. JBs article on the .17 Hornet has gotten me cogitating on a new for me chambering.

Was 50 grain a typo?

Had to be. 2X or more heavier bullet than typical .17 cal 20 and 25 gr bullets. You’d have to have a larger case to drive.17 cal 50s at 3900 fps.

I have three custom Sako A1 rifles, 17 Rem, 221 fb, and 22ppc, and in instances of insanity, I sold a factory 223, factory 6ppc, custom 223, factory 222, and a custom 20VT.
All of these rifles are/were very accurate and 100% reliable.
Wish they were still made.

Trouthunterdj,

I purchased a Sako Vixen in .222 Rem with the intention of re-barreling it to .223

I made the "mistake" of shooting the rifle before doing anything. It was so accurate that I kept it as a .222 Rem!

I easily worked up several handloads with 45 and 50 grain bullets that shot 3/8 inch groups, but it was even more accurate with a better shooter than me on the trigger!

I never tried 60gr bullets, but the 1 in 14 inch twist of most .222's make that unlikely to succeed. Go with a .223 if you also want to shoot these bullets (at deer, or whatever).

If I were you, I'd go for one in .223 because you don't HAVE to handload, and if you are ever forced to sell it (god forbid!) it will sell much easier as a .223

/John

I’ve owned and sold a lot of Sakos over the years but the L461 heavy barrel Vixen in .222 Mag will never get sold. My father in law bought it new before he went to Vietnam and used it in Alaska taking everything from seals for crab bait to brown bear that caused trouble. In fact iirc this rifle has taken several brown bear back in the day. My father in law’s “old man” (a term of endearment and respect for his stepdad) used a .222 Mag for almost everything so it was natural for my FIL & his younger half brother to buy the same caliber as the old man. They made good money fishing and crabbing back in the days when it was still a territory. It still wears the Weaver K6-C3 scope that he bought at the same time. It wasn’t many years later that he was recruited out of his bush flying and fishing in Alaska. He flew solo at 15 flying mail out to Kodiak and at 15 he flew his first passengers to Kodiak….circa 1953. He spent about 10 years in SE Asia starting in Laos for 5+ and finishing up in Saigon. Apparently Civil Air Transport/Air America recruited heavily from the bush pilots of Alaska and my FIL decided to give it a shot since he loved the adventure. That determined the entire trajectory of his life. He loved fishing and he loved flying so he had no reason to leave Alaska and no desire to leave since he made crazy good money as a “kid”. He used to brag to me how he was making as much or more at 15/16 years old than his dad who was an experienced Boeing engineer.

Anyway this is one of my rifles that will always remain in our family. Thankfully our son and daughter both like firearms and shooting so it’ll be appreciated too. <please excuse my poor camera skills>

A sample of the ammo bought at various points in history along with a few prices….$6.95(20)….$12.95(20)….$79.95(50). The boxes in the picture on the right are 222 Remington (not mag) for a rifle I no longer own but I collect old ammo and ammo boxes.

Here’s the rifle I bought here on the classifieds, I’ve had it in my possession exactly 4 hours.This was the 3rd load I tried.
Maybe someone can help me get the pic to show.

[img]http://https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/galleries/18079056#Post18079056[/img]

Nice rifle and it looks like a keeper.

I knew I had a few Vixens, but I didn't know how many. It is so cold here, I decided to drag some out of the safe.

Here is most of them, I have a few more that are Custom and a H&R Ultra in 17 Remington.

If anyone is interested, the last 2 Deluxes on the right are for sale, they are 22 PPC and 6mm PPC. Both are extremally rare...

Best story in a long time!

shrap, have you fired the 7X33 you acquired a couple of years ago?

thats a very nice collection you have there Shrapnel, TY for sharing

Yes, my bad. I meant the 25gr PLHP.

Yes, it shoots fine, it just took a year of sending brass and bullets back and forth with a guy that makes the bullets and brass. He machines the brass from 30-30 cases and swages the bullets to reproduce the original size and weight.

It was a lot of work, but I got it done and it shoots darn good…

Good to hear you've got it shooting. Always thought the 7X33 would be quite nifty. Wonder if the 350 Legend brass might be persuaded to morph into 7X33 a little easier than machining 30-30 stuff.

Actually that 350 legend brass can work. The problem with it is the diameter across the base is a few thousandths shy of what the original 7 x 33 cartridge was. I had another guy that sent me some brass that was made from the 350 legend and it did work it was just a tad bit under sized. Getting the 30-30 brass machined down and all of the dimensions correctly was somewhat of a problem because Steve didn’t have a chamber to gauge the finished case by and it was hard for him to do it by dimension rather than an actual chamber to check for the finished case to see how well it would fit.

The next problem to overcome was the bullets fitting inside the neck and being able to still chamber in the rifle. The bullets that he swaged were actual jacketed lead core bullets but when he swaged them there was a tiny bit of a lip around the base of the bullet where it didn’t go completely into the swaging die and that produced a bit of a rim on the base of the bullet. That little rim wouldn’t allow you to seat that bullet inside the neck of the brass and then be able to get that loaded round to chamber. Subsequently I built a little tool that looked like a flat iron and I took all of those bullets that he made, laid them on a hard surface and then took that flat iron and rolled that rim off the base until it was even and the bullet would then seat down into the brass without any obstruction.

It was a long and arduous process to get this gun functioning. I did even find some original Sako brass and Sako bullets which I still have so I am capable of shooting this rifle several hundred rounds without worry of having to come up with more bullets and the brass is such that it can be reloaded and fired many times, probably more than I ever will use them.

Here are pictures of the bullets and brass. As you can see in the first picture, he makes a good bullet, it was just that there was that small lip around the base that needed to be beveled.

The second picture is the bullet, brass next to a 222 Remington Magnum case for comparison.

The third picture is Sako components I got from a guy in England.

The fourth shows the cartridge next to a 9mm on the left and a 223 on the right. They started out with a 9mm case to create this masterpiece.

The last is evidence of what it will do to a gopher...