Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Most underrated Rifle and caliber

370 Sako - 9.3x66.

Almost unheard of in the shadow of the 9.3x62,
and the cordite fuelled 375 H&H

when i young, my friend's grandfather was given by his son a Remington m700 BDL in '06. he took it out hunting and got a spike. when he came home, he cleaned the rifle and put it a corner. he said something like, "it kicks and the bullet (180gr Remington RN factory nose) makes too much hamburger." he was Italian and he spoke broken English.


next year, he got his Winchester m1892 in 25-20 Winchester with 86gr factory loads (Remington and Winchester) and he got a 4pt right behind the shoulder. "it goes in and comes out and then have a dead deer " he says. if the deer stood less than 20-25 yards, it was a headshot. over 25 yards, it was a behind the shoulder shot. i think he said that the furthest shot that ever had was about 60-70 yards. 20 - 30 yards was more common.

the guns that he bought were a 22 short in Sears or Montogomery Wards one shot bolt action. a double barrel 12 ga (probably Sears) and a Winchester m1892 in 25-20. he got the 25-20 because a 22 short round failed to penetrate (one time) the cow's skull and he had a heck time to calm the cow down for a second shot. he was a farmer and in them days, a butcher of cows and pigs.

when he died, i was given the chance to buy his 25-20, but me being a smart-aleck didn't buy it. instead the 25-20 was auctioned off. stupid is what comes to mind and i was stupid!!!

I got to know the Sako employee who developed the .370 Sako some when touring the Sako factory and doing a little hunting in 2015. (Have his name in my notes somewhere, but can't think of it right now.) He said the cartridge wasn't really intended to be an improvement over the 9.3x62 or 9.3x64. Instead he just wanted to give hunters something else to talk about!

At the time he'd taken it on one safari, and hunted moose with it in Finland--and of course it worked fine.

I just pulled the little lever action Winchester model 53 in 25-20 out and was thinking about the stories I heard about that rifle from my Father In-law. I inherited the rifle after he passed and I will be getting her bloody again. “Dad” bought the rifle when he was 16 years old and working in a logging camp in Southeast Alaska back in the early to mid 50’s. He bought his first fishing boat “The Fern” at 15 with a handshake between him and the banker man in Sitka and had it totally paid off before the following summer. Dad said he was working on the log rafts when he saw a native Tlingit drag a GIANT black bear out of the woods….biggest black bear dad ever saw according to him. He said that being a kid with more money than most guys twice his age he just HAD to have that rifle. He haggled with the Indian and proudly walked away with the Winchester.

Thanks to the generosity of one of the finest men here I’m well set for brass, dies and cast bullets that are almost too pretty to shoot. I am thinking that I’ll bring her up with me next month and see if we can’t take a Sitka Blacktail with it this fall. She needs to repatriate herself with the Last Frontier considering her life began up there almost 100 years ago and hasn’t been back there for over 50 years.

once heard someone say 222 Remington was used by a lot of folks from a tree stand to hunting whitetail effectively.

Ha, sounds like a real pain in the brass !

Actually he was a lot of fun, as were all of the Sako people. My hunting notes from the trip show his name as Kari Kuparinen, and while he didn't talk as much as some of the other folks, he had a fine sense of humor when he did--and a lot of technical knowledge.

However, one of the more interesting conversations I had during the hunting was with a young Sako employee named Mikka. He was one of the only two people to take an animal during our two days of hunting, one day for moose and another for whitetails. The hunting over there, as it's often done in much of Europe, is by drives--and often with dogs. He was the next stander to my right during the moose hunting, about 300-350 yards away, and he got a big male calf as it ran by his stand. (The other hunter to get something was another Sako employee, a former professional hockey player in some European league, who got a small whitetail buck--his first deer.)

Anyway, the evening Mikka got his moose, everybody was sitting around talking about various things after dinner that evening. He asked me if I'd ever hunted moose before, and I said yes, in several places in North America. He then asked me what hunting methods we used, and I said sometimes calling bulls during the rut, but mostly we just go out and look for them. His eyelids blinked rapidly, and it was obvious he couldn't comprehend that. But have also had the same reaction from more than one guide in Texas, because many (or perhaps most) cannot comprehend sitting in a stand overlooking a corn feeder.

Oh, and incidentally, aside from the dog drives in Finland, they also bait deer. The evening of our whitetail day I sat near a pile of carrots larger than a Volswagen Bug. Never saw anything except a few birds....

MD Thanks for your elaboration. Very interesting to hear you describe euro hunting methods.

Not trying to say that the inventor was a pain, just that his improvement created a situation with the x66 brass and minor dimensional changes. Probably good enough quality if you could secure a supply.

I had a notion once that a CZ 550 in the mundane x62 would be ideal for converting to this wonder cartridge.
Fortunately I didn’t get myself wedged in that rabbit hole, Ha .

Yeah, I have never considered converting my 9.3x62 either! Partly because it already works so well.

You sir are way too practical,

;-)

Wasn't when younger and less experienced!

Though just spent more than I'd planned to spend ever again on a rifle, chambered in a cartridge that I already had a LOT of experience with--for mostly emotional reasons. But why not? We only go around once....

Good stories, guys. Reminded me of an old farmer I used to spend time with who slaughtered hogs and cows with an old .22 single shot with the barrel and action held to the stock with duct tape and no sights. I remember watching the operation and every one's admiration of his skill in that he only ever needed one shot which is particularly important if you've got a few hogs to do because if you wound the first one the others won't hold still and you've got mayhem on your hands. He told me hitting the brain of a cow was easy but hitting the brain of a hog was like "hitting a tennis ball baked into the center of a wedding cake." If I had seen that .22 under other circumstances I would have underrated it! We moose hunted together after that and he brought his .303 British - which did have sights.

What'd you get MD?

I would be another vote for the .284win, and the .338fed. Also the 338/06 and the 9.3x57

A pre-'64 Winchester .375 H&H--which also might mean going back to Africa again....

Or... It could mean you're ready for assisted living?

Sweet. And, you're right - why not? Just don't let it take too much time away from that book we all hope you're busy writing!

1eyedmule,

Have been thinking about that book, especially after starting to reread Jack O'Connor's The Last Book a couple days ago....

John

Excellent!

I've read you mentioning "The Last Book" a couple of times regarding a future project. I haven't read it but, it's on my list. From your description, a book like that written by you at this point in your career (I don't want to say, with nothing to lose but, maybe the freedom to write whatever you want) would be a classic.