Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Sako S20 barrel issue

I have a Sako S20 6.5 Creedmoor, that I bought last February. I have less than 100 rounds through it. It's quite accurate, sub-MOA consistently and often 3 shot groups run .5 inch or less at 100. (I shoot mostly handloads). I shot it at the range today and decided to clean the barrel afterward. I've cleaned it previously but never noticed what I encountered today. I can feel a consistent "bump" in the cleaning rod with a relatively tight patch on a jag, when the jag hits a location about 10 inches forward of the bolt face. It's close to where the fluting starts on the barrel. Feels like a constriction rather than a loose spot. It could have been there all along and I just didn't notice it. With a clean barrel it's fairly noticeable once I started paying attention to that little bump. My cleaning today was fairly aggressive, using witches brew bore cleaner and a brass brush, as well as Montana Extreme copper remover. I didn't see much indication of copper on the patches. I feel that the barrel is clean to bare metal or at least pretty close. For full disclosure I'm using a bore guide, one piece coated cleaning rod, proper 6.5 jag, etc.

Given that the rifle shoots very well, maybe it's a non-issue, but I wonder if it could cause accuracy issues later on with more barrel wear. I have a bore scope but misplaced the power supply for it so I wasn't able to inspect the area of the bore where the bump occurs.

My question to the experts is, would this concern you if it was your rifle? Sako barrels are known to be high quality so I wasn't expecting anything like this.

A borescope is your friend

Yes I definitely would like to see what that area looks like on a borescope. My son has one so I'll borrow it instead of continuing the search for my Lyman power supply.

Fire lap it.

If it shoots, it shoots. Stop cleaning, keep shooting.

Were it me given that this is a newer rifle, I'd give Sako a phone call.


I once owned a couple Tikka T3 Lites. One a 338 WinMag. One of the plastic magazines cracked at the front from what I assumed was recoil impact from an Accubond bullet tip of cartridge in the magazine.

I phoned Sako/Tikka, talked to a customer support rep. Tey were very responsive, engaged in this conversation with a customer in USA. They sent a couple mags and some Tikka bling to my mailbox.

Stop looking for something wrong. JH is right, just shoot it.

The gun shoots sub MOA and often .5 inch groups.

The last thing I would do is fire lap it or anything else.

Shoot it.

Thanks to those who replied. Mackay that sounds like good advice. I haven't put a borescope into the barrel yet but I want to just out of curiosity. The bore feels nice and smooth for the full travel of the cleaning rod except that one spot, and it's so consistent and repeatable there just has to be some kind of anomaly there, but evidently it has no effect on accuracy.