Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Sako extractor vs Remington factory

In 308. It'll be interesting to see how M24's hold up when they are rebarreled in 300 Win mag. I'm guessing nowhere nearly as well as the 308 version.

It seem that the Sako extractor replacement craze has about run it course and for one I am happy to see it coming to an end. I have personally seen 3 Sako extractors exit Remington actions in my shooting career. One belonged to a shooting friend while we were P-dog hunting. He had a .223 that he had fired several hundred rounds through over a couple of days and out of the blue popped a primer and the extractor ended up somewhere on the Wyoming prairie. In this case no harm to the rifle or the shooter. The next case was my .17 Mach IV built on a 1950's vintage 40-x action. When I bought the action the original extractor was buggered up to the max and as was common practice at the time I put a Sako extractor in. I wasn't careful enough one time when changing lot numbers of VV N-133 and swelled a case head enough to have a significant gas leak. The extractor exited with enough force to leave a nice little dent in the rear aspect of the loading port. I was damn lucky. Had that extractor been 1/8 of an inch to the right it would have came to rest in my face. The third case was at a silhouette match where I was serving as a range officer. A shooter has a case head separation and ended up having the extractor surgically removed from his cheek.
I heard guys claim for years that there was no possible way for a Sako extractor to make its way out of a Remington action. I can tell with 100% certainty that that is not true. I still shoot my Mach IV but I do it with a great deal of caution.

Back in the late seventies, I used the BSA CF2 extractors on Remingtons which I had opened up to take the PPC cartridge. I always felt this was a better extractor than the Sako and it was easier to install. With the BSA extractor, it was pretty well held captive by the barrel counter bore. I have always thought a close fitting counter bore would help when a Sako extractor was used but probably not enough.
I have never seen a Sako extractor exit a Remington action but I have heard it from enough sources which I consider unimpeachable that I now believe it reasonable to be concerned. GD

I tried that once but learned real fast that too close of a fit prevented the extractor from coming up enough to clear the rim of the case.

A little late in my reply. As has been said, the M16 type extractor will serve you well.

Malm,
that is the case with a magnum but not with the others. The truth is, the gas blows the bottom of the extractor out past the plunger and a tight counterbore has no effect. I have two 40X actions which have Sako extractors and might be getting a Sako-style block now that my paranoia is running full bore. Actually, the one action has a homemade bolt with a separate bolt head so I could make a Savage-style baffle for it.
By the way, regarding the BSA extractor, I blew a primer in my BSA actioned 223 the other day (shooting some fine Malaysian ammunition) and there was no sign of that extractor jumping ship. If it had been a Sako, I KNOW it would have popped out. The BSA also has a rib like the Sako but the extractor is truly captive in the counterbore as well. GD