Sako 7mm STW and Winchester factory ammo

[Dave King]

While I was up in Alberta last week one of the local guys wanted to show off his new Sako 7mm STW. He had only fired one round through the rifle since he had bought it and had a new box of Winchester 150 grain factory ammo with, he stated he left his Remington 140 grain ammo at home so we'd shoot the Winchester stuff.

We setup a target at 100 yards at sighted the rifle using two round strings. it took two strings to get the rifle sighted to zero at 100 yards and I had then shot a string of three rounds. Keep in mind that these were not rapid fire sequences and we walked to the 100 yardline to examine the target after each shot string. So far we had shot 7 rounds through the rifle in this session.
The owner wanted to try the rifle at 100 yards so he commenced with a three shot string, the third round in his string caused a puff of smoke to exit through the action of the rifle and upon examining the brass we found the primer pocket had blown out and the primer was laying loose in the boltway. We were a bit suprised and chatted a bit about how this had happened, ww decided that he didn't 'ccok' the round and the rifle couldn't be too hot to shoot as it was barely warm to the touch. The ambient temp was mid to upper 60's and there was a fine mist type rain so the rounds didn't heat up in the sun. We decided it was a fluke and moved the target to 300 yards.
His first three shot string at 300 yards was pretty uneventful until the third round when we tried to eject the round...the bolt was solidly stuck. All three rounds were on target albiet a bit high and left.
We retreated to the house where we later got the bolt open but found that the ejector was blown loose from the bolt and was stuck in the action. All this with factory ammo and a new rifle.

The rifle will be taken to the shop where it was purchased for an inspection and repair(s)

Any thoughts on what's up with this.

 

[Ian M]

Dave,
There obviously were some nasty pressures, would be pure speculation to guess the reason. If you can contact the guy he should send the fired brass and preferably the entire box of ammo back to Winchester. They need an endflap with whatever codes might be present and no doubt would like to take that ammo apart.

Takes a lot of pressure to blow a Sako extractor, was it from a 75? The 75 extractor has been modified and is held in better than previous Sako extractors I understand.

Anyhow the guy should not shoot any more and he should get that box back to Winchester. I would send it direct rather than back through the dealer he got it from - pain is the butt from Canada maybe but that way he will find out what in hell went wrong - hopefully.

Factory ammo does get out with booboos - guy I know recently got a factory loaded 9mm in which the case did not have a flashhole. I had some factory .308's c/w 168's that plain would not chamber in any rifle, ranging from custom built tackdrivers to a Browning lever action and Remington slushbucket (760).

Just my thoughts on the deal.
ian

 

[Darryl Cassel]

Keep in mind the rapid factory loading procedure that is going on at all the ammo manufacturers.
It is best if you can, to load all of your ammo and only buy factory loaded stuff in an emergency.
If your a longrange hunter and on this form, you would want to have the BEST ammo in your rifles and that is accomplished ONLY by LOADING YOUR OWN with the correct powder and bullet combination to do the job.
Another point is to break in ANY NEW barrel correctly which was not done in the first post.

Good, Safe shooting to all

Darryl Cassel

 

[Dave King]

Just talked with a fella about this rifle, he says the dealer is going to replace the rifle as the action was broken by this event. I didn't ask about the disposition of the ammo but I'd imagine it'll be examined by some concerned party(ies).