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Misaligned scope mount dovetails on new Sako 85 Finnlights

Sako Collectors Club Discussion Forum

... how can this still be happening?
In a word.... Beretta! They took control of Sako on Dec. 31 1999. I personally won't own any Sako products made after that date. I've heard of no issues with any model up thru the 75, so why bother with an 85 that could prove troublesome.
 
I'm still scratching my head about the misaligned bases... how can this still be happening?

Mark, thanks for the update. It would be good if anyone else finding the same problem chipped in. Would let Beretta know the extent of the problem though I suspect they are well aware of it.

I also suspect that they are relying on the fact that that most hunters/shooters don't realise or care that it is not good for a scope to zero a rifle with the scope set at the extremity of its adjustment, and are consequently not aware of the problem if it exists. The problem only becomes obvious when mounting a scope with a dial-up turret as my Swarovski Z3 BT. And not everyone will be using the one-piece Sako Ringmounts so the number of actual complaints might be quite low.

I imagine Sako have corrected the machining problem or whatever and there are now just the leftovers of a faulty run. A lot cheaper therefore to just deal with complaints on an individual basis.

And as I remarked earlier there would have been no serious problem if Sako made a set of offset inserts for their Ringmounts much as Burris have done with their Signature rings. - David
 
Too much input to read everyone's opinions on the fact.

Ok, so my opinion on how to properly check the height of the top of the integral dovetail would be as follows:

I would measure from the centerline of the bolt face to the top of the dove tail front and rear. Easier said than done, but the same thing was said about how do we check scope ring alignment before they made a tool to do just that. Depending just how far into the teardown of the rifle you are, you may only need a rod machined to slip fit a bore guide over and measure both ends and do the math.

So you insert the bore guide into th rifle, then slide machined rod or a cleaning rod if desired, and measure.

Most times with Sako, things usually have good facts to back up the reason for the results. If you use Sako optilocks, the spherical design is a built in solution to this exact issue, should not need any spacers. If you take two spherical bearings and slide then both over a rod and play with it for fun, you will instantly realize how stupid easy the concept behind Sako Optilocks is. With this simple idea, lapping scope rings should be a hindsight thing today, but that's another topic. I'm still trying to justify epoxying a scope onto a benchrest rifle. Optilocks are the cure to all mis alignmentissues scope and scopering related. If the angle is so great that it causes paralax issues, then address this with shim washers between base and rings.

If you shim between the scope and ring or between dovetail and base, this will preload the receiver over the entire length of the reciever.
 
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So I went through the OP and it looks like in the end, the last photo, you ended up shimming the way I mentioned to remove any possibility of adding preload to receiver .

Did you run your parallel along the base of the dove tail? The non grooved/smooth machined surface at the base of dovetail. I am asking because you show a difference of I think .007” from front gap to rear gap. This to me says the receiver is bent at center of action, but front half of receiver may be sprung down, under a load or bind.

The only way to really tell is to remove the stock, all the scope hardware, the trigger mechanism, everything to where it is just the barrel and action. Chuck it up by the barrel and center it using the bore of barrel at chamber end. Using last word indicator at front of receiver and then at back. This will tell you what the run out is. Plus/minus .005” is acceptable, but it may be out .050” over the whole length of the receiver.


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I know this is an old post but I have a similar problem if not the same on my new Sako 85 Carbon lite, after zeroing at 100 yards I only have 10 clicks of elevation left on the scope , the scope is a Swarovski Z8I and it has 70 clicks of elevation adjustment . I am using the Sako optilock rings and bases, is there any other way to rectify this problem other than shimming?
 
I would call that a used scope in that when first mounted on your other gun you would have made windage and elevation adjustments. Any time I move a scope from one gun to another I reset to factory zero, and then sight it in. You may want to try that if you are concerned with having only 10 clicks of elevation remaining. Short of shiming or using different mounts (depending how far off the barrel the objective lens is) only thing I know to try.
 
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thanks marlin92 , i will try that this evening , i dont understand how this will help as i already have my 100 yard zero but it is worth a try
 
On July 7, 2020 I had a phone talk with the Beretta product manager and informed him about the misalignment issue on Sako rifles. He said he was totally unaware of it, so I later sent him an e-mail where I also provided a link to this forum and a link to a YouTube video that reports this same issue:
Moreover, I attached some of the pictures posted by this forum users and asked the manager to inform the Sako engineering staff about the issue. I would like to buy a Sako 85 Varmint in .222 Remington, but this problem has kept me from getting one so far, as I wouldn't find one in a gun store and could't refuse to buy it after placing an order. Let's just hope that the Sako engineers have finally solved the problem in the meantime.
Greetings from Italy.
 
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Thanks everyone for your replies. I will try to answer your points/queries and add a few further observations.

1) Sako 22-250. Mark, this sounds as though it is exactly the same problem as I have encountered. And yes, two-piece optilocks would correct the problem as they can be shimmed with the "traditional" beer can shims. We did this with the M995 when we set it up for long-range shooting with a Sightron 6-24 x 42 scope. However, as I mentioned before, I did not want to use the two base optilocks to keep the weight down and also to maximise the distance between the mounts.

2) Kevinlg I have not taken the barrelled action out of the stock on either 85 or the 75. I did not see any need to do that with factory new rifles. And as Paulsonconstruction notes it would take more than screw pressure to bend the action to such an extents as shown in my photo.

I also did the check you suggested of sliding the straightedge from the rear to the front. It hit the front about 0.8mm low as I expected. Incidentally the rear dovetail does appear to slope slightly as shown by these measurements

View attachment 12000


and if you do the maths on these measurements you get a difference of 16.8 MOA between the front and rear mount positions which is pretty much what I found when I bore-sighted the rifle.

3) cmjr Yes I am assuming that the bridges are supposed to be at the same height. They have to be if Sako Optilock Ringmounts are to be used as there is no difference in elevation between front and rear Optilock rings. Of course it is possible that Sako 85s are not designed to take the one-piece Sako Ringmounts but, if this is the case, it would be nice if Sako were to let new owners know! And as I said before I don't want to send these rifles back and miss out on the "spiker" season which is due to start any day now - my wife wants the freezer restocked!

4) Paulsonconstruction I think I should take that dollar off you now! I have tried two sets of new Optilock Ringmounts on two different new Sako 85s and all four combinations have the same problem. And yes as I explained to Kevin, the rifles were shooting low as with the bore lasersighted on a target at 25 yards the crosshairs were some 6" high. All the measurements I have made point to the problem being that the front and rear dovetails are at different heights. Why, or how this could occur, I have no idea. But it is not an isolated problem as it occurs on both my 85 Finnlights bought last December and in March and also on Mark's 22-250. My 260 and Mark's 22-250 use the 'S' action and the 270WSM the 'SM' action so it is not confined to one action.

I keep thinking I am missing something here as I cannot imagine Sako allowing such height variation between front and rear rails unless it was intentional. Nor in a quality rifle should they be relying on the scope adjustment to compensate for it. No scope and certainly neither my Swarovski nor Zeiss likes operating at the limit of their adjustment.

Here are some photos of the Zeiss mounted on the 260Rem

View attachment 12001


View attachment 12002


Edited July 2017 to restore Photobucket images

David
 
Good day ! I see your set up is similar to what I want. I have a Sako Finnlight 85S 7mm 08 and I'm gettin a Zeiss v4 3-12 x 44 30mm tube. I have to say yours looks perfect. Could you tell me what the mounts are and what height I will need? Part# ? Thanks
Bob
 
Thanks for this thread, I read through the whole thing. I have a new Sako 85 Classic in 308 Win that I bought late 2021 that has the exact same scope elevation problem. I am using Optilock bases and rings.

I’ll need to think about if I want to deal with trying to send it back to Beretta and having them potentially send me another faulty rifle (maybe one of the ones you guys returned) or try my hand at either adding material to the inside of the ring or the beer can shim fix.

All up disappointing for such an expensive rifle.
 
Been watching this thread with interest since 3D modelling a L579 and discovering a similar anomaly...

The proprietary Sako dovetail is 3.37° or a 1:17 taper (I don't know of any standard DIN or Imperial taper of this dimension)
https://sakocollectors.com/forum/threads/sako-dovetail-ratio.16524/#post-92048

When modelling the L579 receiver I extruded the exterior sketch to form the external shape of the dovetail blocks, then cut extruded a 60° chamfer at 3.37° and mirrored it.
The result left a Z height difference between the top of the front (3.64mm) and rear (2.75mm) mount blocks to the dovetail groove, amounting to 0.89mm

L579 Receiver front dovetail Z height.JPG L579 Receiver rear dovetail Z height.JPG L579 Receiver rear dovetail extruded cut.JPG
While measuring the L579 I also discovered the dovetail was not perfectly centred on the axis of the receiver, though this is not really unusual back in the pre-CNC days of manual machining on jigs and fixtures with limited repeatability.

The dovetail height differences discovered on new Sako 85 series receivers will precisely reflect the original 3D CAD design, with CNC machining regularly checked using laser metrology such large 'errors' simply cannot occur in a modern manufacturing facility.
 
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As I understand it the receiver gets warped in the heat treatment. Both dovetails are straight but the flimsy bit in the middle with the mag well and ejection port goes banana shape. The effect is pretty much the same as having the rear dovetail milled lower to begin with.
 
Certainly plausible to have some degree of distortion after heat treatment but surely if it went that banana shaped the bolt would bind in the receiver raceway?
 
Certainly plausible to have some degree of distortion after heat treatment but surely if it went that banana shaped the bolt would bind in the receiver raceway?
Agreed! The dovetails would also not be parallel as well. I suspect the "heat treatment banana theory" is one of those explanations with a mysterious foundation. After all, ALL actions are heat treated & I've never seen any distortion in over 50 years of working on rifles.
 
Here's an interesting video showing in detail how BAT Custom Rifle Actions are manufactured.
Some BAT actions feature integral scope mounts, some are two lug bolt designs and some three like the 75/85.
Note all machining processes occur after the raw receiver blank has been heat treated to eliminate distortion... using wire EDM and modern carbide tooling in state-of-the-art CNC machines cutting hardened steel is straightforward now.

While I doubt Sako would be using wire EDM to cut bolt raceways on volume production models (vs carbide broaching?) essentially they would have to be using similar processes for the 85 receivers. Unless (gasp...) they start as high precision investment castings that are then CNC finish machined?
 
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