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Serial number 79506

Sako Collectors Club Discussion Forum

G'day
I have a L 61R serial number 79506 in 375h&h I have been told it may have been made for the H&R contracts , a couple of Sako collectors have looked it over and agree it is an oddball and worth some research. The biggest difference from other L61R,s is that the front of the receiver is round ( no dovetails ) and the rear part of the receiver is flat . I have had mounts made for it to fit a 1x5 Leopold scope. Has anyone seen one like this before , I am thinking this could be a prototype or some custom gunsmith putting his spin on the action.

Regards Richard
 
It describes as if the front receiver ring and the rear receiver bridge are not the same height, something like an FN Mauser. If that is the case then it probably isn't one of those made for H&R since the L61R H&R actions, while round-topped, had both the front and rear rings the same height and shape. Besides, there were precious few L61R actions made for H&R, and only a handful of them had the magnum bolt face. All of them (likely) were sent to the U.S., so running into one in Northern Australia, while possible, would seem highly unlikely. Browning rifle actions made by Sako did have different ring heights, but Browning only used the shorter L461's and L579's, never the L61R's, so it can't be a Browning.

It sounds more like an action which a gunsmith milled down. I've seen a surprising number of Sakos done this way. It seems that many gunsmiths simply didn't understand the Sako dovetail mounting system or for whatever reason couldn't find mounts to fit them. I know this seems odd in these days of internet and instant communications, but in out-of-the-way places in 1971 it was sometimes very hard to come by a proper Sako ringmount or bases to fit the dovetails. The gunsmith's answer was to mill the receiver and drill & tap it to fit a set of existing bases he had on hand.

If you could post some photos we'd all be interested in seeing your rifle.
 
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Incidentally, H&R was somewhat bi-polar in the use of actions for its line of Ultra bolt rifles. The largest portion of the long and medium cartridges used FN Mauser actions. Then it appears that they used a few Sako actions once they kinda got into the Sako business through acquiring the O'brien inventory, which consisted of Sako L461 actions. H&R had Sako produce barreled actions on customized L579 and L61R's for a while. Then, probably for costs purposes, they switched to the (then) Yugoslavian-made Mark X commercial Mausers for their medium and long cartridges (the .222 family was always on a Sako L461).

So, when you see an H&R Ultra bolt advertised you have to look closely to see which of the three actions it is built on.
 
Gday , sorry to take so long to reply, these are my two belted magnums . Top one is a 338 win mag and the bottom is the 375 H&H , I will get better photos soon . I will add my other Sako,s as well. I have a heavy barrel A11 22.250 with 8x 56 kahles , A11 250 3000 with 3x9 Ziess, A111 2506 with 3x9 kahles L579 heavy barrel 308 with 1.5x 6 Swarovski

With talk soon
Richard
 

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Your .375 is a beautiful custom job -- barrel band front sight, skipline checkering, etc. No doubt that the gunsmith who built it simply liked the screw-on type bases better than the Sako dovetails, so he milled the receiver to take the bases he preferred.
 
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