How A Rifle is Made | Hands-on Tour of the Sako & Tikka Firearms Factory

[tilleyman]

I was impressed by the final shooting test in the manufacturing process. That test is carried out with the gun completely assembled and by a human shooter from a rest. I wonder how many 5-shot groups normally need to be fired to get the required MOA group, as it's doubtful that this MOA group occurs on the first and only group shot. Still, I'm impressed by this part of the process. Anschutz shoots test groups too (with the test target included with the rifle), but they do so with only the barreled action clamped in a machine rest.

I'd say Sako needs to test the assembled rifle as part of their 1 MOA guarantee, but I must admit I thought it was also an OH&S nightmare for the employee, having to endure significant recoil all day, every day...!

 

[South Pender]

Depends on the language. In French and other Romance languages, it's OTAN (pronouced OH-tahn).

I've heard Angela Merkel pronounce NATO as Nah'-to. An example of stonecreek's explanation of how acronyms are pronounced--by the phonetic standards of the language in which they are spoken. To my mind, this makes say'-ko correct for English speakers, particularly when speaking to other English speakers. If I were conversing with a European, on the other hand, I might say sah'-ko.

 

[icebear]

I consider it a gesture of respect to the Finns to pronounce Finnish words as close to the original as I can. That includes Sako, which although it began life as an acronym, surely has made the transition to a word. It really grates on my ears to hear "Say-ko," as it does when I hear "Hel-SINK-ee" for the capital of Finland, rather than the correct "HEL-sink-ee." Or, for that matter, when I hear sports announcers mangle the names of foreign athletes so badly that I can't figure out who they are talking about.

 

[fabtec]

I'm persuaded by stonecreek's explanation of the pronunciation of SAKO. It is an acronym, and, as stonecreek notes, could be expected to be pronounced say'-ko by those speaking English, with the long a, just as we pronounce NATO as nay'-to. (To be sure, I don't know how a Finn or other European would pronounce NATO; perhaps nah'-to?) In any case, I think I will continue to pronounce it say'-ko, as I have for years.

I was impressed by the final shooting test in the manufacturing process. That test is carried out with the gun completely assembled and by a human shooter from a rest. I wonder how many 5-shot groups normally need to be fired to get the required MOA group, as it's doubtful that this MOA group occurs on the first and only group shot. Still, I'm impressed by this part of the process. Anschutz shoots test groups too (with the test target included with the rifle), but they do so with only the barreled action clamped in a machine rest.

I agree about the process.Your question about how many times to achieve the desired grouping. That would have been answered if the interview was done by a gunsmith, or someone with an aptitude for the process. The two Canadian hosts were one was the Stoeger GM, and the other the web channel host.

 

[South Pender]

I consider it a gesture of respect to the Finns to pronounce Finnish words as close to the original as I can. That includes Sako, which although it began life as an acronym, surely has made the transition to a word. It really grates on my ears to hear "Say-ko," as it does when I hear "Hel-SINK-ee" for the capital of Finland, rather than the correct "HEL-sink-ee." Or, for that matter, when I hear sports announcers mangle the names of foreign athletes so badly that I can't figure out who they are talking about.

I hear you. However, and not to beat a dead horse here, even foreign words--not just acronyms--tend to be pronounced according to the phonetic rules of the language of the speaker. In North America, we tend not to pronounce Porsche the way a German or Austrian would, as por'-sha, but rather as porsh, because a final e in English is not generally pronounced. And here we pronounce Steyr-Mannlicher as stire man'-licker and not the way an Austrian would--as something like schtire mahn'-lich-air. An English-speaker pronouncing foreign words as someone from the foreign country would often sounds pretentious. However, sah'-ko for SAKO can be considered an exception….

 

[caberslash]

Anyone else feel like it was a slow slide into Beretta propaganda at the end?


Not sure Sako is going forward. The Tikka T3/T3x is a better designed rifle than the S20 and 85, the quality is also slipping slowly but surely.

My L461 is around 60 years old but works great, should be good for another 40. Not sure I could say the same about the newer models!

 

[icebear]

In North America, we tend not to pronounce Porsche the way a German or Austrian would, as por'-sha, but rather as porsh, because a final e in English is not generally pronounced.

The only actual Porsche owners who pronounce it as porsh are either nouveau-riche twits or drug dealers. As the owner of an '86 944 Turbo, I'm a bit touchy about that particular point. I've had it since 1993 and it was my daily driver for ten years, until I got my pickup. It's got an Autothority Stage II chipset and a few other tweaks, and I've seen 160 in it. That's mph, not km/h. It's got about 200,000 miles on it but I can't be sure because I had to replace the odometer about 18 years ago.

Prosit!

 

[South Pender]

The only actual Porsche owners who pronounce it as porsh are either nouveau-riche twits or drug dealers. As the owner of an '86 944 Turbo, I'm a bit touchy about that particular point. I've had it since 1993 and it was my daily driver for ten years, until I got my pickup. It's got an Autothority Stage II chipset and a few other tweaks, and I've seen 160 in it. That's mph, not km/h. It's got about 200,000 miles on it but I can't be sure because I had to replace the odometer about 18 years ago.

Prosit!

The only folks I've heard pronounce it porsha are Porsche dealers! I know a few Porsche owners (my daughter being one), and they say porsh--perhaps not to appear pretentious--and they're definitely neither twits nor drug dealers!

 

[fabtec]

Anyone else feel like it was a slow slide into Beretta propaganda at the end?


Not sure Sako is going forward. The Tikka T3/T3x is a better designed rifle than the S20 and 85, the quality is also slipping slowly but surely.

My L461 is around 60 years old but works great, should be good for another 40. Not sure I could say the same about the newer models!

Curious why you attach propaganda to the Beretta name? Why do you think Sako is not going forward? The quality is slipping? I don’t understand. From what measure? Do you mean from through the 1960’s when the product was more “hand made” ? Weren’t they all? Think of the Pre-64 Winchester. That is a rallying cry for every gun purchaser and seller. Isn’t Beretta “A Family Owned Business” for some 400 years?

 

[South Pender]

Curious why you attach propaganda to the Beretta name? Why do you think Sako is not going forward? The quality is slipping? I don’t understand. From what measure? Do you mean from through the 1960’s when the product was more “hand made” ? Weren’t they all? Think of the Pre-64 Winchester. That is a rallying cry for every gun purchaser and seller. Isn’t Beretta “A Family Owned Business” for some 400 years?

More like 500 years. I believe their first offering was in 1526. It is certainly a privately-owned company, but I wonder whether a Beretta family descendant is the current owner.

 

[fabtec]

More like 500 years. I believe their first offering was in 1526. It is certainly a privately-owned company, but I wonder whether a Beretta family descendant is the current owner.

Well, in Sako’s Documentary featured is: Cav Ugo Gussalli Beretta President and CEO 1993-2018 Beretta Holding S.A. I believe he approved the purchase of Sako in 2000.
Edit:
After Ugo, Dr. Pietro Gussalli Beretta President and CEO Beretta Holdings S.A. Is featured.
Side note: While addressing Sako and it’s employees upon it’s purchase in January 2000, Ugo Gassalli answered an employees question”What about the future of Sako?”
Ugo replied”Beretta has purchased many companies in it’s 500 year history. We haven’t sold a single one”

 

[fabtec]

I thought you members might like this. I searched to see if it was posted previously, but did not find it.
Enjoy!!

I have a question for L61R. The Sako Rep, his name is listed as Rauno Makinen. Is he Swedish? His accent sounds different from others in the factory. What with all the discussion of the pronunciation of Sako.
And if anyone of our northern friends know anything about the two visiting the factory that would be great if you can share. Thanks again!

 

[icebear]

I have a question for L61R. The Sako Rep, his name is listed as Rauno Makinen. Is he Swedish? His accent sounds different from others in the factory. What with all the discussion of the pronunciation of Sako.
And if anyone of our northern friends know anything about the two visiting the factory that would be great if you can share. Thanks again!

Rauno Makinen is a VERY Finnish name. There are quite a few ethnic Swedes in Finland, but they typically have Swedish-sounding names. There are a lot of regional accents and dialects in Finland; it's possible that Rauno grew up in a Swedish-speaking area and picked up that accent, or he could have a completely different regional accent. I'm not competent to tell a Karelian accent from one from a town on the southwest coast, but I do know that there are some accents in Finnish that I find almost impenetrable and others that I understand fairly easily.

I had an amusing encounter with Finnish regional accents when I lived there. I was up in Karelia skiing and I got in a conversation with a local woman on the lift. As we got off, she said something like, "You have a funny accent Are you one of those Swedish speaking Finns from Turku?" When I stopped laughing, I explained that no, I was an American and I lived in Helsinki. It was cognitive dissonance, she had never heard a foreigner speaking Finnish, so somebody speaking Finnish with an unknown accent must be a Swedish Finn.

 

[South Pender]

Curious why you attach propaganda to the Beretta name? Why do you think Sako is not going forward? The quality is slipping? I don’t understand. From what measure? Do you mean from through the 1960’s when the product was more “hand made” ? Weren’t they all? Think of the Pre-64 Winchester. That is a rallying cry for every gun purchaser and seller. Isn’t Beretta “A Family Owned Business” for some 400 years?

You've raised an interesting point. It's very common (as you've noted) to decry the decline in quality of various consumer items over time. However, with SAKO, I'm not sure that it's warranted. Although there is a warm nostalgic feeling about the good old days when real gunsmiths lovingly filed and fitted a rifle's parts, I think that the quality is actually higher in this CNC robotic age where the assembled whole doesn't depend on the skill of a worker using hand tools with great or not-so-great precision. In the video, the precision of the bolts produced almost entirely by machine, as just one example, looks really quite fabulous. Could we expect this level of precision--and perhaps more to the point consistency from one to the next--from workers labouring with hand tools? I doubt it.

I've owned a number of L- and A-series SAKOs (including some deluxe models) over the years and have loved them all, but to be honest, my latest, an 85 .270 Win., is, in my opinion, a better rifle (pic below). The action of the 85 is superior in many ways to the earlier actions. It is faster to operate with the low bolt lift (70°, not 60° as is sometimes reported), which also makes it easy to stay clear of a low-mounted scope eyepiece in operation. It is slicker than the L- and A-series actions with less wobble at full retraction, thus making it almost impossible to bind the bolt. The barrels are probably roughly equivalent (at least to those when SAKO went to hammer-forging with the earlier actions), but the trigger on my 85 (I have the single-set version) is superior to anything I had on my earlier models, the SAKO #4. The stock on my 85 (a deluxe model) is superior in just about every way to those on my earlier deluxe L- and A-series SAKOs--in terms of its wood quality, lines, finish, and the quality and coverage of the checkering. My one nit to pick with the 85--the recoil lug arrangement--isn't sufficiently bad to offset what I see as the model's advantages. I have to wonder whether the earlier
L- and A-series SAKOs would have fared as well as the 85s in the final shooting test, shown in the video, requiring MOA 5-shot groups with factory ammo.

 

[fabtec]

Sako factory tour and driven hunt. This video is from our British Bros. They brought up something new I did not know. Whitetail deer from America were introduced to Finland in the 1930’s. Four pair. I’m surprised they didn’t go with mule deer. Also four seems a bit low in terms of genetic diversity?

This appears to be part 1

This was in the video description. Apparently in Britain they are having similar issues with an organized resistance to hunting and the taking of game.

Why shoot deer?
There are more than two million red, roe, fallow, sika, muntjac and Chinese water deer in Britain’s countryside and semi-urban areas, the highest level for 1,000 years. Numbers have doubled since 1999, according to the Deer Initiative, the UK government’s deer agency. Deer are an attractive and an important part of our wildlife. However, they have no natural predator in the UK so numbers must be sensibly and strategically managed to keep them in balance with their habitat and to prevent damage to crops, trees, woodland flora, gardens and other wildlife. Deer cause £4.5 million-worth (Forestry Commission Scotland) of damage to plantations and other commercial woodlands in Scotland. Crop damage is estimated at £4.3m a year according to DEFRA, with the greatest damage on cereal crops in east and south-west England. More than 8,000 hectares (Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology) of woodland with SSI status is currently in ‘unfavourable’ or ‘recovering’ condition due to deer impacts such as browsing and fraying. Deer can also influence the variety of wildlife in woodlands and other habitats by altering structural and plant species diversity. According to the University of East Anglia’s Dr Paul Dolman, that has resulted in a 50% decline in woodland bird numbers where deer are present, impacting particularly on nightingales, blackcaps, chiffchaffs and warblers. Deer are susceptible to Bovine TB and may be responsible for the transmission of TB to cattle. They are also the likely driver behind the UK’s increasing tick population (Scharlemann et al 2008). Happily, venison is a delicious meat. It is wild, natural and free range, and – almost fat-free – it is one of the healthiest meats available today. Results from research commissioned by the Game-to-Eat campaign (Leatherhead Food International Research 2006) suggest that there are real health benefits to eating game. Venison is high in protein, low in saturated fatty acids and contains higher levels of iron than any other red meat.

 

[fabtec]

Part 2 I believe

 

[fabtec]

And part 3

 

[Deleted member 14372]

You've raised an interesting point. It's very common (as you've noted) to decry the decline in quality of various consumer items over time. However, with SAKO, I'm not sure that it's warranted. Although there is a warm nostalgic feeling about the good old days when real gunsmiths lovingly filed and fitted a rifle's parts, I think that the quality is actually higher in this CNC robotic age where the assembled whole doesn't depend on the skill of a worker using hand tools with great or not-so-great precision. In the video, the precision of the bolts produced almost entirely by machine, as just one example, looks really quite fabulous. Could we expect this level of precision--and perhaps more to the point consistency from one to the next--from workers labouring with hand tools? I doubt it.

I've owned a number of L- and A-series SAKOs (including some deluxe models) over the years and have loved them all, but to be honest, my latest, an 85 .270 Win., is, in my opinion, a better rifle (pic below). The action of the 85 is superior in many ways to the earlier actions. It is faster to operate with the low bolt lift (70°, not 60° as is sometimes reported), which also makes it easy to stay clear of a low-mounted scope eyepiece in operation. It is slicker than the L- and A-series actions with less wobble at full retraction, thus making it almost impossible to bind the bolt. The barrels are probably roughly equivalent (at least to those when SAKO went to hammer-forging with the earlier actions), but the trigger on my 85 (I have the single-set version) is superior to anything I had on my earlier models, the SAKO #4. The stock on my 85 (a deluxe model) is superior in just about every way to those on my earlier deluxe L- and A-series SAKOs--in terms of its wood quality, lines, finish, and the quality and coverage of the checkering. My one nit to pick with the 85--the recoil lug arrangement--isn't sufficiently bad to offset what I see as the model's advantages. I have to wonder whether the earlier
L- and A-series SAKOs would have fared as well as the 85s in the final shooting test, shown in the video, requiring MOA 5-shot groups with factory ammo.

I agree that robots can probably make guns with more consistent tolerances. I don’t lament modern technology but modern corporate profit motives that replace quality standards. I have a brand new model 85 Bavarian and a 1979 av Bavarian. The wood on the 79 is better. The features on the 21 are better. Both are excellent. My two cents.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[fabtec]

So, I followed a link they listed for a full episode, which is a Little longer, and edited a bit different. In this there is a funny cultural bit where the phrasing means one thing to the Brits and something else to Americans right around 20:06

This is a different episode

 

[fabtec]

I thought the European/western skull mounts looked good