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Sako AV .280 Remington

Sako Collectors Club Discussion Forum

bigcountry4me

Sako-addicted
Geez, before I joined the forum I hadn’t bought a Sako in probably 5 years. Now I’ve bought or traded for five since December. Even used raw gold for one You guys are a bad influence. Only kidding.

Here’s one from today, Sako AV GO 2** in .280 Remington w. box. Appears to be un fired . Some nice wood for sure.

Was out of town paying spring tuition bill and visiting my son. Had been in this gun shop once in the past and it was a black rifle shop, but for whatever reason I swung in. New ownership and more balance. Good thing I brought my Visa card. I didn’t have enough cash or any gold.
 

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The GO denotes it as one of a special order of a limited number in 280 Rem. Can't remember what sporting goods outfit the GO stands for, but stonecreek is well versed about them.
 
The GO denotes it as one of a special order of a limited number in 280 Rem. Can't remember what sporting goods outfit the GO stands for, but stonecreek is well versed about them.
Thanks Paulson,

This is my second one of these. My understanding is these were connected to GO Wholesale, but not 100% sure who they were. My other was also bought here in Oregon. I gave it to my dad who hunted with it until his passing. I got it back when I moved my mom home from Arizona It’s got some scuffs and scrapes as dad hunted with it for everything. It’s much plainer and has only one crossbolt.

Not going to be a safe queen.
 
Super good catch Sean. Much nicer than mine which is a lower serial number and if I remember right mine has only one cross bolt and a much plainer stock. So--- I am wondering if maybe the order was for a given number of rifles of different features. Maybe the order was split with different features by Sako to fill it quicker. Wish some other GO 280 owners would chime in to see what we come up with. Sakojim.
 
Super good catch Sean. Much nicer than mine which is a lower serial number and if I remember right mine has only one cross bolt and a much plainer stock. So--- I am wondering if maybe the order was for a given number of rifles of different features. Maybe the order was split with different features by Sako to fill it quicker. Wish some other GO 280 owners would chime in to see what we come up with. Sakojim.
Thanks Sakojim,

Hope all is well on the east side. My first one was bought at GI Joes in Eugene. I wonder if GO Wholesale was a distributor. GI Joes had three, all pretty plain and one cross bolt. I paid $599.00 in 1989, I think. It would be great to know if some where built slightly different, but I doubt anyone will really know. It weighs far less than my other, which is surprising. Darker wood usually means heavier wood.

When I saw this rifle at a distance, I thought it was a .338 or a .375. Was pleasantly surprised when I read .280. Take care.
 
Nice wood on that, especially for an A-series gun. .280 is an under-appreciated caliber. The ballistics are all but identical to the European 7x64, but the two are not interchangeable.
 
GO Wholesale was located somewhere in the NW United States, hence many of the 500 rifles of the special run .280's tend to be found there. Unlike the "regular" A-V in .280 (which itself isn't very common) with its 22.8" barrel, the GO .280's had a 24.4" barrel. I haven't seen one with two crossbolts before, so along with the extra nice wood Sean's rifle would seem to be exceptional.

The GO .280 is one of the very few special runs of Sakos made for American distributors. One of the earliest was the Gander Mountain heavy barrel Mannlicher, then there was an NRA rifle of the year, a King Ranch model, and the recent Cabela's Finnbear. There may be a couple more, but these are all I can think of at the moment. D.W. Custer did have several special runs which went only to Australia.

Oh yes, and of course the Sako Collectors Association Finnwolfs (how could I forget?)
 
Thanks Stone,

Since my purchase I’ve done some more research. I found evidence of other AV GO series rifles in.280, with two crossbolts. One is GO 14*, the other is GO 40*. Both photos are online. I thought the double crossbolt might be sequential serial numbers, but as we all know Sako didn’t follow any sort of typical pattern.

The other information I discovered is, this rifle is from an estate of an acquaintance/collector who passed recently.

The shop has approximately 170 of his long guns to consign and almost as many handguns. They’re supposedly going to put them out a dozen at a time. This guy had nothing but exceptional rifles and most were never shot.

Chaucer (SCC member) would have also known him. Another friend who knew this man had some of his ammo and sold me several boxes of virgin Norma 150 grain boat tail ammo in .280.

Thanks again.
 
The double crossbolt is usually coupled with the later "Tikka" trigger which replaced the Sako #4 trigger sometime during the run of A-V's. Check your trigger whenever you have the rifle apart to see if this is the case with your GO .280.
 
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