I recently came by a Dickson-Howa Golden Bear. These were produced in the '60's by Howa in Japan (does Weatherby Vanguards today). It is nearly an exact copy (other than alloy floorplate) of a Sako L-61R. Even the three-lug bolt fit perfectly in one of my pre-Garcia L-61R's. Tried with some random .30-06 loads on the 100 yard target and it looks very promising.

My understanding is that Sako won a patent lawsuit against Howa, which is why there are so few of these floating around. Do any of you guys know much about this gun and its story?

Hasn't anyone even ever heard of a Dickson-Howa?

Stonecreek,
Since no one else has apparently even heard of these, I will at least mention that I owned one for a short time 20+ years ago. At that time, I fancied myself a Sako collector, and a "friend" of mine "discovered" one of those in Billings, I think it was, and being a good "friend", bought it for US$400.00, and brought it back for me. With friends like that who needs enemies? I don't even remember what caliber it was. This one was fairly well used, and failed to impress me, and I unloaded that POS as soon as I could, for whatever I could get out of it. I never even considered shooting it. It was a quite good copy of a Sako, but the execution left a bit to be desired. Other than that, I don't know anything about them, and I've never seen another since.

I'm not familiar with how patent law suits are settled but if Sako copied Dickson, how did Sako win?

Sorry if the title is imprecise; the Dickson-Howa is a copy of the Sako L61R.

The rifle I have appears to have been reblued, and a very nice job. The stock is also refinished and has some surprisingly good wood. The only real shortcoming is the alloy floorplate, but it is no worse than a Rem 700 or most of the rest of the pack these days. It groups just over an inch with "thrown together" loads with which there has been no attempt to customize to the gun, so I can't complain about its performance.

Anyone else ever run across one of these?

My mistake.

Howa actually got Sako to agree to Howa's use of some Sako patents in a bolt action rifle. This was a legal contract. When the rifle came out it was an exact copy of the long action Sako. Howa claimed a cultural misunderstanding - Sako claimed patent violation. Sako won the court case. It had agreed to the use of SOME patents not an exact copy.
The only other owner I met online was Terry Murbach - he used to work for CorBon bullets. He liked his, but spells the name Dixon-Howa. I have never seen one! There was a brief test firing in a gun rag. It claimed a 25.6 inch barrel and I think the test concerned Ramshot powder.