This rifle is a '69 production in 338 win mag, has the medium sako action not the long Mauser. What are your experiences with this sako action - the good the bad and the ugly! Thanks for sharing. I know about the "salt wood" during this period so that is not a problem.

Don't know awhole lot about the safaries , but , I would check the blue book on yours.
I have only seen the Sako brownings, in
.308 length rounds.
The 06 length rounds are always built on FNs as far as I new.
I bet there are not many like the one you describe. I bet its a shooter, and I don't know what you paid for for it but if its in anything like good condition I bet is worth a good buck or two.
...tj3006

TJ, thanks for the info. Yes, I thought the same as you about the short actions being used in this Browning line and in fact was told as much by someone with Browning. However, this rifle for certain is push feed. Strange and that is why I am asking for help.

Thanks.

Hi, Browning changed from the long claw extractors in 1967. The change was on the magnun calibers only.

Yackman, thanks for the info. Do you know anything about the quality of the ones with the sako action as I have heard it is on the medium sako action not the L61R. Thanks.

I have no experience with the medium caliber Browning Safari rifles on Sako actions. I have worked with and shot one in 30-06 on a Mauser action (I think it was a FN). The metalwork and stock work on that rifle were exemplary, although I never found a load for it that was very accurate.

I did work for a time with a 22-250 Browning Safari on a Sako action (the one with the fake Mauser-type extractor -- it's not really an extractor, but rides the rail as if it were one)with a pencil barrel. I grew to hate that rifle. Among other things, what annoyed me most about it was that its trigger was the most persnickity to work with I've ever encountered. (But then my work on rifle triggers has been with Remington 721 and 700, Ruger 77, and Winchester Model 70 ones -- all of those are easy to adjust, and they are positive and retain their settings once they are made.)

Browning used the sakoL461 action for the .222 rem and 222 rem mag the L579 was used for the medium rounds like the .243, 308. I have a pencil barrel in 22-250 and feel the quality is equal to the FN actions.

Those SAKO actions were not exactly junk.

For mass production actions and barrels, the Sakos of that period were jewels.

I bought my Safari in 22-250 before it was a factory cartridge. Still have it, with a 12x Unertl target scope on top. It still shoots into 1/2". Since I only use it for crows and whistle pigs the bore looks new. My trigger is a delight.

Thanks to everyone for sharing your experience. I am still looking to hear from anyone with a "magnum" caliber and using the medium Sako action. Wonder why they did not use the large action of the era - L61R for the magnum's?

quote:

Wonder why they did not use the large action of the era - L61R for the magnum's?

Well, Brownings were made in the FN plant in Belgium. FN didn't make small actions so they used the Sako metal. But they did make excellant large actions, 98 type, so they used them for the bigger Brownings.

Can anyone here explain to me the difference between a long and short extractor on the Browning Safari grade? How do you tell which you have? Pic if possible would be helpful.

465H&H

I have a .30-06 from 1961 and a .458WM from 1964, had another '06 from '65 and a .375H&H from the same year. The FN action with LONG extractor was used on all of these and they are among the finest production, factory rifles ever built.

In the later production, FN developed a pushfeed action using a short extractor and made all their long chambered rifles on this; I recently examinined an "estate sale" with a couple of these included.

This was, IMO, largely to save money on production costs as most rifle makers had gone to the primitive pushfeed-pin ejector system....MANY things went awry in the '60s, as some of us remember.......

The FN-LE rifles can be and mine are being, customized with steel bottom metal, various stock up-grades and so forth, into superb working rifles, but, I would not own one of the later PF types as I detest BG rifles that use this system, each to his own.

Muygrande:

As you may have figured out by now, your .338 is on a later FN (not Sako) action with the "short extractor". It likely is equipped with the Sako #4 trigger, just like a Sako L-series action.

The Sako "medium" action (L-579) has a magazine only 2.8" long, which is barely long enough to take a .338 case, much less a standard-length .338 cartridge of 3.34".

Stonecreek, well I have now figured it out. By "short extractor" it is push feed vs "long extractor" (CRF). I thought it hard to put the 338 length cartridge thru the medium sako action. I do not have the rifle yet but should this week.

As long as I knew it would be push feed vs crf it should meet or exceed my expectations. Thanks for your clarification.